Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport

7 hr 36 min. To paraphrase Daniel Emmett, we're glad to be in the land of cotton! Another stupendous morning, and we slip the slip at around 0830 after Preston has cooked biscuits and sausage for breakfast. Well... it was supposed to be sausage, but Nina's fingers had apparently slipped when packing for Preston and we had a few burger patties in there as well. But we'll survive! We're heading for Midway, GA, today (actually, not so much 'Midway' as an historic old place called Sunbury), where we have bookings at both the local marina and the Sunbury Crab Co. restaurant, which Preston has advised we MUST dine at. And so we shall.

Our waitress last night at Zachrys at Jekyll Is marina introduced herself as 'Hollis', and what an excellent Georgian ambassador she was. With her accent (How y'all doin?), Graeme thought she'd said 'Haul-arse', and Lorraine had to caution the two of us against our sniggering.

Another cloudless day... scarcely a breeze. We depart and curve our way up the Mackay River, passing under a sight quite unique to Georgia... a bridge that has been closed and bypassed by a new structure high enough to accommodate the masts of sailboats on the ICW. The old bridge remains, with the channel spans removed, and exists as two stub-end fishing platforms.

Graeme and I obtain some advanced helm experience in confined and curving waterways. Hopefully. we'll get better... (from somewhere in the bowels of the boat, "Ferg... where are we goin'?"). Yessir, we can only improve...

The ICW, on this portion of our sinuous voyage, takes us from the Mackay River, across Altamaha Sound, up the Little Mud River, across Doboy Sound, up Old Teakettle Creek and then the Laurel View River to dock at rustic Sunbury.

G & L go 'into town' for a walk and look at the history (this used to be an important seaport), Preston goes up the dock for a swing and a chat with his wife, and I get some Aussie news on my laptop.

At 1830 we repair to the (very) nearby Sunbury Crab Co. restaurant, where proprietor Elaine welcomes ua and agrees to a shoulder-hug photo with me ("Watch where you're putting that hand, buster"). We had sausage and fried wings, then fried flounder, lobster sauce with shrimp, black-eyed peas and collard greens, blackened shrimp with fries, and local beers. No, we didn't all eat that... it was our bill.

Back to the boat to watch some TV and to sleep the sleep of the innocent.Read more