Cool Change Travels & Adventures: December 1-2: Brunswick, Ga to Fernindina Beach, FL

After 8 months of waiting and preparations we finally shoved off on our 2nd winter cruise to Florida waters. We left the marina at 8:45 after removing the water hose, electrical cords, cable TV cord, extra hurricane lines (actually got the 4 spare lines off the evening before), the normal docking lines, paying our final bill at the marina, and wiping the morning dew from the side curtains surrounding the flybridge. I should note here that again we were unable to get our holding tanks pumped by the marina staff. For those non-boaters following our blog, the holding tanks are our onboard sewage tanks The Brunswick marina will only pump our tanks by appointment and then only at high tide. High tide only because the golf cart will not pull the "honey cart" up the ramp from the main dock to the land at any steeper incline than exists at high tide. That limits the pumping to 1 hour per day due to the tide level and it takes 30 minutes to get into position and to pump out and 30 minutes for the staff to haul up the ramp and to dump the poop and get back for the next boat. Oops, now the tide level is too low to handle the next boat. And there are 320 boats in the marina. So you get the picture. Marina staff do not like to empty our toilets. We left Brunswick with our holding tanks 3/4 full.

One of the drawbacks of the Brunswick Landing Marina, the local paper mill

After warming the engines - these diesels sure take a long time to get all that iron up to temperature - we shoved off with the unnecessary assistance of the lady on the boat across the dock from us. There is always a willing dock hand in the boating community and they will not take no for an answer. Actually, we do always accept assistance; we just didn't need it this time. With boats you never know what you are going to do wrong that will necessitate the assistance of someone who knows just what to do to help. We backed out and spun the boat in the short distance between the two piers by applying forward to the starboard engine and reverse to the port engine while also triggering the bow thruster to push us to port. Please note the "port" and "left" both have four letters. That always works for me as does "red has fewer letters than green" and "left has fewer letters than right". Port is left and is red. Starboard is green and is right.

Shrimp boat coming in with catch - Brunswick

We exited the marina and proceeded through the 200 + foot tall suspension bridge leaving Brunswick for Jekyll Island. Colleen acted the part of chief nagivator (not a misspelling but a newly coined seafaring title aboard Cool Change) to make sure that I stayed on course and on the right course. My turn as nagivator would come later. We were concerned in that recently there have been numerous reports of groundings near the Jekyll Island bridge. So we would have to be on the lookout even though we timed our departure to coincide our arrival at Jekyll with near high tide. We had no problem there at all. Also, after last spring's hair raising experience transiting St. Andrews Inlet, we were taking a five mile longer passage around the inlet through the marsh grass flats between Jekyll Island and the mainland. There is nothing but grass there. The only trees are scrubs growing where the corp of engineers had dumped diggings 60 years ago. It seemed that we were going east and west as much as south through the twisting canal. We even turned north on several channel passages. These grass flats conjure up images of the movie "African Queen". Again, our timing for the tides was to allow us to pass through this area without grounding as there were numerous reports of such groundings in this area also. In all it required 3 hours to get past Jekyll and through the grass flats of St. Andrews Inlet, involving about an hour more of travel time.

Grass flats forever!!!

We found that we have a problem that we had not anticipated. It appears that we have barnacle buildup on our props as they are not producing full and clean thrust. Today we attempted to get the boat hauled and our spare props installed but could not get scheduled for more than a week out. So we will travel on and hope that the deposits will erode as we travel until we can get the props replaced.

We traveled another 3 hours and passed the Kings Bay submarine base to get to the Florida - Georgia border and into Fernandina Beach, FL. Our plan was to attach to a city-provided mooring ball for $20 per night. However,the water was quite rough and the wind was strong and cold, so we decided to stay in the city marina. The cost for two nights is $179! Get this, we use our linens, provide our own breakfast, watch our own TV, clean our own bath, and get charged Hampton Inn rates. That is the "transient" dockage rate on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway). This is an example of what over regulation and government intervention produces. And, guess what, the pumpout system is broken here! Still NO PUMPOUT!

Sunset in Fernandina Beach

Fernandina Harbor marina

In Fernandina, we walked the old city shops and had a wonderfully enjoyable afternoon. Today we had lunch in the village and then got a taxi to take us to Ft. Clinch State Park. We really enjoyed a guided tour performed by a 1862 era Union soldier / engineer. You have to visit this fort. It guards the entrance to St. Marys Inlet and never fired a shot at an enemy. It is quite grand. We finished the day with a good meal aboard and plan an early exit tomorrow just before high tide and will proceed toward our next stop, St. Augustine, one of our favorite cities.