| Travels of Dursmirg |
VOL. 2, CHAPTERS 1-3
CHAPTER 1 TIMELINE JUNE 1973
***
Jane and I had been living aboard our boat the Dursmirg for 10 months now and the boat was our one and only
home. Anywhere we were together we were home. Free to roam, these 10 months without a car or any business
encumbrances or dry land anchors was turning out to be the very best times of our lives. I was 32 and Jane was 28
years old. With no encumbrances and everything we owned aboard our boat, we paid no rent to anchor where we
pleased and above all we had the free time to go fishing and pursue our desires.
When we were building our boat many people would come by to visit; I always thought that was a nice gesture. Most
of the time, after half an hour or so, I would ask why they had paid us a visit; sometimes their reply was that they
came by “just to kill some time”. Whose time? These were the same people that never had an original thought in
their entire life and had absolutely no agenda for their lives. I got the feeling that they must have been brain dead at
birth or just had atrophied craniums from total lack of use. We on the other hand were very focused and highly
motivated with a deadline in sight and many times turned down offers for outings that would have been extremely fun
and entertaining because we were going to escape while we still had our youth. Over the years we encountered
many boat builders that had put ten or even fifteen years of their lives into their dream boat and we figured that life
just wasn’t long enough to sacrifice that many years to any boat or dream…this was our time and we were going to
take it!
These youthful years would be rapidly flying by and we had not waited for the perfect yacht or until we were 65
years old to taste the freedom and the fresh air of adventure.
You are only young one time; some people think they are going to live forever but we felt it was far better not to take
any chances.
Looking back over the years, I have many times lamented that Jane and I didn’t have our lifetime’s accumulated
knowledge when we first met nearly 40 years earlier.
Yes, now I could design the perfect yacht, financially our vision is clearer than 20/20, but when we stack our
accomplishments and adventures up against anyone else we have ever met we come up the unconditional winners
in every way.
This was not a new page, a new chapter or a new book but a new life for us. We were now living our dream and
having the adventures we had never even dreamed possible before.
Several months before we sailed away I had received from my auto insurance company a gold key inscribed with the
words, “IN RECOGNITION OF A MERITORIOUS DRIVING RECORD”.
In my previous business I drove an average of 250 miles a day and had done that for over 12 years with no
infractions or accidents. That was enough and it would be ten years before we again owned another motor vehicle.
My friends all said that I would never be able to change my workaholic lifestyle, (the friends that weren’t whispering
behind my back that we were crazy leaving our lucrative business behind).
It did take me 6 months of dedicated effort to slow down, take time to enjoy books, not just read them, savor food,
not just eat meals, and have the time to socialize with people living out their dreams.
Our timing couldn’t have been better for escaping on our boat adventure as events of the world unfolded. Three
very dark clouds hung over the country.
1. The Vietnam War was raging and seriously dividing the country.
2. The first of two Arab oil embargos was making gasoline and all petroleum products very expensive and scarce.
We were very impressed at the capitalistic ingenuity when it came to selling
$2.00 a gallon gasoline. Ingeniously the venders put a limit on how much the customers could buy at a time and
then the panicked clientele eagerly and patiently would stand in long lines more than a block long to purchase their
dearly beloved gasoline at these rip off prices…amazing!
3. The next thing that drove down the standard of living for the American public was this new run away tax that was
stealing from young and old alike. Inflation was the government’s clever way of printing money in excessive
quantities to pay for their excesses and in the end the American consumer got their chance to foot the bill for the
greedy excesses of the politicians.
Until this point in our lives we had not yet met anyone that dared to make the step beyond just plodding along and
letting the currents of life’s forces drift them off to their ultimate destination.
Now we were amongst the brave souls that actually dared to dream a dream and eagerly fling open that door of
opportunity to chase a radiant ray of glimmering light illuminating the path to self-fulfillment.
There had been strong forces acting upon our Dursmirg from the very beginning.
In the processes of building Dursmirg we were little by little increasing its mass and thus building in to it more and
more weight that increased the actual force of gravity…(Oh, my God, it was becoming heavy!)
With the force of gravity working directly upon our creation a new and ominously silent force was at work. This would
be one of the forces most difficult to overcome and reckon with and the one force that is a killer of dreams and
plunderer of adventures. This second force resists all attempts to alter its state of being but once forced into
movement it then resists the powers to halt it. With a stubborn and persistent one mindedness and focused
determination, Jane and I overpowered this force of inertia. Gravity and inertia took on new dynamics when
confronted with the third force we subjected our creation to upon launching Dursmirg; that was buoyancy.
With radio and television coverage plus a large crowd of dooms-day skeptics that came out to witness the sinking,
not the launching or the “goring of the matador” Jane and I had a triumphant day as the slack came out of the lifting
slings and Dursmirg was launched; then showed its force of buoyancy. In the coming months there would be much
more to come in regard to the forces that when properly applied and directed would propel our new creation to
distant ports in all seasons and at the same time confronting the forces of Mother Nature herself.
The mast and rigging went up and changed our center of gravity. Now the center of gravity would be in a state of
constant flux with relation to the center of buoyancy thus giving us our metacentric height and moment of return.
As our vessel wallowed in the surging seas where pitch and yaw coupled with rock and roll gave dynamics to our
constant motion, the center of lateral resistance fought a battle against the center of effort. With engine power these
internal forces quickly settled into a predictable state of equilibrium. With sail power, the dynamics of flux and
change were alive and well.
Under sail Dursmirg was like a living thing, silently and deliberately driven by the forces of nature.
With time we would feel the pulse and discern the heart beat of Dursmirg as it waltzed along as submissive partner
with Mother Nature.
My definition of the law of inertia; “bodies that are in motion tend to stay in motion”.
***
A note about the following story; names may have been changed to protect the guilty and the reader must certainly
read between the lines…always a treacherous place to look for truths.
On the subject of truth; “many a truth has been spoken in jest!”
OPENING STATEMENT /INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME 2
Jane and I were about to embark on the most adventuresome, fun and fulfilling times of our lives.
We start this segment in the spring of 1973 and journey north up the east coast of Florida, Georgia and into South
Carolina.
Because of the nature of our travels and many return visits we have made over the years, we have arranged the
narrative to follow from island to island and place to place along these islands. We will devote a chapter to our first
sailing cruise up and back down the coast our first year of cruising the Sea Islands using our log to chronicle our
travels by date. Next our stories are compounded over the years at each location from south to north expanding
upon our many adventures at each place in the following chapters.
Exploring the Sea Islands was done by following the Intracoastal Waterway and finding anchorages that provided
seclusion plus protection from foul weather. We soon discovered that the slower we went the more fun we had. We
once spent six weeks traveling from Saint Augustine to Savannah anchoring at places where fishing, beach combing
and exploring were interspersed with our self-indulgence of reading, hobby crafts and the production of our own
wine and beer that made this lifestyle as good as it gets.
By contrast, we also had the option of sailing offshore, which we have done and that made a lot of sense for rapid
transit but in this particular part of the world if you happened to be close enough to shore to be able to see it, you
were definitely too close and for sure too shallow.
As I always used to say about sailing offshore; “it’s all scenery…there is nothing to obstruct your view and you can
see a long ways… but you can’t see much”.
With the help of the letters Jane wrote to her parents interspersed with numerous photos, we add thoughts,
comments and observations in the places headed by, (Oh, by the way!)
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents: (before we began cruising the Sea Islands)
1973 May 15 (Saint Augustine)
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
I tried without success to call you and wish you a happy Mothers Day-all the circuits were busy. I tried many times
but couldn’t get through.
We’ve been very busy lately. I went with Bing on a new 75-foot shrimp boat to Tampa.
It took us 59 1/2 hours non-stop. I really enjoyed the trip. The first day out it was quite rough but it calmed down and
the rest of the way was very nice.
After we got back we took a 23-foot sailboat to Fort Lauderdale via the Intracoastals Waterway.
That was an exciting trip too as we broke the mast. We had winds up to 53 miles an hour, the sails up and the back
chain plate was rusted and broke. It took us two days to fix the mast then the wind switched and we had to motor and
the fuel pump went on the engine, so we had a lot of excitement. Although we were gone over two weeks, a couple
of days after we got back Don and Betty Currie from Duluth showed up on their boat. They are tied up here at the
boat yard with us.
Thursday we are going to leave here and anchor out until the 22nd and then we are leaving for Fernandina Beach,
Florida to haul and paint both our boats. After that we are just going to cruise for the summer. We will probably go
north as far as Annapolis, Maryland and also go to Washington, D.C. to visit “Tricky Dick’s" place.
Besides all the work we have been doing on the boat we have been crewing on a shrimp boat and getting all of the
fresh fish and shrimp we can eat.
I was wondering when we start traveling if we could forward our mail to you and have you hold it for us.
I will send money to cover the postage and then I could call you or drop you a line and let you know when to forward
it to us. Let me know if you would do it. The post office will only hold mail 10 days and then they send it back or dead
letter it. Jerry and Bonnie Peterson took care of our mail last summer for us but they just opened a new business in
Washburn and are moving there so they are awfully busy.
The weather has been beautiful lately-between 70 and 90 all the time. I’ve even gotten a suntan instead of sunburn.
Well, I have to get on my bike and go get groceries and the mail.
Hope everyone is OK. Maybe I’ll try calling you again soon.
Love Jane and Bing
CHAPTER 2
OUR FIRST SUMMER OF CRUISING
At 0700 hours on May 22nd 1973 our anchor was up and we were proceeding through the Bridge of Lions heading
north in the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) and leaving Saint Augustine, Florida after our first whole winter away from
snow and ice.
A wonderful new world of experiences of changing tacks awaited us as we were now sailing through life into those
strange and uncertain uncharted waters of life where we would have one of the most precious commodities of all,
the time to enjoy it to its fullest.
There is an affliction that grips sailors who linger too long in one place that becomes harder and harder to recover
from and we felt its affects as we pulled our anchor this May morning.
“Harbor Fever” is the term and I can attest to its debilitating effects that induce complacency and an apathetic
sensation that we have witnessed. I have seen many a sailor let their boats die at the dock afflicted by this malady.
A thousand obstacles will present themselves if determination and desire can’t mount the effort required to break
that spellbinding infatuation with its invisible shackles of self-incarceration captivating those afflicted sailors.
