Day 14 - Georgia on My Mind, continued......

We left Kilkenny Creek Marina early this morning after a beautiful sunrise. The local fishermen were up early and there was quite a bit of activity at the marina. Our departure was uneventful. We met up with more traffic on the water than previous days, both commercial fishermen as well as fellow ICW travelers. 

We had a few "trouble" spots to navigate, but the water was high enough that we got through without "polishing the props." We crossed a few sounds that were open to the ocean and were a little choppy due to the easterly winds. We took it pretty slow through the Little Mud River, following a couple of sailboats that were going typical sailboat speed. There are some tricky shoal areas and we didn't want to crowd them. We reduced speed and enjoyed the sights.Based on their movement, we could tell they were following some of the same recommendations from Bob423. Once through the river, we made some courteous passes and sped up to make some time. 

The most interesting sight of the day was when we crossed  St. Simons Sound Inlet and saw the salvage work being done on the auto carrier ship "Golden Ray" that grounded there last year. Apparently, they are unable to remove the ship intact, so they are slicing it into smaller pieces to remove. A large saw that can slice through the entire ship is onsite to do the work. It was quite a sight.

After heading a short distance up the Brunswick River, we turned down Jekyll Creek and headed for Jekyll Harbor Marina, our destination for tonight. Jekyll Creek is known to have many shallow areas, but fortunately we made the trek during high tide and had no problem. There was quite a current and wind to deal with when docking, but a couple of capable dockhands helped us get tied up securely.

The marina offers complimentary golf carts to tour around the island, so we took advantage of it and saw some of the historic sights. As with many of these coastal islands, the history includes winter homes of the rich and famous and the Jekyll Island Club. Some of the members included J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, William K. Vanderbilt, Marshall Field, and William Rockefeller. As expected, the "cottages" were beautiful as was the club, and all were surrounded by gorgeous live oak trees draped in Spanish moss. We passed many other modest homes on our tour. The island seems very quiet, although I imagine it is quite busy on summer weekends.

Tomorrow we reach our final destination of Jacksonville, but tonight we enjoy another sunset. We will have to bid farewell to the marina mascot rooster that hangs out around the marina office.