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April 28-9, 2014  Days 1-2  Heading North!

At anchor,
New Teakettle Creek, GA

Yesterday we said goodbye to The Marina at Ortega Landing after being there for 4 ½ months. It was a good feeling to be underway and we had a great day of traveling.  Carried Away performed perfectly!

We left the Ortega River and were soon in the busy St. Johns River, passing downtown Jacksonville and then passing the industrial ports with many container ships and the Carnival Cruise Line. We saw the newly boarded passengers in their life jackets receiving their safety instructions.

Six hours later we passed Fernandina Beach. The marina was full with pleasure craft as well as several shrimp boats. Their annual Shrimp Festival begins Friday and is a big event.

We continued on to our anchorage at Cumberland Island, GA and joined several other boats who were already there.  We had wine with cheese and crackers and celebrated our return to the water.  Then we cooked dinner on the grill and had a peaceful evening at anchor!

We departed Cumberland Island at 0720 and were soon passing the Kings Bay Naval Base with its submarines. We were fortunate to see both a Ballistic Missile Sub and an Attack Sub.  As always the Navy patrol boats monitor the boaters passing by!

We entered St. Andrews Sound at 10:00 and were so happy that it was fairly calm.  We arrived at Jekyll Harbor Marina at 11:00 to get fuel.  We enjoyed our stay there last year, but we needed to go farther today.

We continued up the ICW which quickly became marshland. We had some very shallow water at low tide but Bill skillfully maneuvered us through it.

We spotted many dolphin today along with one wild horse, an eagle, many pelicans, egrets, cormorants, and one heron!

At 4:15 we arrived at another good anchorage in a quiet creek.  We enjoyed a nice dinner fixed on the grill and then planned our route for tomorrow. We hope to get near Savannah and go to another anchorage.