30 43.1045' N 081 33.0 W

2024-11-28

Happy US Thanksgiving from St. Mary’s, GA

On Friday Nov 22 we hauled up the anchor to head for St. Mary’s.  It was still very windy and chilly.  As we entered the channel by the submarine-base we were stopped again due to another approaching submarine.   It was so miserable we turned around and went back to our nicely protected anchorage.    We could wait another day and it was so much nicer up the creek!

The next morning, Saturday, we finally made it past the base and made the short run up the St. Mary’s River.  We found Charisma in the anchorage and dropped the hook near by.   It was time to check-in with our hopefully friendly customs and border protection officer!   We prepped our paperwork and started making phone calls.  After six phone calls and talking to two officers we had our instructions.  Wait until Monday and call for further instructions.  Jeez…  I note here our anchorage in St Marys Georgia was in sight of Fernandina Florida!

Monday came and Paul made the call shortly after the Brunswick office opened at 8AM.   Things were looking a bit dicey but Paul’s negotiation skills were superb and he managed to convince the officer to allow us to complete our check-in virtually as we had been doing all the way down the coast.  And the icing on the cake?   The officer gave us our clearance for all the way to Fort Lauderdale.  Awesome!  This means we won’t have to talk to an officer for a couple of weeks!   With that business out of the way we could relax and look forward to enjoying the week’s festivities.

The St. Mary’s Yacht Club members do a fantastic job of welcoming cruising boats to the harbour.  We were given a schedule of events for each day and encouraged to join in the fun!   A yacht club member drove us to the laundromat, grocery store, post office and hardware store.   All these places were not within walking distance so the rides were very much appreciated!  We were told this service was not just for Thanksgiving.   Keep the phone numbers and anytime we find ourselves in the area give the yacht club a call and they would send a member out to take us anywhere we needed to go.    So nice!  

Greg & Glenda (Paradigm Shift) joined us in the anchorage and together with Bruce & Terry (Charisma new name Fortuna) we joined in the daily meet ups at the Southern Riverwalk Bar & Grill for sun-downers.  It was great to see old friends and meet some new ones!    The general store had a fantastic ice cream shop attached to it and I can say we may or may not have made it past the ice cream on those evenings.

Meet Poppet, the Bagel.....Beagle Basset hound mix and commander of SV Charisma/Fortuna 

The premier event for the week was Thanksgiving potluck dinner.  The yacht club members prepared Turkeys and Hams while the boaters provided side dishes and desserts.  It was a feast!   Then we were sent home with a container of left over meat!   We were pretty happy about that because everyone knows the best part of turkey dinner is the turkey sandwiches the next day!

We had ordered new solar panels that were to be delivered to St. Mary’s but the shipment got delayed too many times and we ended up re-ordering for delivery to Vero Beach.   With that taken care of we got underway on Friday Nov 29 to make our way to our next stop …… St. Augustine!