Welcome to Georgia!

After having traveled the entire coastline of Florida (over 1000 miles - both sides of the state!) on the 27th of April 2016 we finally left Florida behind and crossed over to Georgia.  The first stop in Georgia is Brunswick which was a very nice sail from Fernadina Beach, Florida.  Beautiful day and short trip.  We were all tied up at the marina by 1400.  This gigantic ship met us as we were getting ready to go under the bridge on the way to the marina - needless to say we gave him wide berth!  We were a bit tired and decided to stay an extra day in Brunswick to rest up and do some more sightseeing.  While in the neighborhood we thought we would pay a visit to the legendary Jekyll Island and St. Simons Island.

Barrier Islands of Coastal Georgia

 
 Jekyll Island was of course home to the legendary Jekyll Island Club that was a members only winter retreat for the nations wealthiest people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Very Gatsby like. 

Jekyll Island Club (now a hotel)

The Jekyll Island Club is beautiful and I am sure back in the day it was even more stunning.  The members had impressive name plates on their doors - certainly they were very impressed with themselves!

 The Island itself is lovely with its numerous large live oak trees.  There is a marina there as it is on the ICW but it is much too shallow for our deep draft vessel.  We had some lunch on the Island - wandered around a bit and then headed over to St. Simons Island.  Another of the Georgia "Sea Islands" as the barrier islands are called.

St. Simon's Island has a rocky coastline.  But
fortunately they have put stairs along the coastline presumably so you could get out of the water if you needed to.  Is there a beach at the bottom of the stairs at low tide?  Not sure - all we saw was water!

 

 St. Simon's Island has a very long, nice pier that folks hang out on and fish from.  And they have this beautiful lighthouse.

After a couple of days we were ready to resume our journey.  The fog was thick in the morning of our departure so we had to wait for it to burn off a bit.  When we finally headed out we met these shrimpers heading in - easy to tell which boat has the shrimp!  We are sailing up to St. Catherine's Sound Inlet.  A fellow with Sea Tow gave us very good directions and told us we would find a good anchorage in Wahlburg Creek just inside the inlet.  He assured us it was both deep and wide.  Leaving Georgia behind and heading for South Carolina.