The last blog entry

Folks this is it. The blog is going down until we decide to move Freedom again. It's been quite a bit of fun updating this, and we hope that anyone who has stopped in to check it out has taken some pleasure from it.
Safe Travels, and perhaps we'll start it up again in the Fall.

Regards
Dan and Deb

Savannah Area

Yesterday we traveled from Jekyll Island up to the Two Way Fish Camp. I believe they named it that way because the tide hauls in both directions up there. We had lunch at Mud Cat Charlies and this wound up being free because the waitress forgot to put our lunch order in and felt bad. She figured since we had to wait so long for lunch we deserved some southern hospitality. So we enjoyed it even more. A free bottle of wine also!

We left with high tide in the morning for Isle Of Hope. The ride over was brutal from the heat because of the horse flies. Given all the marsh areas we were crossing yesterday we learned that we had to zip up all the panels of the enclosure to keep the flies out. So we were stuck in an oven all day.

Makes us wish we had a dual station so we could drive from inside with the AC on.

This is one of the flies that landed on the stratoglass so I took an up close picture of it from the inside. It was funny to see the shift in personalities yesterday when we left the enclosure open. Deb would usually just smack them and toss them over but once she was bitten, she would smack them with the swatter and then pull their wings off. These suckers are tough and shake it off. They wake up and attack a second time. Given that Deb was not going to let them off easy so she would tear the wings off and throw them over the side after smacking them down. I don't blame her. They take chunks of skin out of you when they bite. I know.

Anyway we know many that did not survive the day. Not to worry they were bouncing off the enclosure all day! There are plenty of them left for those that want to come down and make huggies with them.

Jekyll Island

We arrived at Jekyll Island Saturday and toured a bit on Sunday. Sunday did not turn out as well as we hoped because we were b-slapped with culture shock. We are used to walking to places in a totally different environment. In the Bahamas for the most part one can walk along the beach in a great setting without concern for being run over. But now we are back in the U.S. and things are different. Walking along a two lane black top road is not all that pleasant. Fill in your favorite negative description.

Blowing off the walk to the historic district yesterday today we rented an electric GEM car and toured Jekyll Island. It's a really quaint place to visit but leaves a bit to be desired from an infrastructure point of view. In spite of that the guided tour through the historical district was worth the time and we enjoyed it. The setting is visually appealing with all of the Spanish Moss hanging around and the old houses they have managed to salvage are fun to walk around in.

Tomorrow we move further north in Georgia leaving with high tide to avoid all of the shoaling and shallow water in the next two passages. They get quite a bit of tide along the ICW down here, almost seven feet.

As far as the ride goes, the GEM was pretty good but only had a range of about 30-35 miles and would do the break neck speed of 26 mph with the wind at its back. Maybe in a few more years the tech will evolve and we'll finally get a decent electric vehicle. But it's definitely quiet, rides ok, and does the job on a small island. We chose the "bed" version since I had to ride a bicycle to the airport where we rented it and then bring the bicycle back to the marina.

It reminds me of "Scotto's Ride" in Poughkeepsie.

Up to Amelia Island

A good day on the water today covering about 50 nm. There is a shrimp festival on the island tomorrow and hopefully we have the ability to work it into the tide and travel. We need a rising tide to make the next leg of the trip. Not only that we cannot get out of the marina without at least mid tide.
So perhaps we'll take the trolley to Fernandina Beach and eat some shrimp early in the day tomorrow and then take off for Jekyl Island.

GPS data updated.