Splashed and Settled

November 4-10, 2016
St. Marys, GA to Palm Coast, FL
And we’re off…it’s another new snowbird season on Pelican. On October 6 when Hurricane Matthew blew through, we wondered if that would be the case this year.

Last-minute touch-up

Ready to splash

View of the beautiful Georgia marsh

“The storm” is still a frequent topic of conversation here. Our boatyard was spared by the timing of the hurricane. It hit at low tide, and just two feet of water flooded the yard. At high tide, with the seven-foot tidal range in southern Georgia, the storm surge would have floated all the boats off their jack stands.

Once we splashed and moved south, storm damage was unmistakable. The fearsome force of the surge snapped docks like popsicle sticks and tossed boats like toys. Fernandina Beach Marina, a favorite of many boaters on the northern edge of Florida, is closed indefinitely. St. Augustine was hard hit. Dozens of boats were carried into the marsh and stranded, while others fared worse or sank. Marinas that are up and running are filled to capacity.

Stranded

Not the prettiest or quietest anchorage ever

Happy to be under way

We’d made reservations last spring at Hammock Beach Marina in Palm Coast or we might have been turned away. Our project this fall is to have a new Bimini made with a frame that will accommodate solar panels, giving us the luxury of more electrical power at anchor. We’ll settle in here while the work is done.

The Marina at Hammock Beach Resort

Settled in for a while