The choices were to watch the annual Florida-Georgia football game at Hazels Cafe, complete with copious quantities of alcohol, red shirts and "GO DAWGS" banners... or to boat out to a deserted barrier island to visit a shipwreck. No brainer...
Georgia's 100 mile coast accounts for around three quarters of all the undeveloped salt marsh on the East coast. The water is brackish, unappealing to this blue water Northern boy, but the abundance of fish and wildlife that inhabit the ecosystem is jaw dropping.
We left at high tide from a little private dock on a creek that is accessed by a 500 foot long walkway through the march. It's right next to an historic pre-revolutionary war battle site called "Bloody Marsh" where the British repelled the invading Spanish. Some history here... At low tide the creek is navigable only to the experts who know the channels and the location of the shell rakes. David is one of those guys...
We loaded the 14 foot McKee (like a side console Boston Whaler... ) with picnic stuff, dogs and womenfolk and headed through Village Creek, across Gould's Inlet and under the bridge to Sea Island. Things got rough at the confluence of the Atlantic and the Hamilton River. We found ourselves surrounded by several dozen Bottlenose Dolphins, some surfacing within 20 feet of the boat. After fighting the waves for awhile, we opted to pull into a little side water and anchor on the bank, hopeful that the boat would stay afloat and not go aground while we walked the 5 miles of deserted beach.
There was a small amount of flotsam and jetsam probably washed down the coast from the New York garbage skows, evidence of the non-biodegradability of plastic products, but, for the most part, it was a magnificent, untracked beach. No houses, no people, no boats, no footprints. Sand, shells, crabs, welks, huge sand dollars and dunes. In one of the backwater swamps, a small alligator. And birds. Literally millions of what David called Waxwings in an incredible aerial display, flying in a huge tornado-like funnel, suddenly breaking into flashing squadrons that wheeled and turned into each other, a mind bending display of birds in an aerial dogfight.( Huh?)
We came around the point to the sight of a shipwreck rising out of the sand. It reminded me of the movie Planet of the Apes. Remember the scene with Charlton Heston and the Statue of Liberty? "You Bastards!"... I tried to do some research and find the history on this particular wreck only to discover that there are LOTs of wrecks off the coast and that the divers and the fishermen love them. This one being high and dry evidently wasn't deemed worthy of a public record. David said in the late 90s while being towed up the coast, heavy seas rolled it and it was abandoned. He said that within 4 days it was stripped of everything of value (He has a couple brass portholes).
We carefully climbed through the rusting superstructure before heading back to our picnic. Pretty neat.
We got back to find the boat high and dry... thought we would be spending the night... but with some superhuman motivation (the girls would have KILLED us) we muscled it back in the water. The sun was getting low and the sand gnats were beginning to swarm so we moved out into the river to eat our picnic of fried chicken, bree, crab dip, toast points and 2 buck chuck. Awesome.
David couldn't resist heading out to Pelican Spit in the open water to visit the 10 thousand pelicans sitting on the sand like bald headed druids in prayer and, as we approached, they lifted into the sky blotting out the sunset. Hard to convey the emotion...
The sun was dipping below the horizon as we sped through the marsh trying to beat the darkness and the tide... when the motor died. The adrenalin was pumping when, 30 minutes later, after wearing the battery dangerously low, after changing fuel tanks, after flooding the engine with no tools to clean fouled plugs, the engine started on one cylinder. We limped out of the marsh holding our breath until the motor suddenly burst into full speed. When we tried to throttle it down, it would begin to die... so David did what David does best... He drove through the twisting, turning creeks and shell rakes, at full speed, in the dark all the while, with Connie clutching the dogs, screaming in the back of the boat, me perched on the bow as ballast, Mary Helen laughing hysterically. What a great adventure! But it will be awhile before I get Connie and the dogs back in a boat! LOL!Thanks David and Mary Helen! Good times!
Here's a neat little YouTube video of where we were that ya'll might enjoy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2cu_8bPKjY&feature=player_embedded
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