We’ve left Florida, and to that I say good riddance. Some of the interactions that seemed to sum up the vibe of Florida for us; every car that sees a pedestrian crossing in front of them will speed up. Paul’s locked bike was stolen within 24 hours of arriving to Miami. Checking into marinas was confusing and unwelcoming and we were treated with the attitudes reserved for liars and conmen. The fellow boaters at the dinghy dock (usually a VERY friendly and gregarious group) had the prickly and dangerous feel of stray dogs fighting over scraps.
So, goodbye Florida. I enjoyed seeing a manatee there, and the birds. I liked the Dry Tortugas National Park, and turquoise water. I ate a lot of pie, and petted Hemingway cats and we saw our friend Greg. Everything else made me feel a bit yuck and I welcomed the chance to put it behind us. So……
Hello Georgia!
After a 50-hour, 370nm sail from Boca Raton to Savannah, we arrived at the shores of Georgia before daybreak Sunday morning, witnessing a lightning show of epic proportion. My watch, the 10pm-2am slot that begins sluggishly, finds a second wind, and ends with the kind of wired alertness that takes time to come down from, took on a sense of consternation when the infrequent flashes from shore turned into a sort of impending rave. Although the moon was nearly full, the sky was cloudy and dark the whole night, until it seemed we entered a room of smoke. Our radar showed a big blobby mass of storm moving north along the shore, over the inlet we were headed to and covering our intended course.
I woke Paul a few minutes early to make a joint decision, and he came out to assess. With the inky dark and the flashbulbs of thunderbolts, my heightened senses and overtiredness made me jumpy. Dolphins kept leaping near the boat in the dark, making me gasp and swear, and a warbler who was carpooling with us to Georgia kept flying by my face, resulting in more swears. Paul proposed playing Frogger with the storm to the best of our ability and heading south below it until it hopefully passed. I agreed, and adjustments made to course, we sat together watching the storm in the dark for a quarter of an hour.
It was lovely, alarming, large, and in the way of storms reminded me of our bare vulnerability. And then, with the absolute trust that must accompany a boat-residing couple, I went to bed and let Paul take the helm.
I awoke before 6am and made my way outside. It was the blue dawn, and the lightning was greatly reduced. We could see land, and smell land, and our warbler made his grateful exit to seek his fortune there. Paul immediately went for a nap; we would be navigating the river soon, and his eyelids were too heavy to handle. I sat watching the sun wake up the rest of the way, or as much as it was going to today, and fetched my boots and socks, and red rain jacket. It was cold and the storming wasn’t over yet.
Around 7am, Paul sat up and brewed a pot of coffee. We drank cups at the helm and navigated red right return into the Bull River, where we called a marina and they said to go ahead and come along early, they had some space for us. I rigged our dock lines and fenders, and before 9am we were snugged in securely to the dock, helped along by a friendly neighbor and his dog River, who had the most openly dopey and adoring dog face I had seen for some time.
Once docked, we checked in at the office, and the graciousness and openness of Georgians immediately made us remember Florida even more grimly. It could not have been more starkly presented. We checked in; they welcomed us, they asked where we were from, they gave us restaurant recommendations and local tips and shot the shit, before we finally traipsed back home to Bluebelle where we fell into a deep sleep, just as the rain came back and cocooned us in sound, sleeping next to each other like spoons, sleeping soundly together for the first time in a few days. Welcome to Savannah, BlueBelles.
TIBURON MARINO 