Temptation to remain in a place where we just had the time of our lives and made scores of new friends was enticing
and beckoning us to linger.
Here Jane and I had different feelings on this subject of taking departure. I always felt an uplifting feeling of well
being and euphoria like a flower opening to embrace the morning sun when we were leaving anyplace and had
somewhat of an anticlimactic sensation upon arrival at our new destination. In this Jane was opposite but with the
passing years she too has come around to share my exact same sediments on this subject.
With the extra effort that included provisioning, swimming down for three days in a row to scrape and clean the
bottom and propeller of our boat so that it would indeed be able to move, we were under way and I felt great on this
great day to be alive and free aboard our dream boat with my very best friend and pal, my wife Jane.
At 1645 that warm and sunny spring afternoon we set our anchor at Fernandina Beach, Florida and “Harbor Fever”
was gone along with its symptoms.
***
A letter Jane wrote to her parents: (after our arrival in the Sea Islands)
1973 May 30 (Sea Islands-Fernandina Beach)
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
It was sure nice to talk to you last week. Well, we made it to Fernandina Beach last Tuesday, (May 22). We
had a real good trip. We still haven’t been hauled out yet. However, I think we will be hauled on Friday or
Monday. It depends on the weather. It’s been terribly windy and it’s hard to haul under those conditions.
We are anchored across from the town of Fernandina Beach. We’ve been having a good time here. It’s really
a nice town. No tourists and its more like Georgia than Florida. Betty and Don Currie from Duluth are here
too. Don was hauled here last Wednesday but has to be hauled again because he knocked a hole in his
keel. Another couple we know on a sailboat from Saint Augustine are also here. Plus we have met a lot of
people since we got here. There is one interesting sailboat from Denmark here; it’s an old sailing schooner.
Six young men own it and sailed it here from Denmark last winter. We also met a man from England who
sailed a Ferro-cement boat that he built himself to West Palm Beach, Florida from England. We’ve also been
aboard a $600,000 yacht! (It’s like a three bedroom home that floats).
We have our bikes on shore so we’ve used them a lot. The police department lets us lock them in their
garage at night.
This is a very friendly place. Although Bing got called a “Yankee” because we didn’t stand up when “Dixie”
was being played and sung at a local saloon.
I don’t know how long we’ll be here but you can write to me at: general delivery Fernandina Beach, Florida
32034. It will just come back to you if we have left. I expect we will be here a while.
Hope everyone is fine and the garden is growing.
Love Jane and Bing
I bet Joel is glad that school is almost out.
***
Our Dursmirg was up on the marine railway at Rawl’s Boatyard in Fernandina, Beach, Florida from June 11th until
June 14th while we busily painted its bottom and replaced the propeller shaft and its log complete with new cutlass
bearings and packing gland.
Considering that I had taken a crash course in marine engineering and design it was remarkable that our
homemade and contrived vessel didn’t have even more things that needed upgrading.
I could at least take some sense of satisfaction knowing that what we had homemade and assembled did indeed get
us this far without any upgrades or re-calls…more than can be said for Detroit’s end products designed and
produced by high paid graduate engineers.
***
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
On June 18th after we had let the cement surrounding our new propeller shaft log harden up sufficiently we cranked
up our engine and took departure from Rawl’s Boatyard at 11 AM to catch the high tide and say good-by to Amelia
Island, Florida.
That afternoon we had an early quit when we dropped our anchor in Delaroche Creek in Georgia in 11 feet of water
at low tide. The quiet and solitude of the Sea Islands surrounded us and we had our little private island to
ourselves…peace on earth!
At 0930 the following morning Jane and I took a leisurely departure planned to take the best advantage of the
strong tides and maximize their affect to our advantage as we headed north to
Jekyll Island where we tied up at the local municipal marina rafted off next to an old well worn shrimp boat named
Rover.
Jekyll Island is a quiet residential area so we bicycled around to take in the “Down-South” atmosphere and do some
shopping. We were surprised to find that we were the only transit yacht that stayed the night at the marina and it felt
good to see that we were at least escaping the tourist crowd because we wanted to mingle with the natives and
savor the out back atmosphere.
After some recommendations and scrutinizing of the charts, Jane and I again headed north the next day, June 20th
to a place that became one of our favorite anchorages in the coming years. Well off the Intracoastal Waterway on
the Frederica River is a lovely and quiet anchorage situated in a protected bend of the river sheltered by ancient
oak trees hanging heavy with Spanish moss.
Fort Frederica National Monument conserves the early British settlement of Oglethorpe and I will discuss this place
later in this volume as I expand on our Sea Island adventures.
***
A LETTER JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS;
1973 June 21 (Sea Islands-Fort Frederica)
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
We are underway again, heading north. We got the boat back in the water on the 14th.
Judy, Dick, Mike, Jeff and Kelly showed up on the 13th just in time to help us paint the bottom.
It was sure nice to see them again. We are going to try to make connections with them again in Savannah.
Right now we are anchored on the Frederica River, 12 miles from Brunswick, Georgia. We have been here
two days just taking it easy. I sewed, (by hand), a big hat out of sailcloth to keep the sun from burning my
face. The rest of my body tans, but my face and nose just stay bright red!
There is an interesting old fort across from where we are anchored, Fort Frederica National
Monument, which we visited yesterday by dinghy. We will be moving on soon to Savannah and stay there
awhile as we have friends there.
Could you forward what mail we have accumulated to us in care of Jim Muller, 120 E. 46th St., Savannah,
Ga. 31405. Jim helped us bring the boat to Saint Augustine last December.
I’m sending you some money to defray the cost of handling the mail.
How’s the weather in Wisconsin? It sure is nice here, however it took me a while to get used to the heat. I
understand why the southerners move slowly, the heat will kill you if you move fast –and believe me nothing
moves fast in the South.
Hope everyone’s okay and you are enjoying the summer, we are.
Love Jane and Bing
It’s hard to believe that Dursmirg will have been in the water one year tomorrow! And the cement is still
floating!
Say Hi to Grandma, what is she up to this summer?
CHAPTER 1 TIMELINE JUNE 1973
***
Jane and I had been living aboard our boat the Dursmirg for 10 months now and the boat was our one and only
home. Anywhere we were together we were home. Free to roam, these 10 months without a car or any business
encumbrances or dry land anchors was turning out to be the very best times of our lives. I was 32 and Jane was 28
years old. With no encumbrances and everything we owned aboard our boat, we paid no rent to anchor where we
pleased and above all we had the free time to go fishing and pursue our desires.
When we were building our boat many people would come by to visit; I always thought that was a nice gesture. Most
of the time, after half an hour or so, I would ask why they had paid us a visit; sometimes their reply was that they
came by “just to kill some time”. Whose time? These were the same people that never had an original thought in
their entire life and had absolutely no agenda for their lives. I got the feeling that they must have been brain dead at
birth or just had atrophied craniums from total lack of use. We on the other hand were very focused and highly
motivated with a deadline in sight and many times turned down offers for outings that would have been extremely fun
and entertaining because we were going to escape while we still had our youth. Over the years we encountered
many boat builders that had put ten or even fifteen years of their lives into their dream boat and we figured that life
just wasn’t long enough to sacrifice that many years to any boat or dream…this was our time and we were going to
take it!
These youthful years would be rapidly flying by and we had not waited for the perfect yacht or until we were 65
years old to taste the freedom and the fresh air of adventure.
You are only young one time; some people think they are going to live forever but we felt it was far better not to take
any chances.
Looking back over the years, I have many times lamented that Jane and I didn’t have our lifetime’s accumulated
knowledge when we first met nearly 40 years earlier.
Yes, now I could design the perfect yacht, financially our vision is clearer than 20/20, but when we stack our
accomplishments and adventures up against anyone else we have ever met we come up the unconditional winners
in every way.
This was not a new page, a new chapter or a new book but a new life for us. We were now living our dream and
having the adventures we had never even dreamed possible before.
Several months before we sailed away I had received from my auto insurance company a gold key inscribed with the
words, “IN RECOGNITION OF A MERITORIOUS DRIVING RECORD”.
In my previous business I drove an average of 250 miles a day and had done that for over 12 years with no
infractions or accidents. That was enough and it would be ten years before we again owned another motor vehicle.
My friends all said that I would never be able to change my workaholic lifestyle, (the friends that weren’t whispering
behind my back that we were crazy leaving our lucrative business behind).
It did take me 6 months of dedicated effort to slow down, take time to enjoy books, not just read them, savor food,
not just eat meals, and have the time to socialize with people living out their dreams.
Our timing couldn’t have been better for escaping on our boat adventure as events of the world unfolded. Three
very dark clouds hung over the country.
1. The Vietnam War was raging and seriously dividing the country.
2. The first of two Arab oil embargos was making gasoline and all petroleum products very expensive and scarce.
We were very impressed at the capitalistic ingenuity when it came to selling
$2.00 a gallon gasoline. Ingeniously the venders put a limit on how much the customers could buy at a time and
then the panicked clientele eagerly and patiently would stand in long lines more than a block long to purchase their
dearly beloved gasoline at these rip off prices…amazing!
3. The next thing that drove down the standard of living for the American public was this new run away tax that was
stealing from young and old alike. Inflation was the government’s clever way of printing money in excessive
quantities to pay for their excesses and in the end the American consumer got their chance to foot the bill for the
greedy excesses of the politicians.
Until this point in our lives we had not yet met anyone that dared to make the step beyond just plodding along and
letting the currents of life’s forces drift them off to their ultimate destination.
Now we were amongst the brave souls that actually dared to dream a dream and eagerly fling open that door of
opportunity to chase a radiant ray of glimmering light illuminating the path to self-fulfillment.
There had been strong forces acting upon our Dursmirg from the very beginning.
In the processes of building Dursmirg we were little by little increasing its mass and thus building in to it more and
more weight that increased the actual force of gravity…(Oh, my God, it was becoming heavy!)
With the force of gravity working directly upon our creation a new and ominously silent force was at work. This would
be one of the forces most difficult to overcome and reckon with and the one force that is a killer of dreams and
plunderer of adventures. This second force resists all attempts to alter its state of being but once forced into
movement it then resists the powers to halt it. With a stubborn and persistent one mindedness and focused
determination, Jane and I overpowered this force of inertia. Gravity and inertia took on new dynamics when
confronted with the third force we subjected our creation to upon launching Dursmirg; that was buoyancy.
