Wild Horses

6/14/07 – Some heavy rain woke me up at about 6:00 this morning. I got up to shut the hatch so I could go back to sleep without fear of having my things get wet. The rain stopped about an hour later and I got up again and ate some cereal for breakfast. I bought some milk at the beginning of the trip that is super-ultra-pasteurized and packaged in boxes similar to juice boxes. It keeps for months without refrigeration so I bought a whole bunch of it to use for cereal in the mornings. After breakfast, I lifted anchor and began my final leg of the trip through Florida. I came to Fernandina Beach at around noon. The first thing that I noticed was the smell of the huge paper mills in the city. They made the whole area smell awful. I stopped for some fuel at the city marina and then continued into Cumberland sound. This is where the Saint Marys River exits to the ocean, which is the boundary between Florida and Georgia. The very southern part of Georgia is very sparsely populated so I was not able to get cell phone reception. I saw some tall and dark clouds coming up so I went to put my raincoat on but the zipper broke as I was zipping it up. Just then it started to rain. I found some spare line in the cabin and wrapped it around myself several times just to keep the jacket closed. I did not stay very dry but at least it was better than nothing. Later, my tiller pilot broke. I had noticed some water droplets under the screen earlier that morning that concerned me but it was just beeping whenever I plugged it in and it did not do anything. I got to a good anchorage about twenty miles into Georgia next to an island with wild horses running around on it called Little Cumberland Island. The wind shifted in the evening so I was no longer on the windward shore so my boat was tossed around by the waves but I didn’t feel like backtracking several miles to the last good anchorage so I just stuck it out.

I woke up in the middle of the night and went outside. I had anchored right next to a beach but when I looked around, I was at least half a mile from any shore. I had to think for a minute to get my bearings. The tide had risen and covered the sand that was right adjacent to my boat. Since I was far away from everything, the stars were very bright and the phosphorescence in the water was quite impressive.