It's Getting Warmer!

 We had a great time in Fernandina Beach where they decorated the town with Christmas displays and lights. For Black Friday, if you wore your pajamas to town you got 20% of in all the stores. There were lots of people in their PJ's. It was strange seeing all the Christmas decorations and every one in shorts or pajamas. Here's a few pictures from around the town.

I don't know who that guy is?

 I don't know this guy either!

 You can rent these

There are still signs of hurricane Mathew.

 

We left Fernandina Beach and motored to a city dock just north of Jacksonville for the night. This is where another member of our rally had planed leave and head home to see family. Steve sailed a 26 foot sail boat alone. He's a very interesting young fellow and the group and I will miss him a lot.

 

Steve and I and some guy we don't know.

 

We are now in St. Augustine the oldest town in North America. We have been busy touring the town and doing other things like laundry. I will add some pictures later when I have better WIFI. Tomorrow we leave for Cocoa Village. It's a long way so it will take three days. First stop Daytona and then who knows and then Cocoa Village. We will check back in when we get there or if we find some better internet.



Time For A Little Rant!

As I was saying St Mary's is a beautiful town but doesn't see to much business. This Thanksgiving weekend is a good time for all businesses to make there money. With all the boaters in town and many more tourist coming to see the Xmas decorations. After a long walk around the town we decided to stop in at a little Tiki Bar. It was a nice small place out side in the shade. We sat down and ordered a few beers, we were with our friends Jack and Diane ( just like the song). The waitress asked us for ID! The girls didn't have there ID, because who carries a purse when there just walking around. So she wouldn't serve us. We went across the street and sat down at another bar and ordered our drinks and relaxed for a while. While in Georgia and South Carolina I have been asked for ID when buying beer in the grocery store. Being from Ontario this seems a little strange. Could you imagine if I was arrested for drinking because I didn't have ID. What would the headlines say?
 " Sixty two year old man was arrested today because he had no ID and could not prove he was over 21!!!!
OK that's my Rant for today!

It's Hot In Georgia

My last post I couldn't have pictures because the WIFI was weak. So here are some pictures of Jekyll Island were we stayed for 2 days. There's a little bit of history here so it's time for ;

"So Here's Interesting Tidbits" 

SHIT for short!

 

I'm just going to tell you a little bit of SHIT. Jekyll Island was one the playground for the very rich. The train would only come this far south so this was the place to be. People like JP Morgan the Vanderbilt's and Woodrow Wilson had homes here and would spend a lot of time in this area. Here are some of the homes that have been restored. This Island became a ghost town after the train line was built to go further south to Palm Beach

After leaving Jekyll Island we anchored in front of Cumberland Island. This park was made a sanctuary by Richard Nixon. It cost money to go on the island to walk around to see the wild horses.
 We left Cumberland Island for St Mary's for Thanksgiving. It has finally warmed up again, today it got up to 28c or 82f. There's not much going on in St Mary's. It's a very small town and it had a hard time recovering from the recession in the 80's. The government decided to put a Trident Nuclear Sub base here in Kings Bay and it added nine thousand jobs. We didn't see any subs but this is where they dock when they come in.

 

St. Mary's is a place where a lot of boaters will come for a free thanks giving dinner. The town puts on a big dinner and every one has to bring a side dish to feed eight people. They think there were around 170 people that showed up. There was so much food there were a lot of left overs. Oh boy turkey sandwich's for a few days.

People lined up down the street

 

The night before they hosted an oyster roast. These people supply all the oysters and you had to bring a side dish. Laurie and I don't eat oysters so we waited until dinner was over and stopped by for a drink. They were still eating oysters for another hour after we arrived. I'm sorry I didn't bring my camera because this is something we don't see at home. They put a four by eight sheet of plywood on two saw horses. They cut a hole in the middle of the plywood. This is where you throw your empty shells. There's a garbage pale under the hole. People stand around with a knife and start shucking and eating. The cook throws a full shovel load onto the table and they just chow down until they have had enough. Then someone else can take there place. It's really something to see. Tomorrow they will have a $5.00 pancake breakfast. Wow what a great time we are having here.
Here are some pictures from around the town. They are starting to put up there Christmas decorations and the town looks great.

I hope you can read this sigh. Rule number one.

 

What a beautiful little town. Tomorrow we will head off to Florida. Our first stop is Fernandina Beach. It's only seven miles away but out leader says its another beautiful spot.



 

It's a Little Chilly!

We have heard winter has arrived back home in the Toronto area. Snow and cold and everything that goes with it. Good luck on the high ways today! The last 2 nights here have been cool, 35f. The days got up to 65f so it's not to bad. The weather will slowly get back up into the 70's in the next few days so that will be so nice. It's Nov. 21 and we will be doing a short trip the next 2 days. Our leader wants to take us to anchor next to Cumberland Island 15 miles away from where we are now. It's a protected Island and it's supposed to be a very nice place to anchor. That means I should have lots of interesting tid bits next time! After one night at anchorage we will go 3 miles to St. Mary's Georgia for US Thanksgiving. This should be fun. Hundreds of boaters will converge on this marina and have Thanksgiving turkey. Everyone is invited that wants to be there. We just bring a side dish and they supply the turkey. No cost! We will then depart from St Mary's on Friday and head for Fernandina Beach. Yipeee Florida! We are not sure when the next time we will be on a dock so the internet may be spotty. We are now coming into the area Mathew hit very hard. There's still a lot of marina's that are not back in business yet. So hopefully we will have internet soon and will lots to report.

