For some odd reason I am usually oblivious to crossing the FL/GA line. Yes, maybe the correct music would help- say “Cruise”, by…. you guessed it- Florida/Georgia Line!  But we were well into our day, as in anchored and ashore, before I realized we’d crossed the line. That’s the problem with being so mindful of Georgia.

Wed, Nov 16 found us anchored in a new place; Ft George River (no fort) at Talbot Island (fka Ft George Island- so ok must have been a fort) to go ashore and visit the Kingsley Plantation. This is the oldest still-standing plantation house in Florida, with several preserved buildings and the remains of most of the original slave quarters. Our friends Ann & Mike on Traveling Soul (aka “the other TS”) had visited and said the plantation was worth a stop; and it was!

Fort George River by Kingsley Plantation

It’s a few miles north of the St John’s River and west is Jacksonville, so I think we might have been in the outer limits of Jacksonville. The geotag on the iPhone photos indicated Jacksonville, so let’s go with that.

Talbot Island, Kingsley Plantation on the Ft George river. Old wharf ruins but hard to see

Low tide Ft George River at Kingsley Plantation

The dock was substantial and large, thanks to the tour boats that bring folks in who don’t want to drive. The self-guided tour is free and you get a phone that knows where you are and has a spiel for 8 to 10 stops of the plantation. At 2pm the ranger (nice guy but a bit stuffy) gave a tour of the Plantation House, Anna’s House and the garden.

In 1814, Zephaniah Kingsley moved to Ft George Island and established a successful plantation. He brought his wife and children. Here’s the interesting part: his wife, Anna was from Senegal, Africa and had been purchased by Kingsley as a slave. When they married, she was 13 and he 41. After 5 years she was freed. Anna actively participated in plantation management, which was kinda necessary because Zephaniah was often away at sea or off acquiring additional property in northeast Florida.

At first, Indigo was the primary cash crop but that was replaced by Sea Island Cotton, a silky long-fiber cotton. Indigo was a messy and deadly crop to process. The entire plant was used to create a mash with other liquids and the slaves stood thigh deep in the mash to stir it. Thanks to various toxins that got inhaled or would leech in thru the skin, the slaves who worked the Indigo often died after five years.

Use the entire plant to make Indigo dye

Slave quarters

Anna’s house

Mr. Ranger told us how the slaves had to whistle when they carried the food from the kitchen building to the main house. This was to show they weren’t eating any as they walked along.

The whistling way, aka breeze way, at Kingsley Plantation

The following morning we continued our journey south, crossing the St John’s River as we inched closer to St Augustine.

On ICW heading toward Sisters Creek Bridge

Does this mean we are triplets when on this creek?

I’ve lost count of the many opening bridges between Mile 0 in Norfolk and Mile 1015 in North Palm Beach that have been replaced by 65ft fixed bridges or by a taller opening version that allows most boats to pass under without needing an opening. Here’s another.

Another bascule bites the dust. Sisters Creek Bridge is nearly all dismantled

A few miles south after we crossed the St John’s River- carefully, since you may encounter container ships, crazy locals and a strong current, we came upon a place to be respected; the Atlantic Beach Bridge.  The trouble is not height, but width. The ICW is somewhat narrow here and when the flunky bridge engineer designed the bridge he made the pass through span just too darn narrow. The current has to push lots of water through less space and oh by the way the waterway takes a slight bend here. At times you could have a 6kt current here! Ideally, you’d like a moderate current in your favor or not much of one against you.

Amazing trip planner that I am, we’d be coming through with at most a one and a half knot current with us; perfect. The get-going-early boats were ahead of us and the later and slower ones were well behind. Except for a few local boats we had the ICW to ourselves. 🙂  We always engage in a conversation about this spot and how one trip (back in 2010 ?) we encountered a tug and barge at the worst possible spot.

Today, ok nothing on AIS, that’s good for starters. We’re looking ahead to see if anything is coming toward us and just as we get to the spot where we can actually see around the bend- oh crap is that a CG buoy tender headed north? Well, we have the right of way because those traveling with the current do. But Russ slows down cuz they are bigger than us, but good guys they are, they hail us on VHF and say they’ll wait for us. Oh thank you. Whew. And no AIS either.  What is it with so much “meeting up” at the worst possible spot?

Strong current flow thru Atlantic Bridge thanks to narrow pass span

That night and the next Twins hung out enjoyably anchored at Pine Island oxbow where we worked on ordering boat stuff we needed to have delivered to us at Vero Beach, watching and photographing the birds, and oh-ing and ah-ing about the sunsets.

Pine Island Oxbow. Pretty nice uh?