With radio and television coverage plus a large crowd of dooms-day skeptics that came out to witness the sinking,
not the launching or the “goring of the matador” Jane and I had a triumphant day as the slack came out of the lifting
slings and Dursmirg was launched; then showed its force of buoyancy. In the coming months there would be much
more to come in regard to the forces that when properly applied and directed would propel our new creation to
distant ports in all seasons and at the same time confronting the forces of Mother Nature herself.
The mast and rigging went up and changed our center of gravity. Now the center of gravity would be in a state of
constant flux with relation to the center of buoyancy thus giving us our metacentric height and moment of return.
As our vessel wallowed in the surging seas where pitch and yaw coupled with rock and roll gave dynamics to our
constant motion, the center of lateral resistance fought a battle against the center of effort. With engine power these
internal forces quickly settled into a predictable state of equilibrium. With sail power, the dynamics of flux and
change were alive and well.
Under sail Dursmirg was like a living thing, silently and deliberately driven by the forces of nature.
With time we would feel the pulse and discern the heart beat of Dursmirg as it waltzed along as submissive partner
with Mother Nature.
My definition of the law of inertia; “bodies that are in motion tend to stay in motion”.
***
A note about the following story; names may have been changed to protect the guilty and the reader must certainly
read between the lines…always a treacherous place to look for truths.
On the subject of truth; “many a truth has been spoken in jest!”
OPENING STATEMENT /INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME 2
Jane and I were about to embark on the most adventuresome, fun and fulfilling times of our lives.
We start this segment in the spring of 1973 and journey north up the east coast of Florida, Georgia and into South
Carolina.
Because of the nature of our travels and many return visits we have made over the years, we have arranged the
narrative to follow from island to island and place to place along these islands. We will devote a chapter to our first
sailing cruise up and back down the coast our first year of cruising the Sea Islands using our log to chronicle our
travels by date. Next our stories are compounded over the years at each location from south to north expanding
upon our many adventures at each place in the following chapters.
Exploring the Sea Islands was done by following the Intracoastal Waterway and finding anchorages that provided
seclusion plus protection from foul weather. We soon discovered that the slower we went the more fun we had. We
once spent six weeks traveling from Saint Augustine to Savannah anchoring at places where fishing, beach combing
and exploring were interspersed with our self-indulgence of reading, hobby crafts and the production of our own
wine and beer that made this lifestyle as good as it gets.
By contrast, we also had the option of sailing offshore, which we have done and that made a lot of sense for rapid
transit but in this particular part of the world if you happened to be close enough to shore to be able to see it, you
were definitely too close and for sure too shallow.
As I always used to say about sailing offshore; “it’s all scenery…there is nothing to obstruct your view and you can
see a long ways… but you can’t see much”.
With the help of the letters Jane wrote to her parents interspersed with numerous photos, we add thoughts,
comments and observations in the places headed by, (Oh, by the way!)
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents: (before we began cruising the Sea Islands)
1973 May 15 (Saint Augustine)
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
I tried without success to call you and wish you a happy Mothers Day-all the circuits were busy. I tried many times
but couldn’t get through.
We’ve been very busy lately. I went with Bing on a new 75-foot shrimp boat to Tampa.
It took us 59 1/2 hours non-stop. I really enjoyed the trip. The first day out it was quite rough but it calmed down and
the rest of the way was very nice.
After we got back we took a 23-foot sailboat to Fort Lauderdale via the Intracoastals Waterway.
That was an exciting trip too as we broke the mast. We had winds up to 53 miles an hour, the sails up and the back
chain plate was rusted and broke. It took us two days to fix the mast then the wind switched and we had to motor and
the fuel pump went on the engine, so we had a lot of excitement. Although we were gone over two weeks, a couple
of days after we got back Don and Betty Currie from Duluth showed up on their boat. They are tied up here at the
boat yard with us.
Thursday we are going to leave here and anchor out until the 22nd and then we are leaving for Fernandina Beach,
Florida to haul and paint both our boats. After that we are just going to cruise for the summer. We will probably go
north as far as Annapolis, Maryland and also go to Washington, D.C. to visit “Tricky Dick’s" place.
Besides all the work we have been doing on the boat we have been crewing on a shrimp boat and getting all of the
fresh fish and shrimp we can eat.
I was wondering when we start traveling if we could forward our mail to you and have you hold it for us.
I will send money to cover the postage and then I could call you or drop you a line and let you know when to forward
it to us. Let me know if you would do it. The post office will only hold mail 10 days and then they send it back or dead
letter it. Jerry and Bonnie Peterson took care of our mail last summer for us but they just opened a new business in
Washburn and are moving there so they are awfully busy.
The weather has been beautiful lately-between 70 and 90 all the time. I’ve even gotten a suntan instead of sunburn.
Well, I have to get on my bike and go get groceries and the mail.
Hope everyone is OK. Maybe I’ll try calling you again soon.
Love Jane and Bing
CHAPTER 2
OUR FIRST SUMMER OF CRUISING
At 0700 hours on May 22nd 1973 our anchor was up and we were proceeding through the Bridge of Lions heading
north in the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) and leaving Saint Augustine, Florida after our first whole winter away from
snow and ice.
A wonderful new world of experiences of changing tacks awaited us as we were now sailing through life into those
strange and uncertain uncharted waters of life where we would have one of the most precious commodities of all,
the time to enjoy it to its fullest.
There is an affliction that grips sailors who linger too long in one place that becomes harder and harder to recover
from and we felt its affects as we pulled our anchor this May morning.
“Harbor Fever” is the term and I can attest to its debilitating effects that induce complacency and an apathetic
sensation that we have witnessed. I have seen many a sailor let their boats die at the dock afflicted by this malady.
A thousand obstacles will present themselves if determination and desire can’t mount the effort required to break
that spellbinding infatuation with its invisible shackles of self-incarceration captivating those afflicted sailors.
Temptation to remain in a place where we just had the time of our lives and made scores of new friends was enticing
and beckoning us to linger.
Here Jane and I had different feelings on this subject of taking departure. I always felt an uplifting feeling of well
being and euphoria like a flower opening to embrace the morning sun when we were leaving anyplace and had
somewhat of an anticlimactic sensation upon arrival at our new destination. In this Jane was opposite but with the
passing years she too has come around to share my exact same sediments on this subject.
With the extra effort that included provisioning, swimming down for three days in a row to scrape and clean the
bottom and propeller of our boat so that it would indeed be able to move, we were under way and I felt great on this
great day to be alive and free aboard our dream boat with my very best friend and pal, my wife Jane.
At 1645 that warm and sunny spring afternoon we set our anchor at Fernandina Beach, Florida and “Harbor Fever”
was gone along with its symptoms.
***
A letter Jane wrote to her parents: (after our arrival in the Sea Islands)
1973 May 30 (Sea Islands-Fernandina Beach)
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
It was sure nice to talk to you last week. Well, we made it to Fernandina Beach last Tuesday, (May 22). We
had a real good trip. We still haven’t been hauled out yet. However, I think we will be hauled on Friday or
Monday. It depends on the weather. It’s been terribly windy and it’s hard to haul under those conditions.
We are anchored across from the town of Fernandina Beach. We’ve been having a good time here. It’s really
a nice town. No tourists and its more like Georgia than Florida. Betty and Don Currie from Duluth are here
too. Don was hauled here last Wednesday but has to be hauled again because he knocked a hole in his
keel. Another couple we know on a sailboat from Saint Augustine are also here. Plus we have met a lot of
people since we got here. There is one interesting sailboat from Denmark here; it’s an old sailing schooner.
Six young men own it and sailed it here from Denmark last winter. We also met a man from England who
sailed a Ferro-cement boat that he built himself to West Palm Beach, Florida from England. We’ve also been
aboard a $600,000 yacht! (It’s like a three bedroom home that floats).
We have our bikes on shore so we’ve used them a lot. The police department lets us lock them in their
garage at night.
This is a very friendly place. Although Bing got called a “Yankee” because we didn’t stand up when “Dixie”
was being played and sung at a local saloon.
I don’t know how long we’ll be here but you can write to me at: general delivery Fernandina Beach, Florida
32034. It will just come back to you if we have left. I expect we will be here a while.
Hope everyone is fine and the garden is growing.
Love Jane and Bing
I bet Joel is glad that school is almost out.
***
Our Dursmirg was up on the marine railway at Rawl’s Boatyard in Fernandina, Beach, Florida from June 11th until
June 14th while we busily painted its bottom and replaced the propeller shaft and its log complete with new cutlass
bearings and packing gland.
Considering that I had taken a crash course in marine engineering and design it was remarkable that our
homemade and contrived vessel didn’t have even more things that needed upgrading.
I could at least take some sense of satisfaction knowing that what we had homemade and assembled did indeed get
us this far without any upgrades or re-calls…more than can be said for Detroit’s end products designed and
produced by high paid graduate engineers.
***
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
On June 18th after we had let the cement surrounding our new propeller shaft log harden up sufficiently we cranked
up our engine and took departure from Rawl’s Boatyard at 11 AM to catch the high tide and say good-by to Amelia
Island, Florida.
That afternoon we had an early quit when we dropped our anchor in Delaroche Creek in Georgia in 11 feet of water
at low tide. The quiet and solitude of the Sea Islands surrounded us and we had our little private island to
ourselves…peace on earth!
At 0930 the following morning Jane and I took a leisurely departure planned to take the best advantage of the
strong tides and maximize their affect to our advantage as we headed north to
Jekyll Island where we tied up at the local municipal marina rafted off next to an old well worn shrimp boat named
Rover.
Jekyll Island is a quiet residential area so we bicycled around to take in the “Down-South” atmosphere and do some
shopping. We were surprised to find that we were the only transit yacht that stayed the night at the marina and it felt
good to see that we were at least escaping the tourist crowd because we wanted to mingle with the natives and
savor the out back atmosphere.
After some recommendations and scrutinizing of the charts, Jane and I again headed north the next day, June 20th
to a place that became one of our favorite anchorages in the coming years. Well off the Intracoastal Waterway on
the Frederica River is a lovely and quiet anchorage situated in a protected bend of the river sheltered by ancient
oak trees hanging heavy with Spanish moss.
Fort Frederica National Monument conserves the early British settlement of Oglethorpe and I will discuss this place
later in this volume as I expand on our Sea Island adventures.