Try to stay warm everyone!!!

We Are In Hilton Head South Carolina

We left Beaufort SC early Monday morning in the cold morning. The mornings are cool and damp, it was about 10c. We wanted to get to Windmill Harbor in Hilton Head early so we could get warm. We arrived around 1pm just as the sun came out and the temperature got up to 25c. When we arrived in the channel we called into the yacht club to wait our turn to come into the lock. Yes this club has it's own lock! This club is very upscale and is surrounded by million dollar homes.

 

 Sweat Pea coming into the lock

 

This is a very unique marina. The reason they have a lock is because they didn't want to build a marina out into the channel. So they have to have a lock to hold the water in during low tide. We were lucky and left Beaufort early and arrived just before the tide was to low to approach the channel to the lock. Some of the bigger boats that have tall mast had to leave Beaufort later in the day close to low tide so the could fit under the 65 foot fixed bridges. This meant they arrived at windmill Harbor at low tide. These boats had to anchor for about 3 hours and wait until the tide came up so they could approach the channel.



This is the view of the marina as you get in.

 Mauna Kea

 

This is the Yacht Club

 Our friends boat Valentine

As the day warmed up we walked around the marina area. Wow this place is something to see.



Then we walked around the gated community

 There is a lot of damage from the hurricane still on the ground

 Lots of Spanish Moss

The first night we were there Ted opened up his home and invited us all over for free pizza. Ted is a volunteer around the marina. The people here are so friendly and the are showing us there southern hospitality.

 Ted has a great view out his back yard.

Then second day was a beautiful day so we used the warm weather to clean the boat. The salt water is pitting the chrome so Laurie cleaned the inside and I polished a lot of the chrome. Tuesday night was Happy Hour night so we had to go for that!. The group met up for happy hour for cheap drinks and free appetizer's. Wow what a great place.

During the Happy Hour I did a Yacht Club burgee exchange with Ted. So now we have reciprocal privileges with the South Carolina Yacht Club in Windmill Harbor.

Ted and I exchanging burgees

 Laurie with the burgee

After the happy hour everyone decided to stay for a buffet dinner $13.00 each and it was great. We also had to say good bye to Bobby on the power boat "Going Places". Bobby is a very special person and we all got very close to him. We will miss him a lot but we will see him in Miami when he comes to say goodbye to use as we all finish our rally.

Miss you Bobby have a safe journey

Today we went exploring in to Savanah Georgia for the day. There are so many ways to see the city and we thought a trolley car would be the best. Savanah is a old and very beautiful city. Here's a few pictures.

Old Cemetery 

 

 These are old Georgia Oak trees with Spanish Moss

 Savanah River

Savanah has a lot of squares in the middle of the city. These squares have monuments and statues  to some of there founders.

I didn't know that the city was aware I was coming. But I guess they named a square after me!

Here's a very unique square.

You may or may not recognize this bench. There was a young man named Forrest Gump told an older woman his life story on this bench. Remember "Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates" Yes this is where they filmed a lot of the movie.

Tomorrow we will leave for two anchorages before we get to Jekyll Island Georgia. When we leave Windmill Marina we will have the experience of going through the locks at High tide. This doesn't happen very often. When the tide is high and the water levels are the same on either side of the lock  we will a half hour to do this. Fifteen minutes on either side of high tide. This is what they call opening a double lock, so will be able to drive through both locks that are open.

 

So it time again for "So Here's Interesting Tidbit's" SHIT for short.

 

There's a lot of port towns and cities that have cobble stone roads and you may wonder why. We have seen this everywhere in big and small towns. Years ago when the old sailing ships were all wood and they would need weight in the bottom of the boat. Back then they didn't have keels so they used rocks for weight. After they picked up there cargo they would have to unload some of the rocks because they had to much weight. The towns didn't know what to do with the rocks and they were getting to be big mounds of them. So they decided to use these to make cobblestone streets. These are the rocks you see in the streets and a lot of them are the original rocks.

 

More SHIT!

Late at night when we are just getting into bed we can here this clicking noise. To me it sounds like a burning piece of pine. A lot of snapping and popping.  Some people say it say it sound like Rice Krispies  Snap, Crackle, Pop so I googled it and this is what I found.

 

The snapping shrimp (Alpheus heterochaelis) produces a loud snapping sound by an extremely rapid closure of its snapper claw. One of the effects of the snapping is to stun or kill prey animals. During the rapid snapper claw closure, a high-velocity water jet is emitted from the claw with a speed exceeding cavitation conditions. Hydrophone measurements in conjunction with time-controlled high-speed imaging of the claw closure demonstrate that the sound is emitted at the cavitation bubble collapse and not on claw closure. A model for the bubble dynamics based on a Rayleigh-Plesset–type equation quantitatively accounts for the time dependence of the bubble radius and for the emitted sound.

 

 

I'm not sure if this explains it but most people will tell you it is Pistol Shrimp eating off the bottom of you boat. 

Now that's some strange SHIT!