Maggie Mae

Tuesday, June 4
Awoke around 0630 to warm, muggy weather with a light fog. Got underway a little after 0700. Tim has developed a DAILY BRIEFING form which contains pertinent information such as:
Departure Time, ETA, Weather, Tide/Current, Water/Fuel/Pumpout status, Destination, Name/Phone number/Channel marker, Food plan, and Items of Interest. He prepared the first one the night before so both Joe and I feel "well-informed" this day :). Today's destination is St Marys, GA, approximately 35 miles and the majority of the route is in the North Atlantic ocean. Fun day at sea!! (I failed to mention that St Mary's is the 2nd oldest city in America. St Augustine being the 1st.)

Passed this container ship. Big guy.

It was a relatively uneventul day. The seas were projected to be 1.7' and the forecast was accurate. Tim always says that we bring rain wherever we go. Well, today that was accurate. At least, late in the day. We had to zip up the eisenglass and when it's 85+ degrees out, it makes for a pretty hot flybridge. Have to protect the electronics though.

All that red stuff....yep....rain......

There were several times when we saw lots of porpoise schooling. I mean, lots...like 15-20. It was pretty special. Around lunchtime the Captain decided to head towards shore, anchor and take a swim. We anchored offshore about 1/8 of a mile and both Tim and Joe took a dip. The water temperature is still mid to upper 70s. The Captain prefers much warmer than this, but not much we can do about it, right? I didn't get any pictures during this little break :(
In order to get into St Marys, we had to navigate in on the St Marys river inlet. This required us to head further away from shore several channel markers before heading back in, in order to avoid the channel jetty. The tide was headed out and it was amazing to see the brown water from the river right next to the blue/green water of the Atlantic. I only hope the picture reflects the 'break' in color. It's as if there was an imaginary dam separating the two. This inlet is 45+' deep in order to accomodate the submarines that are stationed at Kings Bay Naval Base. We keep hoping that we'll see one underway. Not today, but maybe tomorrow when we leave (fingers crossed).

River water in foreground, ocean water in back and impending storm in the distance.

Once we arrived at Lang's East Marina, we took a walk into town. The marina didn't have laundry facilities, but the local 'General Store' had a washer and dryer right on the display floor, for use.

The General Store (laundrymat)

We started some laundry, bought some ice cream cones and headed down to the Submarine Museum. It's a 2 story building containing some interesting facts and artifacts from the past and present. Upstairs, along with more memorabilia, they run a short video describing past and present operations. We watched until I knew the clothes needed to go in the dryer. Had 45 minutes of dryer time to kill, so decided to go have a bite at the Riverview Cafe. They had an eclectic menu (Tim's favorite :)) and we all found something we liked. Food was great. Greek owner was loud. We didn't linger, as the clothes were dry and we didn't want the store to close! Given a little more time, it would be fun to break out the bikes and ride around this little town. Seems like we're back on our sundown/bedtime schedule. We hope to get half way to Savannah tomorrow, probably on the inside (ICW).