Today is Thursday, 02/19/2020 and we are almost a week into our journey. We’ve been blessed with many dolphin, who have been our ethereal running mates, and also brown & non typical white pelicans, since entering the Folly River.

 

 

A bit of stress has been added to our trip with Georgia’s passage of HB201 law. A couple of wealthy land owners were trying to eliminate derelict boat anchoring by getting this law passed. Unfortunately, the far reaching negative side effects have cause the boating community much distress. The rule basically says there’s NO anchoring with in 1000 feet of ANY structure, and ALL of Georgia’s waterways are now “no discharge “ zones. Tom has spent many resources of time and money installing the best Purasan system. This system safely treats all effluence, and renders it clean and acceptable to dump directly overboard. With the Purasan system , we do not have to use our holding tank, or check in frequently to marinas or pump out stations. Unfortunately this system is now illegal to use in the state of Georgia. You’d think they’d have enough to do in trying to remove the massive Golden Ray cargo ship that overturned just outside the Port of Brunswick, near St Simons Island beach, with 320000 gallons of fuel and 4000+ automobiles on board.

Since Valentines Day was a busy travel day, and our anniversary is coming up soon, we decided to spoil ourselves with reservations at the historic, Greyfield Inn located on pristine, largely undeveloped Cumberland Island.

Tuesday evening was the ONLY night they had available  with a pet friendly cottage.
Greyfield was built in 1900 as a wedding present from Thomas and Lucy Carnegie to their  daughter, Margaret Ricketson.  The home was converted to an Inn in 1926 by Margaret’s daughter, Lucy R Ferguson. The Carnegie family still oversees the inn, which exudes romance and luxury.
Southern Trawl had been running along great,  so Tom pushed ahead on Monday to make 70+ miles, in order to arrive at Cumberland early on Tuesday.

When we dropped anchor late Monday  afternoon, just in front of the Morningstar Marina, we were unpleasantly surprised to discover we had developed a fuel leak, which needed prompt attention.  The Morningstar Marina was already closed for the day, as were the rental car company offices, so we had to wait until Tuesday morning. Frantic that we might have to forfeit our beautiful plans, we both jumped into high gear. Tom made arrangements for  a slip in the marina, and  contacted a mechanic to diagnose the cause of  & repair our fuel leak. With no rental cars available due to the holiday weekend,  I was lucky to find an available private driver, who could pick us us by 10:00AM, and drive us the 1 1/2 hours, to catch the 12:15 ferry over to Cumberland .

CUMBERLAND OR BUST !

Well we made it, and it was so worth the effort!

 

Yesterday morning we took an incredibly long walk (21996 steps to be exact!) from the Inn down to “Dungeness ruins”,the original Carnegie Mansion which burned in 1959, and back! We had a delicious lunch, and then retreated to the capacious front porch for a much deserved nap.

We boarded the ferry at 3:30 and returned (by rental car this time) to St Simons and our boat, where Tom signaled happy hour and sunset with an amazingly protracted conch blow !

I’ll close here with a fun post script! During our very short, but marvelous visit to Greyfield Inn and Cumberland Island, we had the fabulous good fortune to meet a wonderful couple,  Jo Anne and Michael Browne. They were also celebrating their anniversary at this amazing place.
Just a few minutes ago, as Southern Trawl plowed down river toward Fernandina, we cruised  past Greyfield, pretty far from shore along the Cumberland Sound.
The Brownes happened to be taking a stroll,  and looked out across the water and sent me a message. “Hey is that y’all passing by?”. It was indeed!  We were too far to see them, so I got on the bow and waved our flag, hoping they could at least see that !

Good people who become instant friends, are some of life’s most precious gifts! Sincerely looking forward to crossing paths again one of these days !
PSS… We’ve just officially left Georgia and anchored in Florida, so stand back, we’re flushing 🚽 to our hearts content.