Ft. George Island State Park Anchorage N39 26.399 W81 26.294
It was a quiet night last night. I listened to the sound of the chain under the boat and dozed on and off. The anchor alarm jolted me awake at 6:10am and I roused Wayne – telling him we were dragging. How do you know? The anchor alarm is going off. “Anchors away my boy, aaaanchors awayyyyy…” was merrily playing in the cockpit as I raced up top to turn it off. It shocked me because we had two anchors out. It looked like we’d moved 75m on the chart plotter (parts of a mile) and had swung to the opposite side of the river (upstream) with the change in tide. Wayne went back to bed. I decided to stay up top to make sure we didn’t go past the green #5 marker. I made coffee and sat topside in my foul weather gear (it was raining).
The morning was cloudy with patchy fog and rain so I set out my containers to capture rainwater and read my last Janet Evanovich book onboard “Motor Mouth”. Two of the fishermen from yesterday were on the banks of the river before daybreak. I watched them in the sheets of rain, jockeying around with their umbrellas and setting up their poles. I fell or slid off the steps coming back down the stairs into the cabin. Thump. Wedged soundly between the bagged garbage, boots, and on top of the tool bag. I couldn’t move and yelled for Wayne to help me. Ankle, knee, shoulders and ribs were all screaming at me. They weren’t meant to be wedged into the quarter berth garage in this position. I’ll look cute in a tank top and cutoffs. Black and blue on 3/4s of my body and no color on the other quarter.
Bruises aside. This is really a pretty anchorage. The tidal currents are strong and the tidal range varies between 5-6 feet causing us to be vigilant with our swing when the tide goes in and out (hence the two anchors). The birds and fish appear to love it – they’re abundant in this river along the front of the plantation. The weather we were expecting (other than the rain) didn’t materialize. Tornados didn’t appear and gale winds didn’t blow. Maybe they will during the nighttime. There’s supposed to be some violent weather but so far, it’s just been rain. The wind generator hasn’t showed evidence of those 30-knot winds they were predicting. We read and took the dinghy off the deck and put her on the davits on the back of the boat. Yay! I’ll be able to see again!
The plantation houses on shore look to be in terrific shape. Makes sense though considering it’s a state park now. I guess I should mention a little of the history here. Ft. George Island is a two-mile long island that began as a subtropical jungle. It was under Spanish missionary domination, then became an English outpost with the building of Fort St George on the north end of the island. In the 1800s it became a plantation. Kingsley Plantation. It is the oldest plantation house in Florida (built in 1813). It still stands including the main house, kitchen house, barn and the ruins of 25 slave cabins. The owner (Zephaniah Kingsley) argued that blacks were the mental equals of whites but still felt they were destined to be slaves. He ruled his own kingdom here, training thousands of slaves as artisans. He allowed them to keep part of the profits of their work but also turned around and sold the slaves as “skilled” for premium prices. He fought for civil rights for the freed men but continued to profit by buying and selling slaves. He married the daughter of an African chief and eventually moved to Hispaniola where their descendants still live. Break to today. It’s now run by the state and kept in pretty good shape.
Time to heat up the other half of the pork pie for dinner.
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