Heron doesn’t mean to intrude on courting Roseate Spoonbills

This is getting too personal, I gotta hide my head!

See you in St. Augustine!

Heading to our creek anchorage

Got that old sweet song, keeps Georgia on my mind. Once you are south of Charleston, the marshes become the typical scenery as you wind your way along the ICW.  High tide can be as much as 9ft more than low and in some places many boats need as much of that as possible. Traveling through Georgia means being mindful of the tides.

Along the way, helper cutoffs were created so that you can travel more in a straight path rather than wind around all over the place. But the downside is that they tend to shoal in, especially at the entrance/exits. Reading the comments in the ActiveCaptain hazard marks can drive you batty and we only focus on multiple reports of very low depths if we will be going through near or at low tide (but we avoid low as you might guess). Yes, these sections could be dredged but that takes money. As long as the commercial guys- tugs, ferries and such can get through there’s no urgent need to dredge.

Then there’s Hell Gate; worse than the Hell Gate of the North (in New York’s East River) this one doesn’t have a current issue, but a depth one. Multiple reports of 3.7ft in spots at MLW, with much of the stretch close to 5ft.  As with many of these knuckle-biter stretches (this one is very short) a tug can come through at low and push the sand/mud one way and now you have more water in one spot and less in another. We usually find more water than expected (we did this time) but I’m sure that the one time we plan on that it won’t happen.

m/v Victorius enters Hell Gate; the sailboat is aground

Before Hell Gate shenanigans though we stopped for a few nights at Isle of Hope Marina on the very southern edge of Savannah. The marina’s courtesy cars (yep they have two) are available for two hours once per day per boat. We- oh you won’t believe this- found a bakery with a huge selection of donuts!! Imagine that. 🙂 Stocked up on $1 cans of coconut water at Dollar Tree- sing with me now… Gin and Coconut water :-), hit Walgreens for some sale items and to use up my points before I forgot and then our first Publix of this trip. (I mailed a postcard here too 🙂 )  Uber is the easiest and fastest way to get into Savannah and we had our first woman Uber driver.

The day before we came into Isle of Hope marina- which is really more like you scooch off the ICW’s magenta line and slide up to the long floating dock which wisely sits parallel to the current. Ok, here’s the story:  The CG announced that a car had gone into the water in the Skidaway River near some boat ramp and one person was unaccounted for. Uh oh, that’s near our marina destination. We learned a car of four, all under 25yrs old, had gone into the water and three made it out. How does this happen? Ok, so it’s 1am and maybe drinking and/or drugs involved, but the launching ramp has a large parking lot. Word is they got confused. So sad. Of course, the story made the evening news.

The boat ramp where a car went in and 1 of 4 in the car died

Savannah is so lovely and we didn’t do it justice but we did stroll around, popped into a few shops and delighted in fabulous homemade ice cream at Leopolds.

The next Georgia mindful hurdle is Little Mud River, where it’s mostly Ok but a few extra-shallow spots can ruin your day so you plan around those. The tide would be falling after 7am so we chose a creek anchorage immediately before the Little Mud River. Our sonar chart setting on the Raymarine has become our friend as it shows more up-to-date depths in greater detail than the Garmin.

Evening shrimp haul- 100 ft from where we are anchored

A new stop for us was Brunswick Landing Marina where the fuel prices are worth a stop. We spent three nights. Laundry is free 🙂

Pam Pam Cupcakes- one of the few shops worth a stop in downtown.

Escape Pod- another family member!

Northern tip of Little Cumberland Island- note the large green buoy on the beach.

Our final Georgia anchorage was the Brickhill River which meets up with the ICW in two places, meaning you can use it as an alternate route, with one caveat. Be very mindful of the shoal at the southern end and strongly hug the north shore or you will find a hump with barely three feet of water at low tide.

This spot is called Plum Orchard and is one of two anchorages on Cumberland Island; the southern one, Dungeness, being larger and more popular. Matthew did a number on the new dock and going ashore was not permitted right now. But Plum Orchard was open and we could walk the 2 mile trail across the island.

Higher tide-  can see more of the anchored Kady Krogen

Sunset on Super Moon night at Plum Orchard

Wood Storks hanging out as we begin our walk

We’d always read that others encountered armadillos here but never did we see them. Imagine our surprise to run across one after another; some we saw, others we heard and only caught a glimpse. Must have snapped a dozen shots of this guy before he lifted his head even this much. They spend a lot of time foraging for food!

A bit further in a wide open space we came upon this one.

Gotcha! Finally lifts his head up

Wild Horses on Cumberland Island as we near the ocean beach