***
A LETTER JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS;
1973 June 21 (Sea Islands-Fort Frederica)
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
We are underway again, heading north. We got the boat back in the water on the 14th.
Judy, Dick, Mike, Jeff and Kelly showed up on the 13th just in time to help us paint the bottom.
It was sure nice to see them again. We are going to try to make connections with them again in Savannah.
Right now we are anchored on the Frederica River, 12 miles from Brunswick, Georgia. We have been here
two days just taking it easy. I sewed, (by hand), a big hat out of sailcloth to keep the sun from burning my
face. The rest of my body tans, but my face and nose just stay bright red!
There is an interesting old fort across from where we are anchored, Fort Frederica National
Monument, which we visited yesterday by dinghy. We will be moving on soon to Savannah and stay there
awhile as we have friends there.
Could you forward what mail we have accumulated to us in care of Jim Muller, 120 E. 46th St., Savannah,
Ga. 31405. Jim helped us bring the boat to Saint Augustine last December.
I’m sending you some money to defray the cost of handling the mail.
How’s the weather in Wisconsin? It sure is nice here, however it took me a while to get used to the heat. I
understand why the southerners move slowly, the heat will kill you if you move fast –and believe me nothing
moves fast in the South.
Hope everyone’s okay and you are enjoying the summer, we are.
Love Jane and Bing
It’s hard to believe that Dursmirg will have been in the water one year tomorrow! And the cement is still
floating!
Say Hi to Grandma, what is she up to this summer?
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
June 22nd we were again headed north up through the Sea Islands and as we headed north the tides and currents
would continue to increase in range and speed with the highest between Savannah,
Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina where tides range to nine feet and we have even witnessed spring tides
over 12 feet...a world of water!
We now had the time to poke along and enjoy our travels, so out of the way anchorages were what we were looking
for. This night we anchored off the Intracoastal Waterway in an alternate waterway route in the Crescent River
where we could relax in tranquility and even do some fishing.
June 23rd we were under way by 10 AM and made our passage through the big sound country of Georgia with its
tall marsh grasses, swift currents and “Moon River” made famous by the composer Johnny Mercer. Our destination
this day was one of our favorite places, Savannah.
At 1345 that afternoon we were already anchored up in Walberg Creek and went to the phone to call our good
friend Jim Muller and have him over to visit that evening.
We met Jim’s girlfriend Leigh Durrence and her brother Jack that night and had a fine reunion with plans for many
more get-togethers.
The marine patrol came by to tell us that this was not a good place to anchor and upon questioning them it turned
out that a local home owner didn’t want any boats anchored there. The next day we accommodated their request
and moved to a better place across the Wilmington River in Herb Creek where we spent the next 15 days and had
some interesting experiences with friends that later came there to anchor with us. We kept our bicycles at Fountain
Marine in Thunderbolt, a suburb of Savannah from where we did extensive bike touring of Savannah and the
surrounding area.
***
A LETTER JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS
1973 June 28th (Sea Islands-Savannah)
A letter Jane wrote her father;
Dear Dad;
I hope you have a very Happy Birthday- I suppose you will have a big party.
We are now in Savannah, Georgia. We got here on the 25th We are anchored in a place called Herb Creek. It
is a five-minute dinghy ride or seven-mile bicycle ride to town. I’m not sure how long we will be here as we
have a lot of friends here that we haven’t contacted yet.
Early this morning we had some unexpected visitors-a man from the US Customs with six men from the
Coast Guard. The Customs man said they routinely check all anchored sailboats for drugs- he didn’t even
search us but told us they found 16 million dollars worth on a sailboat this year.
It sure is nice in Savannah although I’d rather be in the wilderness. Last week we anchored off Saint
Catherine Island, Georgia and there were real wild-alligators, wild boar, deer, and raccoons, lots of wildlife
plus miles of beaches.
Love Jane and Bing
Hope the weathers nice in Wisconsin and the gardens doing good.
***
A POSTCARD JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS;
1973 July 6th postcard from; (Savannah);
(Caption on postcard)
VICTORY DRIVE AT AZALEA TIME
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
Lined with palms and azaleas, Victory Drive was built as a memorial to Savannah’s soldiers of World War 1
Said to be the worlds longest palm lined drive it leads from the city to the little town of Thunderbolt. “I just
called Grandma and found out that you are on a trip. I earlier sent you a letter asking you to forward our mail
to Savannah. If you haven’t sent it don’t. I’ll call you from Charleston and tell you where to send it.
Hope you’re having a nice trip. If you have already mailed it we will pick it up on our return trip as Jim Muller
is traveling with us.
We are having a great time. Love Jane and Bing
***
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
Our 15-day stay in Herb Creek turned out to be action packed with daily activities, new neighbors and countless
excursions. A short distance up the Wilmington River from where we were anchored in Herb Creek was the town of
Thunderbolt, a suburb of Savannah, Georgia. We found the people at the Fountain Marina at Thunderbolt were
very accommodating with the storage of our bicycles and when we were off on our bicycles the dockage of our
dinghy. We purchased our dinghy boat gasoline there and they never did charge us any storage fees…so thanks to
them.
A day after we dropped our anchor in Herb Creek our old friends from Saint Augustine, Florida, Steve and Lum
Brown came to anchor next to us in their old wooden 25-foot sloop rigged sailboat
Sea Dog followed by yet another boat. The other boat named Salute was a sporty new little fiberglass sailboat
owned by a Vietnam War veteran named D.R. Hein from New York.
We all got together for dinners and drinks and it was usually aboard our boat because it was definitely large enough
for these events.
One afternoon a local crab fisherman came by our boat and asked if we wanted any crabs and we said yes so he
dumped a whole bushel of live blue crabs into our cockpit, all wanting to shake hands with us at once. In our little
community of three boats not one of us had any idea what the next step in the preparation, cooking and cleaning of
crabs entailed. We didn’t even know what parts to eat once we did get them cooked. This was an exercise in some
kind of frustration but we were soon to become very proficient in the handling of these exquisite little creatures.
Steve and Lum Brown had their bicycles and also stored them with ours at the marina in Thunderbolt. We had city
tours together, visiting the old downtown and historical waterfront plus checking out local favorite eating
establishments that included the famous Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House. We went sailing on D.R. Hein’s racy sailboat
when the tide was right. He and his Vietnamese wife were living aboard their boat. He had no plans of settling down.
We met many other Vietnam veterans on boats traveling in this troubling wartime.
By July 10th we were again ready to move on with our adventures and as we took our departure from one of our
favorite places, Savannah, Georgia, we had picked up a crewmember for the summer.
Jim Muller was back with us and this time we were more than eager to pump his brain for his extensive knowledge of
harvesting seafood and its preparation. The previous December Jim has accompanied us from Savannah to Saint
Augustine to help in handling our boat when I had a broken shoulder and we had a very good time together and
became close friends…a friendship that has lasted over all these many years.
In less than three hours we were anchored in the New River at Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. The previous fall
we had met Bob (Lancy) Burn a trans-Atlantic sailboat sailor who lives on Daufuskie Island while we were in
Savannah and he told us to be sure and look him up if we ever came his way, so true to our word here we were.
Bob and his family treated us to a new experience and a different way of life that we had no idea even existed before
our one-week stay with them.
(Later on in this story I will recount extensive accounts of this strange and interesting place,
Daufuskie Island).
July 17th again our anchor was up and we were headed north to Beaufort, South Carolina.
The peace and solitude of Daufuskie Island was much appreciated and missed as we set our anchor near the
downtown municipal pier to wait for a timed bridge to open. Beaufort is definitely not a tourist stop in any way and
only has the nearby military base at Paris Island to thank for its existence. We managed to stock up the provisions
that we needed and said goodbye to Beaufort at 1805 that evening when the bridge finally opened. We were on our
way to find some quiet place to spend the night as soon as that rickety old swing bridge opened. At 1945 that
evening the anchor went down again in Bull Creek just half a mile from the Naval Air Base…it was quiet.
July 18th we left Bull River on a falling tide and I thought it would be great fun to catch the breeze and set some sail
in the “big sound country”. It was wonderful going but the exhilaration of heeling over and being under sail was soon
dashed by our sudden grounding on a mud flat with the rapidly falling tide. Sailing in these waters of swift currents,
shifting sand bars and fickle winds was not something for a deep draft vessel as we had just found out!
Extricating our vessel from that mud flat took expedience coupled with our full efforts because time was of the utmost
importance with a tidal range dropping more than six feet in six hours. Using the sails back winded and our ten horse
power dinghy tied in tightly under the stern as a tug boat we also used our main engine blowing black smoke at full
power. Jane and Jim amplified our efforts by running from side to side of the boat to rock it with alternate trips to the
bow to jump up and down and as the first grain of sand under the keel began to turn over our imperceptible
movement began.
In the future sailing in these waters would be left to our dinghy that we could easily push off by hand if grounded.
This afternoon at 1840 we dropped anchor in Toogoodoo Creek. We were more than happy to be off the waterway
and out of the swift currents. Just before we arrived at Toogoodoo Creek that afternoon we had been held up by a
tugboat that had lost all of its barges in the swift tidal currents.
More than a dozen barges were bobbing downstream helter-skelter and out of control and all we could do was stand
by and attempt to dodge the oncoming barrage of barges.
The current is so strong in this area that I used to joke, “Here you could water ski behind an anchored boat”. This
was not much of an exaggeration.
This little creek with its strange name, “Toogoodoo Creek,” turned out to be just what we were looking for. We spent
two quiet and tranquil nights here and our crewmember Jim got into full production with his fishing and fishing
lessons. We had fresh shrimp, crabs and all the fish we could eat.
July 22 we ventured into Charleston and set our anchor in the swift waters of the Ashley River behind the Holiday Inn
adjacent to the highway 17 bridge. The noise of traffic, bright city lights and commotion made us all want to take
flight and run. This just wasn’t acceptable and we were having feelings of remorse for leaving the tranquility and
beauty of Daufuskie Island.
The next day we pulled into the city yacht pier where we filled our fuel tanks, water tanks and pumped out our
sewage holding tank. We spent the rest of the day touring the historical downtown section and shopping. Jane was
shocked at how much inflation had upped prices when she purchased five pounds of sugar. All of our lives sugar
had been 39 cents for five pounds now it was 49 cents. Looking back over the years, that 49-cent sugar looks
cheap but a 25% increase in basic commodities was significant.
