St. Simon, GA

[Kevin's Post]We left Port Royal Saturday morning before sunrise and headed out the inlet to the open ocean. As the sun came up we saw just one other sailboat, they were coming down the ICW from the opposite direction toward the inlet and converging on our course. As it got closer we recognized it as another Manta. It is bizarre how frequently we see other Mantas considering how few there are. They were going a bit faster than us since we were only running one engine (no wind)and they were out of sight within a few hours. In the afternoon we saw our first real whale. We saw pilot whales last spring, but I don't count those since they are barely bigger than a dolphin. Amanda spotted it and we both saw it spout water 10 feet in the air. Then as I ran to get the camera, it flipped its tail in the air and disappeared so we didn't get any pictures. The new fish lures were a disappointment. They are designed to dive down and stay under 20-30 feet without a downrigger, but at the speeds we cruise at they pretty much just skip along the surface. The fish didn't show any interest, but given enough time I think I could have caught a bird. Birds were circling the lures all day and a few even dove down and tried to pick them up. We went in St. Catherines sound to anchor for the night in Walburg Creek.

Sunday morning we left before sunrise again to make the most of the short day. We had made reservations at Golden Isles marina in St. Simon for Sunday night as the weather forecast was starting to look ugly. The NOAA weather synopsis kept ominously referring to a 'significant marine event' for the beginning of the week. In this part of Georgia all the anchorages have really strong currents and very little wind protection so we decided to hole up at a marina. They are currently forecasting 50 knot winds for tomorrow.

Where we are:
Location=St. Simon, GA
Lat=31 09.972 N
Lon=81 24.892 W