May 6, 2020 -After our stay at Jekyll Island, we made a short run up toward Brunswick, GA for fuel before continuing on.
As we came out the river, we were able to see the salvage operation going on for the Golden Ray, a car carrier ship that capsized and ran aground back on September 8, 2019. It is being cut into pieces to be loaded on barges and hauled away, as they determined that it could not be righted/floated off the sandbar.
There is quite an interesting story about the harbor pilot who managed to get the capsizing ship onto the sandbar rather than in the middle of the channel, and how he helped in the rescue of the crew. See that article here: Charleston SC-born harbor pilot is hero of Georgia cargo ship capsize
We soon got to a notorious section of the ICW, historically prone to shoaling, called Hell Gate. Chantale was at the helm, and brought us through unscathed.
Continuing on our way, we passed the town of Thunderbolt , located along the Wilmington River section of the intracoastal waterway, leading from the Atlantic Ocean to the City of Savannah.
Wikipedia: According to tradition, Thunderbolt was named from an incident when lightning strike caused a spring to open up.[7] A pretty cool name for a town.
We saw a number of megayachts docked at Thunderbolt Marine here, including this one.
Looking at the name, Ben was intrigued. Perhaps somebody who made his money in the biotech industry?
A little Googling yielded the owner to be Dr Jonathan Rothberg, an American chemical engineer and biologist, inventor and entrepreneur.
This article gives some more insights into the owner and the yacht: On board with Jonathan Rothberg, owner of 55m explorer yacht Gene Machine