Somehow Charleston lacked the charm and friendliness of Savannah and it might have been a stretch to even try to
compare the two cities but we did and Charleston definitely did not beckon us to stay.
We thought long and hard about our plans to sail north to the Chesapeake Bay for the summer. Having covered that
route before we couldn’t think of any places that would entice us to return between Charleston and Chesapeake
Bay…it would be a long journey and we knew that we could have a wonderful time back at Daufuskie and the Sea
Islands, so the consensus was to turn around and enjoy the Sea Islands…a decision we have never regretted.
On July 23 at 1350 we disembarked the Charleston marina thinking that we would pass through the busy Waphoo
River Bridge close to slack tide and when the rush hour traffic was at a minimum. The Waphoo River cut is narrow
and has an exceedingly swift current so it isn’t a place to be trying to maneuver while waiting for the lift bridge to
open. We must have had to awaken the bridgetender because we had to blow for the bridge three times in order to
get any response.
Of course a large push boat with barges was then maneuvering to compete for passage through the narrow bridge
fenders in that swift running current. Jane would prefer to sail 50 miles out of her way offshore to avoid just one of
these incidents.
We spent the next four nights anchored at Toogoodoo Creek enjoying the tranquility and savoring the fresh
seafood. Now we all had time to read, write and relax…somehow life was much better far from those city lights.
We were headed back to Daufuskie Island and on the way we spent two nights anchored in the Bull River where we
had found solitude before.
July 30th we dropped anchor at what would come to be one of our all time favorite anchorages near Bloody Point in
Mongin Creek on the south side of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
This proved to be some of the finest times we have ever had in all of our travels and this year we stayed at
Daufuskie Island until September 14th.
***
SOME LETTERS JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS
1973 August 2nd Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
It was sure nice to talk to you and thank you for sending the mail. We picked it up on Daufuskie Island on
July 30th. We are still at Daufuskie, anchored in a river about ¼ mile from the ocean. We sure love it here
and have been busy catching a lot of seafood. Every meal we have had shrimp, crabs or fish. It almost takes
the whole day catching the seafood, cleaning it and cooking it. I am also experimenting with making wine; I
got a batch brewing right now. We plan to stay here a while before we move on again. Jim Muller from
Savannah is still with us. He hooked a big sharkyesterday, but it took all of his line before he got it landed.
Bing went out mullet fishing yesterday with a friend Lance Burn, (they use a cast net) and then got quite a
few pounds, which Bing smoked, in the fireplace last night. He has been smoking quite a lot of fish lately,
and they are delicious.
We spent only a couple of days in Charleston, long enough to tour the entire city by bicycle. It’s a pretty city
but after spending so much time in the wilderness it is hard to get used to all the noise and commotion of a
big city. We stocked up on groceries and fuel there and headed south again, we took it nice and slow,
catching seafood along the way. We went aground once on the way to Charleston, we had all the sails up,
going along real nice and stopped dead on a mud flat. It took us half an hour to get off. Luckily we did as the
tide was going out and we would have been left high and dry.
The tide rises and falls 7 to 9 feet here. Other than that incident we haven’t had any problems, other than a
few invasions by mosquitoes and rain squalls. No hurricanes yet, thank goodness. How was your trip? We
enjoyed the cartoon you sent. I see it came from Des Moines. I was glad to receive a letter from John, sounds
like he is surviving the Army okay. He sent us a nice picture of himself. If you would like to write, you could
send a letter to us c/o Jim Muller, 120 E. 46th St. Savannah, Ga. 31405 and any other mail you may have. We
will pick it up there. We should be there in a week or two. I can’t say definitely.
Also could you check on something at Workers Mutual Bank for me? No hurry, just whenever you happen to
be going there. Holden’s Insurance sent Workers Mutual a check for $6.00 to be put in our account. Workers
Mutual typed a note in a statement addressing it to Mr. and Mrs. Pearson.
Could you see if they put it in our account or yours? Our account # is 31553 and is listed Jane A. or John
Grimsrud. Ask them if they would send us a statement of the deposits on our account since May. I write to
them, but never seem to get a satisfactory reply, so I would appreciate if you would check for me.
How’s the garden doing? I bet its really keeping you busy this time of year. The Burn’s family has given us a
lot of fresh produce from their garden. It sure is good.
We sure have been enjoying our summer and our boat. The weather has been great. Never unbearably hot
and never cold. Bing and I are in good health. My legs don’t bother me much most of the time, only when I’m
too lazy and don’t get enough exercise. They keep me active. Swimming is great but right here there are just
too many sharks.
Hope you are all fine, I miss everyone at home. I’m going to close now, so we can take our dinghy to the post
office at Daufuskie, 2 miles by water.
Love Jane and Bing
PS Feel free to read any of the magazines that we get.
Hope to get a letter from you in Savannah, tell me about your trip.
***
1973 August 11 Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
Thank you so much for forwarding our mail again. We got it on the 9th. We are still at Daufuskie Island; as I
said before, we really love it here. Bing and I have been busy the last couple of days making a shrimp cast
net. All the knots in the netting are made by hand, so it’s quite a job. With the net we should be able to get
all the shrimp we can eat. We are using Jim Mullers net now so we have plenty of shrimp. I’m sure glad we
are able to catch our own food, as the last I heard on the radio; the area (Savannah) supermarkets have no
beef or eggs to sell. I’m getting better at fishing all the time. We had shark for breakfast one morning- it’s
nice flakey meat but a little bland.
If you write, you can mail it to 120 E. 46th St. Savannah, Ga. 31405 c/o Jim Muller. I’d sure like tohear about
your trip and how everyone is doing. I’m not sure when we will move on to Savannah,but they will take care
of the mail for us.
Bing and I are going to take the dinghy to Burns to mail some letters. Our dinghy motor is finally working
again... Jim submerged it in salt water and it didn’t run after that, we got some new parts from Savannah
and its working great now.
I hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer. Jon Moin’s letter said the weather has been exceptionally
good. Glad to hear it. Do you see Bing’s cousin Rolf? We haven’t heard from him since Christmas. If you see
him, tell him to drop us a line.
Love Jane and Bing
What’s Joel up to this summer?
***
1973 August 29th Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her little brother Joel;
(I was going to send you a new snowmobile for your birthday but I decided to send you a letter instead!)
Dear Joel;
Happy Birthday!
Boy, you sure are getting old fast and I guess I am too because I’ll be 29 on your birthday.
Well, I hope you have a nice birthday party and cake. We will be spending my birthday at Daufuskie Island.
We intended to leave this week but it turned out we have too much marine life growing on the bottom of our
boat that the propellerwill hardly turn and our engine cooling system is so covered that the engine heats up.
We put anti-fouling paint on our boat in Fernandina Beach and it was suppose to keep marine life from
growing but it isn’t doing its job. We anchored in some water polluted by chemicals from a paper mill and it
killed the chemicals in our paint. So, we will be here a couple more weeks as we have to order more paint
and re-paint the hull. More $ down the drain as the paint we put on in June was suppose to be good for 6 to
12 months. There is no place to haul here so we have to tie the boat to an old barge on the island at high
tide and when the tide goes out, work on the boat. The tide won’t be high enough again to get next to the
barge until full moon and that’s September 12th.
We really didn’t mind the wait because this is such a beautiful island. Every day Bing and I catch enough
seafood, (fish, shrimp and crabs), that we eat it three times a day.
We do a lot of beachcombing too- two days ago Bing and I each found arrowheads plus I found a nickel dated
1888 and a clay pipe. We find a lot of Indian pottery too!
We found some dating back to 400 BC. The beach is 3 ½ miles long on the island and no one using it.
Today our friend’s mother took us around the island by jeep. We saw something different; a cart being
pulled by a cow. The Negroes use cows instead of horses because they are cheaper. The roads are only
suited for cows, horses and jeeps. They are only two rut roads. This is really a good place to spend some time.
I suppose you are back in school already and busy with that. I would have bought you a birthday card but
there are no stores here. The closest one is 15 miles away by boat.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEL!
Love Jane and Bing
Eat some good birthday cake for me.
***
1973 August 29th Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
Thank you for your letter. I really enjoyed hearing about your trip and garden.The garden makes me hungry
for all the good things you grow in it. Thank you for forwarding our mail too. We are still at Daufuskie Island
and Jim Muller forwarded it to us.
We went back to Savannah about a week ago. It looks like we are going to be here a while longer so could
you forward our mail here until about the 12th.
When we leave here, I’ll leave a forwarding address so our mail won’t get lost. The reason we are still here is
because our bottom anti-fouling paint on the boat was killed by chemicals in polluted water and marine
growth has taken over so bad that our boat will hardly move and the engine cooling system is so covered
that the engine overheats... We have to repaint here because the boat won’t make it against the swift
currents and we can’t run the engine very long before it heats up. To clean and paint we have to tie up to an
old barge and let the tide go out so that our boat is out of the water to work on it. The tide won’t be high
enough to get next to the barge until full moon on September 12th.
Since we really love this island, I couldn’t think of a better place to be until the full moon. Our friends the
Burn family are tremendous people and we really enjoy the time we spend with them.
I’m sending you a recipe for buns or cinnamon rolls that Mrs. Burns gave me that is really good. You may
already have it. Bing and I can eat a whole batch in 24 hours orf less.
Mrs. Burns has taught me a lot of Southern cooking that we really enjoy.
When I grow too old to sail, I think I’d like to live here. We are going to look into the possibility of buying
some land on the island.
I could write on and on about the place but I’ve written so many letters tonight my hand is getting sore, plus I
sliced my finger today on an oyster shell.
I hope that Dad came through his check up with a clean bill of health on the 20th .Did Joan have her baby
yet? Could you send me her address?
Say hello to everyone. How are Fran and Al, Dale and Sue doing? Love Jane and Bing
***
1973 September 13th (Daufuskie)
A letter Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
Thank you so much for your birthday cards and sending our mail, and your letters.We will be leaving
Daufuskie tomorrow. I don’t really want to leave but it’s time to head further south. If you have sent any mail
I haven’t received, Mrs. Burn will hold it and I’ll write her when I get somewhere that I can pick it up. I’ll most
likely call you and to let you know where to send our mail again. We have some slides coming in the mail
which you are welcome to look at. I’lltry to get a picture made for you of Bing and I and the boat as soon as I
can.
