St Mary’s on a warm day

St Mary’s on a warm day

Friday 4th December 2020

St Mary’s, Georgia has a reputation for being friendly to boaters. In fact there is a long tradition of boaters gathering here to celebrate Thanksgiving. In part cruisers have congregated here in the late autumn because their boat insurance wouldn’t allow them to go south into Florida until December 1st and the end of hurricane season. However, I think that it also because this is such a lovely town and the people seem so welcoming. The anchorage itself is great with lots of room and good depth. The current runs strongly through here, but the holding is excellent and the town provides an easily accessible dinghy dock at the waterfront. Given all the positives we are a bit surprised to find that there is only one other cruising boat here in the anchorage (seen in the picture below). Maybe everyone else has already moved on. We bumped into Ron and Yvonne, the owners of the sailing vessel “As You Wish” at the dock this afternoon. Originally from Atlanta, they have made St Mary’s their home base and have been here since June preparing their boat for longer term cruising.

We wandered around the town this morning in T-shirts and shorts as the temperatures approached 70oF. It was lovely but wont last long as a series of cold fronts are due to move through the area in the next few days bring northerly winds and cooler temperatures. The town itself is quiet and pretty – a little like a smaller version of Beaufort, SC. We did a little grocery shopping at a local store and then found a café that was serving lunch outdoors. As it was so warm today we felt we should indulge, but after eating Carolina pork BBQ buns with coleslaw and fries we barely had enough energy to get back to the boat before falling into a food coma! Let’s just say the rest of the afternoon was a lazy affair! 

St Mary’s is the departure point for trips to Cumberland Island, which is a National Seashore park. We got some useful information from the park headquarters and saw a number of people ready to board the ferry with gear for a camping trip. We ourselves plan to go over there with Cotinga, anchor behind the island and use the dinghy to go ashore at the National Park docks. It looks like a great place to visit - maybe we’ll head over tomorrow or perhaps the day after - we just need to time it for decent weather.

Mike

30 43.017 N, 81 33.176 W

Sailing vessel "As You Wish" at anchor off St Mary's, Georgia in the early morning

Young man and his puppy in the town park St Mary's

Yellow crowned night heron ... this is the first time we have seen both yellow and black crowned night herons congregating in the same place.

Lizard on a pipe next to our lunch table