| Captain's Log |
Skinwalker Log May 4, 2005, Wednesday, 0220 hrs |
Northeast Florida South of Fernandina anchored on Alligator Creek.
30 34.613 N
081 28.30 W
It is “0” dark thirty on the Skinwalker. The excitement crackles through my nerves. Since yesterday morning my adrenaline has had me at the
quivering stage, like I recently drank two cups of thick Cuban coffee. I am flying high and fast.
Yesterday we screamed down the St. Johns from the Ortega River to the ICW at 12 kts. We moved so fast with the swift current I was afraid the
bottom paint might melt. I was wishing for tiles liked on the space shuttle to protect us from the heat of friction. 12 kts is a really big deal for us and
the fastest we have ever had this boat and we were running 1500 rpm’s, our normal cruise number. When we reached our turn on to the ICW it took
more effort than I thought it would to turn 90 degrees to the current and sideslip into the narrow ICW. It was a real thrill to actually need to manhandle
the boat a little to make the corner without drifting out of the channel.
The landscape has completed its transition from Mangrove walls to the open Everglade-like expanse of mud & marsh lands. The views are now expansive
and freeing.
Some of the flies are the size of bees.
This morning will be our last in Florida. Tonight we pitch our tent, so to speak, in the shadow of a Cumberland Island Plantation. Cumberland Island, Georgia.
I have entered into the real world of youthful dreams come true. The next several hundred miles I have read about in cruising magazine articles for years.
The names then were only exotic far off places. Now they will be my home for a day or two each as we nudge our way along the marsh, swamps, sounds,
rivers and bays of the tidal zone belonging to the southeastern part of our great country.
For the next few days we will be singing those songs we know that refer to Georgia, such as, Midnight Train to Georgia, Georgia on my Mind. There must be
a train song about Georgia. If not we will make up our own. Kathy Brown where are you when I need the name of a good song?
While I will be forever thankful to the person we got it from, our pirated navigation system is like a bath. After a while it is not so hot. Maybe more like a scoop
of ice cream. We scoop it up and put it in our laptop computer bowl and after awhile the ice cream starts to melt down. We freeze it up and take a new scoop
and it starts to melt down again quickly. We love being able to use it when it is working properly. We find it extremely annoying when it only works the way it
wants to work which is poor to not at all. I find it difficult to deal with snotty, know it all, do it their own way computer programs that attempt to take over my life
and boat. I may have to pistol whip this navigation program if it doesn’t give up its errant ways.
We recently met up with the KK 42 Eldridge C. They have the same system and are having the identical symptomatic challenges. Why does someone else’s
misery make such good company? If I wasn’t so darn cheap I would buy the software new instead of borrowing it from someone else. Where is my coffee?
Aww, now that is better, don’t you agree?
B R E A K
Currently anchored in the Brickhill River very near the Plum Orchard Plantation on Cumberland Island.
We anchored up in the river at full low tide and still have 8’ of water under our keel. We lowered the convertible and sashayed over to the plantation dock. We
wandered along dirt trails used by the wild horses and the few remaining civilians that still have temporary rights to living on the island. Our walk was bathed in
gray light filtered by a cloud cover and the over hanging foliage. It is a nice place. A pretty place. Even the wild pony dung beetles were pretty.
I felt at one point as if I were Clark Gable walking with Scarlett O’Hara down a path leading to Tara. Capt’n Lynnie assured me that she was a wonderful Scarlett,
but that I, as Rhett Butler, may be more then a little obscure for the most lucidly forgiving imagination. I threw a wild horse biscuit at her and missed. It was a good
ripe one too. Darn. The horse would have been so proud of me.
When we left the boat we couldn’t see anything but mud bank from the dinghy. As we returned we were high above the grasses and looking miles in the distance.
An eight foot tide will do that for you. It is one of many amazing experiences in this land of tides and current. Earlier in the day our sprint against the three knot ebbing
tide of St. Marys Sound was made even more exciting by the brace of Navy escort inflatables that steamed closely down our starboard at flank speed with their forward
and aft 50 caliber machine guns looking ever so at the ready. They were on their way to escort in a submarine on its way up the channel to Kings Bay and hence
didn’t shoot us, but sternly waved and shared a short smile. I must say, without fear of breaking national security, that Kings Bay is a most impressive sub yard. As we
went by we stayed on our side of the channel so as not to tease the floating motorized Doberman on picket duty. Again, we escaped with nary a shot fired. Guess they
don’t shoot at tourists anymore.
It has been a wonderful adventure since leaving the St. Johns so brusquely.
We wait patiently, with today’s ration of grog, for tomorrow’s quest to begin in the pilothouse
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