Well, we got our new paint put on the bottom of our boat. It was quite a job and quite a sight seeing
Dursmirg high and dry. All went well and we had Jim Muller from Savannah to help us. It took two days to get
the entire bottom done. We were exhausted after that so today we are resting up.
We plan to spend the winter in Florida, probably around the Keys. We should be there by Christmas.Did you
try the roll recipe I sent you? If you did, how did you like it?
The first of my wine is ready for drinking and it is really good.I think I’m too pooped to think of too much to
write now so I’ll close.
We are glad to hear that Dad is feeling good. I’ll talk to you soon.
Love Jane and Bing
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
September 14th we said our goodbyes and took departure with plans for our return trip to this unique and
fascinating place called Daufuskie Island.
This night we would be back to anchor in Herb Creek at Savannah where we said goodbye to our dear friend Jim
Muller who had just given us a hand cleaning and painting the bottom of our boat.
Over the course of the summer Jane and I had received a crash and very intensive course in living out of the briny
sea from Jim Muller. He shared with us something priceless and very rewarding.
I can’t help but think of a quote from one of my very favorite historical figures, Benjamin Franklin, “you can give a
man a fish and you give him a meal but if you teach him how to fish you give him a meal for life”. As profound as that
sounds it turned out to be very true for us and we have put our friend Jim Muller’s good lessons to use over and
over all of these years…thanks again
Jim!
September 17th we took departure from Savannah and arrived in Saint Augustine Florida on the 21st.
Though we had several lovely anchorages along the way including the one at Fort Frederica, (where we discovered
that pecans were in season and littering the grounds which Jane and I managed to harvest) we also discovered that
our transit time was far too fast and in upcoming years we would work at slower and slower passages.
The slower we went the more fun we had.
In the following chapters we will revisit all of these Sea Islands one at a time relating our
adventures over the years plus our views of significant events in their history, our activities and our slant on the
local characters that made these places unique to us.
CHAPTER 3
Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach
Dear reader, as I start my description of our travels through these Sea Islands I have to start with Amelia Island
which by some quirk of political doings wound up within the state of Florida though it is in every way a kindred part of
the state of Georgia both politically and geographically.
The city of Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island is unique in many ways with its small town atmosphere commingled
with its world shipping port, heavy industry and fishing fleet.
In our many visits to this off the beaten tourist path place over the years we have changed our outlook and
perception because of the people we met, the places we frequented and our reasons for being there.
We spent a good deal of time there with our boat Dursmirg and wound up on Rawl’s Marine Railway to scrap and
paint the boats bottom plus other maintenance work. Because Standard Hardware Company with their extensive
selection of marine related equipment is located in Fernandina and this made Fernandina the almost ideal place for
doing our haul out and related work on the boat.
I have visited Fernandina by shrimp boat and automobile over the years and found that how we arrived made for a
completely different impression.
***
A description of the Sea Islands: There are places in the world that have some of the same characteristics of these
islands but I personally don’t know of any place with the combined features that make this place so unique.
To me the most unique thing about this end of the world are the beaches comprised of special Appalachian quartz
sand that packs so hard that it makes it possible to ride a skinny wheeled bicycle on them. These beaches range
from Daytona Beach on the south to Cape Roman, South Carolina on the north.
The physiographic characteristics are low flat sea barrier islands of this coastal plain that is well
drained with excessive leaching and separated from the mainland by tidal salt marshes richly abundant in life. If you
starved to death here you would have to work at it.
Great expanses of tall marsh grass, green in summer and golden brown like ripened wheat fields in fall and winter
rise up out of the black “pluff mud”. This soft and slippery mud must get its name from the fact that anything dropped
into it makes the distinctive sound of “pluff” as it disappears from sight. Within this mud can be found fiddler crabs,
some of the most colorful little creatures that have colonies of thousands whose shells appear to be delicately hand
painted in intricate pastel colors and they sport one large claw that they love to slowly wave relentlessly all day in
some sort of mating dance. The abundance and variety of life here ranges from alligators and turtles near the top of
the food chain down to microscopic organisms whose florescent glow nightly illuminates the fast moving tidal waters.
Dominant tree species are the long leaf pine that is so dense that it will sink in salty seawater, slash pine and loblolly
pine. The main hardwood trees are sweet gum, magnolias, aromatic red cedar, white oak and hickory. Thick
underbrush of palmetto palms are teaming with red bugs and rattlesnakes.
The cabbage palm trees range as far north as the Charleston area along the coast and are relatively cold resistant
though they are among the least attractive of the palm trees. The only edible part of this tree is its core where the
fronds originate from and can only be taken by killing the entire tree.
Several places in the south make a specialty of this “heart of palm” and prepare among other things, millionaires
salad. It is probably so referred to because of the extravagance of killing an entire tree just for one meal. Jane and I
have sampled this rare edible but we harvested our “heart of palm” from a land-clearing project where the downed
trees were just going to be set ablaze anyway. We cooked it several different ways and found it interesting but close
akin to cabbage in taste and texture and thought that we would only partake of this food for survival purposes.
The waters surrounding these islands are challenging to even experienced boatmen. High tides, swift currents,
shifting sand bars plus a maze of twisting rivers make this desolate and sparsely populated place into a nightmare
for the poor boater that runs out of gas or has a breakdown.
Fall fog, winter gales, scorching summer heat plus gnats and marsh mosquitoes all help to isolate this place from the
rest of the world.
Life has existed in and around these islands for 24 to 55 million years, and the evidence of that life can be found in
the “spoil islands” where dredging has been pumped up leaving behind the time enduring fossilized sharks teeth
from a time long before man ever set foot on earth. It is hard to imagine just how many ice ages have come and
gone in that span of time.
Jane and I have had the opportunity to discover many of these fossilized sharks teeth in our beach combing along
the Sea Islands. At Cumberland Island on the Florida-Georgia border, the American military dredged a 40-foot deep
channel up to Kings Bay for their atomic submarine missile loading station. The dredging was dispersed in several
spoil islands that are strewn with millions of fossilized bones and teeth blackened by the soil they were interred in.
The Savannah River also has similar spoil islands equally rich in these fossils.
June 22nd we were again headed north up through the Sea Islands and as we headed north the tides and currents
would continue to increase in range and speed with the highest between Savannah,
Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina where tides range to nine feet and we have even witnessed spring tides
over 12 feet...a world of water!
We now had the time to poke along and enjoy our travels, so out of the way anchorages were what we were looking
for. This night we anchored off the Intracoastal Waterway in an alternate waterway route in the Crescent River
where we could relax in tranquility and even do some fishing.
June 23rd we were under way by 10 AM and made our passage through the big sound country of Georgia with its
tall marsh grasses, swift currents and “Moon River” made famous by the composer Johnny Mercer. Our destination
this day was one of our favorite places, Savannah.
At 1345 that afternoon we were already anchored up in Walberg Creek and went to the phone to call our good
friend Jim Muller and have him over to visit that evening.
We met Jim’s girlfriend Leigh Durrence and her brother Jack that night and had a fine reunion with plans for many
more get-togethers.
The marine patrol came by to tell us that this was not a good place to anchor and upon questioning them it turned
out that a local home owner didn’t want any boats anchored there. The next day we accommodated their request
and moved to a better place across the Wilmington River in Herb Creek where we spent the next 15 days and had
some interesting experiences with friends that later came there to anchor with us. We kept our bicycles at Fountain
Marine in Thunderbolt, a suburb of Savannah from where we did extensive bike touring of Savannah and the
surrounding area.
***
A LETTER JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS
1973 June 28th (Sea Islands-Savannah)
A letter Jane wrote her father;
Dear Dad;
I hope you have a very Happy Birthday- I suppose you will have a big party.
We are now in Savannah, Georgia. We got here on the 25th We are anchored in a place called Herb Creek. It
is a five-minute dinghy ride or seven-mile bicycle ride to town. I’m not sure how long we will be here as we
have a lot of friends here that we haven’t contacted yet.
Early this morning we had some unexpected visitors-a man from the US Customs with six men from the
Coast Guard. The Customs man said they routinely check all anchored sailboats for drugs- he didn’t even
search us but told us they found 16 million dollars worth on a sailboat this year.
It sure is nice in Savannah although I’d rather be in the wilderness. Last week we anchored off Saint
Catherine Island, Georgia and there were real wild-alligators, wild boar, deer, and raccoons, lots of wildlife
plus miles of beaches.
Love Jane and Bing
Hope the weathers nice in Wisconsin and the gardens doing good.
***
A POSTCARD JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS;
1973 July 6th postcard from; (Savannah);
(Caption on postcard)
VICTORY DRIVE AT AZALEA TIME
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
Lined with palms and azaleas, Victory Drive was built as a memorial to Savannah’s soldiers of World War 1
Said to be the worlds longest palm lined drive it leads from the city to the little town of Thunderbolt. “I just
called Grandma and found out that you are on a trip. I earlier sent you a letter asking you to forward our mail
to Savannah. If you haven’t sent it don’t. I’ll call you from Charleston and tell you where to send it.
Hope you’re having a nice trip. If you have already mailed it we will pick it up on our return trip as Jim Muller
is traveling with us.
We are having a great time. Love Jane and Bing
***
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
Our 15-day stay in Herb Creek turned out to be action packed with daily activities, new neighbors and countless
excursions. A short distance up the Wilmington River from where we were anchored in Herb Creek was the town of
Thunderbolt, a suburb of Savannah, Georgia. We found the people at the Fountain Marina at Thunderbolt were
very accommodating with the storage of our bicycles and when we were off on our bicycles the dockage of our
dinghy. We purchased our dinghy boat gasoline there and they never did charge us any storage fees…so thanks to
them.
A day after we dropped our anchor in Herb Creek our old friends from Saint Augustine, Florida, Steve and Lum
Brown came to anchor next to us in their old wooden 25-foot sloop rigged sailboat
Sea Dog followed by yet another boat. The other boat named Salute was a sporty new little fiberglass sailboat
owned by a Vietnam War veteran named D.R. Hein from New York.
We all got together for dinners and drinks and it was usually aboard our boat because it was definitely large enough
for these events.
