May 4, 2020 – Today we crossed the Florida line into Georgia. Looking back, we’ve been in Florida since we arrived at Pensacola on November 12, almost 6 months ago! From there it was 889 miles down to Boca Chica, our southernmost stop, and 581 miles back up the Eastern side. More than a quarter of all the miles we have traveled on the Loop so far – Florida is a big state!
As we have gotten into northern Florida, we have gone from heavily developed urban and suburban waterways, relatively straight and defined, to a much more natural, rural and meandering scene. Whereas in some parts of Florida the tides are a foot or less, the water raises twice a day here eight feet or more! We tend to focus on what that means for navigating, but there are fascinating natural aspects of this that we will have a chance to observe.
As briefly described in a very nice article, linked here, “Georgia salt marshes are flat, extensive coastal “prairies” dominated by a tall, marine-adapted grass, smooth cordgrass”
Another article, from the National Park Service, points out that there are actually two major zones in the marsh – the high and the low marsh. These two areas are delineated by the vegetation type, which is an indication of the daily water coverage.
The high marsh is covered with water only at the highest tides, which occur when the moon is new or full and during stormy weather. It has sandy soil and a high diversity of plants. These include sea oxeye, glasswort or sea pickle, needle rush and saltwort.
The low marsh is flooded with salt water for 6-8 hours per day. There is only one kind of plant that has adapted to survive this – Spartina alternaflora (smooth cordgrass), making it a true, natural monoculture.
Just over the Georgia line, we passed Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay naval, home to many of the Navy’s Ohio-class nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines (so-called ‘boomers’), as well as guided missile submarines.
We were able to see some of the facilities as we cruised by, but fortunately there were no subs transiting in or out, as their accompanying security zones (as we found out when departing Norfolk almost a year ago) can dictate the pace of passing by the area, and the tide was running pretty hard here. Our speed was way down, because of that, and it would have been especially troublesome to also contend with a nuclear sub in the channel!
Unfortunately, green-head flies are also one of the natural phenomena; one minute we are cruising along happily, and the next, we are swatting away, and rigging some makeshift screens on the sides of the flybridge. We put some new batteries in the electric zapper, kept fly swatters at the ready, and broke out the bug jackets, just in case.
We end the day after a short cruise by docking at the Jekyll Harbor Marina, on Jekyll Island, for a two night stay.
