Georgia

Hi everyone,
Well we have actually just crossed the border into Florida!!! Yay! Georgia was the only state we haven't had bad weather in so far but that's probably because we went like mad to get out of it as fast as possible as it was cold!! We did Georgia in about 4 days! Lots of people said it would take at least 8! Georgia is all marsh land and swamps. Some of it very pretty, some of it not so great. Mostly had to anchor in creeks which was very nice and away from civilization but difficult to land the dogs. So we had some challenges. First of all since about S. Carolina we have discovered sand spurs- which I can't remember if I've already mentioned so bear with me. They are super spikey mace like burrs that stab you. Also the Eastern USA is the tics are terrible!! We stopped first in a creek and tried to land the dogs. Everyone came back covered in mud!! And I mean covered- thick sticky mud that won't come off and the kids sunk so deep they almost couldn't get out. This of course ment a 2 hour session of scrubbing down the dinghy and rinsing clothes in the creek!! The second night we swore we would only go to a dog friendly anchorage. Went into a creek next to St. Catherines island- this turned out to be an old experimental island that they did animal testin on!! Talk about creepy- gov't buildings and houses of cages, the foliage looked like it was straight out of Jurassic park movie! Anyways, CRAWLING with tics and no-see-ums that viciously bite. So ran out of there pretty fast. The next day into another creek with an old fort- had a dinghy dock but it went dry and mudflat at low tide with the dock high above your head- so could only walk the dogs at hight tide. And you guessed it tics and sand spurs. What fun!
The tides around here are about 8-9 feet!! So you really have to watch your anchoring!! What looked deep and okay could be a mud flat in a few hours!
The route in Georgia is very convaluted and there are almost no trees- you can see across the whole marsh. So you wander from green buoy to red buoy all day watching a parade of other boats in front of you turn differnet directions as we all have to take the absolute longest route from point A to point B!!!
Well today we had to cross two choppy sounds (the inlets from the ocean) and had some rain. But we made it. We are in Fernandina Beach, Florida. And what a welcome- you turn the corner from the ocean sound straight to continued swamp land with a gigantic and disgusting pulp and paper mill!! Apparantly Florida has four areas- the first coast, the space coast, treasure coast and the gold coast. The guide book said to put thoughts and images of Florida on hold when you get into the first coast!!
But don't get me wrong, we are very happy to be here and I can't believe that we made it this far. We've had lots of challenges and trials but have made it through. We were able to call Trace- we couldn't find a phone so the manager of the marina restaurant let me use his cell- isn't that cool- and she is arranging Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party tickets for all of us. The kids are so happy, they were worried that they would sell out before we could arrange it- the WIFI connections are never secure and I prefer to have a ground line which we can't find!!
So all is well so far, will continue on tomorrow and we are heading towards St. Augustine and then Titusville- which is as close to Orlando as we can get by water.