One afternoon a local crab fisherman came by our boat and asked if we wanted any crabs and we said yes so he
dumped a whole bushel of live blue crabs into our cockpit, all wanting to shake hands with us at once. In our little
community of three boats not one of us had any idea what the next step in the preparation, cooking and cleaning of
crabs entailed. We didn’t even know what parts to eat once we did get them cooked. This was an exercise in some
kind of frustration but we were soon to become very proficient in the handling of these exquisite little creatures.
Steve and Lum Brown had their bicycles and also stored them with ours at the marina in Thunderbolt. We had city
tours together, visiting the old downtown and historical waterfront plus checking out local favorite eating
establishments that included the famous Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House. We went sailing on D.R. Hein’s racy sailboat
when the tide was right. He and his Vietnamese wife were living aboard their boat. He had no plans of settling down.
We met many other Vietnam veterans on boats traveling in this troubling wartime.
By July 10th we were again ready to move on with our adventures and as we took our departure from one of our
favorite places, Savannah, Georgia, we had picked up a crewmember for the summer.
Jim Muller was back with us and this time we were more than eager to pump his brain for his extensive knowledge of
harvesting seafood and its preparation. The previous December Jim has accompanied us from Savannah to Saint
Augustine to help in handling our boat when I had a broken shoulder and we had a very good time together and
became close friends…a friendship that has lasted over all these many years.
In less than three hours we were anchored in the New River at Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. The previous fall
we had met Bob (Lancy) Burn a trans-Atlantic sailboat sailor who lives on Daufuskie Island while we were in
Savannah and he told us to be sure and look him up if we ever came his way, so true to our word here we were.
Bob and his family treated us to a new experience and a different way of life that we had no idea even existed before
our one-week stay with them.
(Later on in this story I will recount extensive accounts of this strange and interesting place,
Daufuskie Island).
July 17th again our anchor was up and we were headed north to Beaufort, South Carolina.
The peace and solitude of Daufuskie Island was much appreciated and missed as we set our anchor near the
downtown municipal pier to wait for a timed bridge to open. Beaufort is definitely not a tourist stop in any way and
only has the nearby military base at Paris Island to thank for its existence. We managed to stock up the provisions
that we needed and said goodbye to Beaufort at 1805 that evening when the bridge finally opened. We were on our
way to find some quiet place to spend the night as soon as that rickety old swing bridge opened. At 1945 that
evening the anchor went down again in Bull Creek just half a mile from the Naval Air Base…it was quiet.
July 18th we left Bull River on a falling tide and I thought it would be great fun to catch the breeze and set some sail
in the “big sound country”. It was wonderful going but the exhilaration of heeling over and being under sail was soon
dashed by our sudden grounding on a mud flat with the rapidly falling tide. Sailing in these waters of swift currents,
shifting sand bars and fickle winds was not something for a deep draft vessel as we had just found out!
Extricating our vessel from that mud flat took expedience coupled with our full efforts because time was of the utmost
importance with a tidal range dropping more than six feet in six hours. Using the sails back winded and our ten horse
power dinghy tied in tightly under the stern as a tug boat we also used our main engine blowing black smoke at full
power. Jane and Jim amplified our efforts by running from side to side of the boat to rock it with alternate trips to the
bow to jump up and down and as the first grain of sand under the keel began to turn over our imperceptible
movement began.
In the future sailing in these waters would be left to our dinghy that we could easily push off by hand if grounded.
This afternoon at 1840 we dropped anchor in Toogoodoo Creek. We were more than happy to be off the waterway
and out of the swift currents. Just before we arrived at Toogoodoo Creek that afternoon we had been held up by a
tugboat that had lost all of its barges in the swift tidal currents.
More than a dozen barges were bobbing downstream helter-skelter and out of control and all we could do was stand
by and attempt to dodge the oncoming barrage of barges.
The current is so strong in this area that I used to joke, “Here you could water ski behind an anchored boat”. This
was not much of an exaggeration.
This little creek with its strange name, “Toogoodoo Creek,” turned out to be just what we were looking for. We spent
two quiet and tranquil nights here and our crewmember Jim got into full production with his fishing and fishing
lessons. We had fresh shrimp, crabs and all the fish we could eat.
July 22 we ventured into Charleston and set our anchor in the swift waters of the Ashley River behind the Holiday Inn
adjacent to the highway 17 bridge. The noise of traffic, bright city lights and commotion made us all want to take
flight and run. This just wasn’t acceptable and we were having feelings of remorse for leaving the tranquility and
beauty of Daufuskie Island.
The next day we pulled into the city yacht pier where we filled our fuel tanks, water tanks and pumped out our
sewage holding tank. We spent the rest of the day touring the historical downtown section and shopping. Jane was
shocked at how much inflation had upped prices when she purchased five pounds of sugar. All of our lives sugar
had been 39 cents for five pounds now it was 49 cents. Looking back over the years, that 49-cent sugar looks
cheap but a 25% increase in basic commodities was significant.
Somehow Charleston lacked the charm and friendliness of Savannah and it might have been a stretch to even try to
compare the two cities but we did and Charleston definitely did not beckon us to stay.
We thought long and hard about our plans to sail north to the Chesapeake Bay for the summer. Having covered that
route before we couldn’t think of any places that would entice us to return between Charleston and Chesapeake
Bay…it would be a long journey and we knew that we could have a wonderful time back at Daufuskie and the Sea
Islands, so the consensus was to turn around and enjoy the Sea Islands…a decision we have never regretted.
On July 23 at 1350 we disembarked the Charleston marina thinking that we would pass through the busy Waphoo
River Bridge close to slack tide and when the rush hour traffic was at a minimum. The Waphoo River cut is narrow
and has an exceedingly swift current so it isn’t a place to be trying to maneuver while waiting for the lift bridge to
open. We must have had to awaken the bridgetender because we had to blow for the bridge three times in order to
get any response.
Of course a large push boat with barges was then maneuvering to compete for passage through the narrow bridge
fenders in that swift running current. Jane would prefer to sail 50 miles out of her way offshore to avoid just one of
these incidents.
We spent the next four nights anchored at Toogoodoo Creek enjoying the tranquility and savoring the fresh
seafood. Now we all had time to read, write and relax…somehow life was much better far from those city lights.
We were headed back to Daufuskie Island and on the way we spent two nights anchored in the Bull River where we
had found solitude before.
July 30th we dropped anchor at what would come to be one of our all time favorite anchorages near Bloody Point in
Mongin Creek on the south side of Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
This proved to be some of the finest times we have ever had in all of our travels and this year we stayed at
Daufuskie Island until September 14th.
***
SOME LETTERS JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS
1973 August 2nd Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
It was sure nice to talk to you and thank you for sending the mail. We picked it up on Daufuskie Island on
July 30th. We are still at Daufuskie, anchored in a river about ¼ mile from the ocean. We sure love it here
and have been busy catching a lot of seafood. Every meal we have had shrimp, crabs or fish. It almost takes
the whole day catching the seafood, cleaning it and cooking it. I am also experimenting with making wine; I
got a batch brewing right now. We plan to stay here a while before we move on again. Jim Muller from
Savannah is still with us. He hooked a big sharkyesterday, but it took all of his line before he got it landed.
Bing went out mullet fishing yesterday with a friend Lance Burn, (they use a cast net) and then got quite a
few pounds, which Bing smoked, in the fireplace last night. He has been smoking quite a lot of fish lately,
and they are delicious.
We spent only a couple of days in Charleston, long enough to tour the entire city by bicycle. It’s a pretty city
but after spending so much time in the wilderness it is hard to get used to all the noise and commotion of a
big city. We stocked up on groceries and fuel there and headed south again, we took it nice and slow,
catching seafood along the way. We went aground once on the way to Charleston, we had all the sails up,
going along real nice and stopped dead on a mud flat. It took us half an hour to get off. Luckily we did as the
tide was going out and we would have been left high and dry.
The tide rises and falls 7 to 9 feet here. Other than that incident we haven’t had any problems, other than a
few invasions by mosquitoes and rain squalls. No hurricanes yet, thank goodness. How was your trip? We
enjoyed the cartoon you sent. I see it came from Des Moines. I was glad to receive a letter from John, sounds
like he is surviving the Army okay. He sent us a nice picture of himself. If you would like to write, you could
send a letter to us c/o Jim Muller, 120 E. 46th St. Savannah, Ga. 31405 and any other mail you may have. We
will pick it up there. We should be there in a week or two. I can’t say definitely.
Also could you check on something at Workers Mutual Bank for me? No hurry, just whenever you happen to
be going there. Holden’s Insurance sent Workers Mutual a check for $6.00 to be put in our account. Workers
Mutual typed a note in a statement addressing it to Mr. and Mrs. Pearson.
Could you see if they put it in our account or yours? Our account # is 31553 and is listed Jane A. or John
Grimsrud. Ask them if they would send us a statement of the deposits on our account since May. I write to
them, but never seem to get a satisfactory reply, so I would appreciate if you would check for me.
How’s the garden doing? I bet its really keeping you busy this time of year. The Burn’s family has given us a
lot of fresh produce from their garden. It sure is good.
We sure have been enjoying our summer and our boat. The weather has been great. Never unbearably hot
and never cold. Bing and I are in good health. My legs don’t bother me much most of the time, only when I’m
too lazy and don’t get enough exercise. They keep me active. Swimming is great but right here there are just
too many sharks.
Hope you are all fine, I miss everyone at home. I’m going to close now, so we can take our dinghy to the post
office at Daufuskie, 2 miles by water.
Love Jane and Bing
PS Feel free to read any of the magazines that we get.
Hope to get a letter from you in Savannah, tell me about your trip.
***
1973 August 11 Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
Thank you so much for forwarding our mail again. We got it on the 9th. We are still at Daufuskie Island; as I
said before, we really love it here. Bing and I have been busy the last couple of days making a shrimp cast
net. All the knots in the netting are made by hand, so it’s quite a job. With the net we should be able to get
all the shrimp we can eat. We are using Jim Mullers net now so we have plenty of shrimp. I’m sure glad we
are able to catch our own food, as the last I heard on the radio; the area (Savannah) supermarkets have no
beef or eggs to sell. I’m getting better at fishing all the time. We had shark for breakfast one morning- it’s
nice flakey meat but a little bland.
If you write, you can mail it to 120 E. 46th St. Savannah, Ga. 31405 c/o Jim Muller. I’d sure like tohear about
your trip and how everyone is doing. I’m not sure when we will move on to Savannah,but they will take care
of the mail for us.
