June 22 Arrival at Jekyll Harbor Marina

This is the third in a series of posts that follow our course from Thunderbolt, GA to Jekyll Island, GA, before our boat, Mulligan, took a second lightning hit and had to go to "jail" (and to jail she did go -- directly to jail, without passing go and without collecting $200, so to speak).

Okefenokee fallout on Mulligan's transom, which is
usually a nice bright white

We slept a little later than usual on Wednesday, knowing that we didn't have as far to go as we had the day before. When we did emerge from Mulligan's salon, we felt a bit like the ancient Pompeiians must have felt as Vesuvius got going. The deck was coated with a layer of coarse wood ash from the Okefenokee fire. Nasty stuff. And, since the breeze we created for ourselves as we got underway didn't budge it, we just lived with it until we could get docked, with access to pressurized water. 

As we made our way south, we began to see something off in the distance that, from from where were, looked like the Emerald City (but without the green). Once we got closer we realized it was a very, very tall bridge, and guessed rightly that we were seeing the superstructure of the bridge over the shipping channel to Brunswick, GA. The bridge's webbing of cables was shining so that it looked more like a series of glass spires than a metal bridge. We could almost hear those Oz voices singing, "You're out of the woods." 

Our entry into St. Simon's Sound, which is where the shipping channel comes in from the Atlantic, was  hampered by smoke so thick that it was like heavy fog. In fact, we missed our turn into the secondary channel of Jekyll Creek and had to retrace our track to pick it up. This part of the trip was very spooky, with shrimp boats looming suddenly out of the haze in a ghostly way.

Once in Jekyll Creek, we hauled out the dock lines and fenders we'd stowed away when we left Thunderbolt. We hailed Jekyll Harbor Marina on the VHF, and were soon tied up in a face dock slip that was very easy to get into, which was nice. We immediately liked the small marina with its friendly neighbors, cool swimming pool, and inviting little restaurant & bar. As our first evening there came on, we spent a long time chatting with two neighboring live-aboard families: Frank & Lynn Barron, and Chuck & Nancy Willoughby.  

(By the way, when are we going to get better about taking pictures of things and people??? We were so absorbed in the conversation that it didn't even occur to us to get out the camera.)

The Barrons live on a 1959 motor yacht (we never learned her name, and the Barrons just called her "a great old lady"). The Barrons include Charlie, a friendly Pomeranian. His tag said he was a therapy dog, which seemed unusual for a Pom, which can often be a yappy, scrappy  little thing. Charlie has a kid-sized canvas chair on the prow of the boat, where he keeps an eye on everything and everybody on the dock. Frank is an interesting guy with lots of jobs: airline pilot, charter captain, back-up Boat US tow captain, and boat surveyor. Lynn is also a captain and surveyor. It was fun seeing how they make their livings from aboard their floating home. Frank, in his pilot's uniform, was in and out of Jekyll at least twice just while we were there, once to New York and once to Colorado.

The Willoughby's live aboard a newer motor yacht named Passion, out of Alexandria, VA. They have cruised for a year, hopping their own car along with them somehow. The third member of their group was Kaiser, an aging Golden Retriever. Chuck and Nancy told us they have spent every night so far at a marina, because Kaiser hasn't learned to use his astroturf "potty patch." As we chatted, they showed us the potty patch on the dock nearby. Nancy maintained that  Kaiser is close to "getting it," because he is spending more time on the patch. "Yes," said Chuck, "he does enjoy lying on it."

We traded contact information with both these sets of neighbors. (Come Saturday evening's storm, we were glad we did.) When it got dark, everyone adjourned to their various dinner plans. Ours were in our galley. Pasta with shrimp, a salad and good bread. It really is fun to cook in Mulligan's galley, which is nicer, although a little smaller even, than our very small kitchen back in Chattanooga.