Bing and I are going to take the dinghy to Burns to mail some letters. Our dinghy motor is finally working
again... Jim submerged it in salt water and it didn’t run after that, we got some new parts from Savannah
and its working great now.
I hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer. Jon Moin’s letter said the weather has been exceptionally
good. Glad to hear it. Do you see Bing’s cousin Rolf? We haven’t heard from him since Christmas. If you see
him, tell him to drop us a line.
Love Jane and Bing
What’s Joel up to this summer?
***
1973 August 29th Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her little brother Joel;
(I was going to send you a new snowmobile for your birthday but I decided to send you a letter instead!)
Dear Joel;
Happy Birthday!
Boy, you sure are getting old fast and I guess I am too because I’ll be 29 on your birthday.
Well, I hope you have a nice birthday party and cake. We will be spending my birthday at Daufuskie Island.
We intended to leave this week but it turned out we have too much marine life growing on the bottom of our
boat that the propellerwill hardly turn and our engine cooling system is so covered that the engine heats up.
We put anti-fouling paint on our boat in Fernandina Beach and it was suppose to keep marine life from
growing but it isn’t doing its job. We anchored in some water polluted by chemicals from a paper mill and it
killed the chemicals in our paint. So, we will be here a couple more weeks as we have to order more paint
and re-paint the hull. More $ down the drain as the paint we put on in June was suppose to be good for 6 to
12 months. There is no place to haul here so we have to tie the boat to an old barge on the island at high
tide and when the tide goes out, work on the boat. The tide won’t be high enough again to get next to the
barge until full moon and that’s September 12th.
We really didn’t mind the wait because this is such a beautiful island. Every day Bing and I catch enough
seafood, (fish, shrimp and crabs), that we eat it three times a day.
We do a lot of beachcombing too- two days ago Bing and I each found arrowheads plus I found a nickel dated
1888 and a clay pipe. We find a lot of Indian pottery too!
We found some dating back to 400 BC. The beach is 3 ½ miles long on the island and no one using it.
Today our friend’s mother took us around the island by jeep. We saw something different; a cart being
pulled by a cow. The Negroes use cows instead of horses because they are cheaper. The roads are only
suited for cows, horses and jeeps. They are only two rut roads. This is really a good place to spend some time.
I suppose you are back in school already and busy with that. I would have bought you a birthday card but
there are no stores here. The closest one is 15 miles away by boat.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEL!
Love Jane and Bing
Eat some good birthday cake for me.
***
1973 August 29th Daufuskie Island
A letter that Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
Thank you for your letter. I really enjoyed hearing about your trip and garden.The garden makes me hungry
for all the good things you grow in it. Thank you for forwarding our mail too. We are still at Daufuskie Island
and Jim Muller forwarded it to us.
We went back to Savannah about a week ago. It looks like we are going to be here a while longer so could
you forward our mail here until about the 12th.
When we leave here, I’ll leave a forwarding address so our mail won’t get lost. The reason we are still here is
because our bottom anti-fouling paint on the boat was killed by chemicals in polluted water and marine
growth has taken over so bad that our boat will hardly move and the engine cooling system is so covered
that the engine overheats... We have to repaint here because the boat won’t make it against the swift
currents and we can’t run the engine very long before it heats up. To clean and paint we have to tie up to an
old barge and let the tide go out so that our boat is out of the water to work on it. The tide won’t be high
enough to get next to the barge until full moon on September 12th.
Since we really love this island, I couldn’t think of a better place to be until the full moon. Our friends the
Burn family are tremendous people and we really enjoy the time we spend with them.
I’m sending you a recipe for buns or cinnamon rolls that Mrs. Burns gave me that is really good. You may
already have it. Bing and I can eat a whole batch in 24 hours orf less.
Mrs. Burns has taught me a lot of Southern cooking that we really enjoy.
When I grow too old to sail, I think I’d like to live here. We are going to look into the possibility of buying
some land on the island.
I could write on and on about the place but I’ve written so many letters tonight my hand is getting sore, plus I
sliced my finger today on an oyster shell.
I hope that Dad came through his check up with a clean bill of health on the 20th .Did Joan have her baby
yet? Could you send me her address?
Say hello to everyone. How are Fran and Al, Dale and Sue doing? Love Jane and Bing
***
1973 September 13th (Daufuskie)
A letter Jane wrote to her parents;
Dear Mom, Dad and Joel;
Thank you so much for your birthday cards and sending our mail, and your letters.We will be leaving
Daufuskie tomorrow. I don’t really want to leave but it’s time to head further south. If you have sent any mail
I haven’t received, Mrs. Burn will hold it and I’ll write her when I get somewhere that I can pick it up. I’ll most
likely call you and to let you know where to send our mail again. We have some slides coming in the mail
which you are welcome to look at. I’lltry to get a picture made for you of Bing and I and the boat as soon as I
can.
Well, we got our new paint put on the bottom of our boat. It was quite a job and quite a sight seeing
Dursmirg high and dry. All went well and we had Jim Muller from Savannah to help us. It took two days to get
the entire bottom done. We were exhausted after that so today we are resting up.
We plan to spend the winter in Florida, probably around the Keys. We should be there by Christmas.Did you
try the roll recipe I sent you? If you did, how did you like it?
The first of my wine is ready for drinking and it is really good.I think I’m too pooped to think of too much to
write now so I’ll close.
We are glad to hear that Dad is feeling good. I’ll talk to you soon.
Love Jane and Bing
BACK TO OUR TRAVELS
September 14th we said our goodbyes and took departure with plans for our return trip to this unique and
fascinating place called Daufuskie Island.
This night we would be back to anchor in Herb Creek at Savannah where we said goodbye to our dear friend Jim
Muller who had just given us a hand cleaning and painting the bottom of our boat.
Over the course of the summer Jane and I had received a crash and very intensive course in living out of the briny
sea from Jim Muller. He shared with us something priceless and very rewarding.
I can’t help but think of a quote from one of my very favorite historical figures, Benjamin Franklin, “you can give a
man a fish and you give him a meal but if you teach him how to fish you give him a meal for life”. As profound as that
sounds it turned out to be very true for us and we have put our friend Jim Muller’s good lessons to use over and
over all of these years…thanks again
Jim!
September 17th we took departure from Savannah and arrived in Saint Augustine Florida on the 21st.
Though we had several lovely anchorages along the way including the one at Fort Frederica, (where we discovered
that pecans were in season and littering the grounds which Jane and I managed to harvest) we also discovered that
our transit time was far too fast and in upcoming years we would work at slower and slower passages.
The slower we went the more fun we had.
In the following chapters we will revisit all of these Sea Islands one at a time relating our
adventures over the years plus our views of significant events in their history, our activities and our slant on the
local characters that made these places unique to us.
CHAPTER 3
Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach
Dear reader, as I start my description of our travels through these Sea Islands I have to start with Amelia Island
which by some quirk of political doings wound up within the state of Florida though it is in every way a kindred part of
the state of Georgia both politically and geographically.
The city of Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island is unique in many ways with its small town atmosphere commingled
with its world shipping port, heavy industry and fishing fleet.
In our many visits to this off the beaten tourist path place over the years we have changed our outlook and
perception because of the people we met, the places we frequented and our reasons for being there.
We spent a good deal of time there with our boat Dursmirg and wound up on Rawl’s Marine Railway to scrap and
paint the boats bottom plus other maintenance work. Because Standard Hardware Company with their extensive
selection of marine related equipment is located in Fernandina and this made Fernandina the almost ideal place for
doing our haul out and related work on the boat.
I have visited Fernandina by shrimp boat and automobile over the years and found that how we arrived made for a
completely different impression.
***
A description of the Sea Islands: There are places in the world that have some of the same characteristics of these
islands but I personally don’t know of any place with the combined features that make this place so unique.
To me the most unique thing about this end of the world are the beaches comprised of special Appalachian quartz
sand that packs so hard that it makes it possible to ride a skinny wheeled bicycle on them. These beaches range
from Daytona Beach on the south to Cape Roman, South Carolina on the north.
The physiographic characteristics are low flat sea barrier islands of this coastal plain that is well
drained with excessive leaching and separated from the mainland by tidal salt marshes richly abundant in life. If you
starved to death here you would have to work at it.
Great expanses of tall marsh grass, green in summer and golden brown like ripened wheat fields in fall and winter
rise up out of the black “pluff mud”. This soft and slippery mud must get its name from the fact that anything dropped
into it makes the distinctive sound of “pluff” as it disappears from sight. Within this mud can be found fiddler crabs,
some of the most colorful little creatures that have colonies of thousands whose shells appear to be delicately hand
painted in intricate pastel colors and they sport one large claw that they love to slowly wave relentlessly all day in
some sort of mating dance. The abundance and variety of life here ranges from alligators and turtles near the top of
the food chain down to microscopic organisms whose florescent glow nightly illuminates the fast moving tidal waters.
Dominant tree species are the long leaf pine that is so dense that it will sink in salty seawater, slash pine and loblolly
pine. The main hardwood trees are sweet gum, magnolias, aromatic red cedar, white oak and hickory. Thick
underbrush of palmetto palms are teaming with red bugs and rattlesnakes.
The cabbage palm trees range as far north as the Charleston area along the coast and are relatively cold resistant
though they are among the least attractive of the palm trees. The only edible part of this tree is its core where the
fronds originate from and can only be taken by killing the entire tree.
Several places in the south make a specialty of this “heart of palm” and prepare among other things, millionaires
salad. It is probably so referred to because of the extravagance of killing an entire tree just for one meal. Jane and I
have sampled this rare edible but we harvested our “heart of palm” from a land-clearing project where the downed
trees were just going to be set ablaze anyway. We cooked it several different ways and found it interesting but close
akin to cabbage in taste and texture and thought that we would only partake of this food for survival purposes.
The waters surrounding these islands are challenging to even experienced boatmen. High tides, swift currents,
shifting sand bars plus a maze of twisting rivers make this desolate and sparsely populated place into a nightmare
for the poor boater that runs out of gas or has a breakdown.
Fall fog, winter gales, scorching summer heat plus gnats and marsh mosquitoes all help to isolate this place from the
rest of the world.
Life has existed in and around these islands for 24 to 55 million years, and the evidence of that life can be found in
the “spoil islands” where dredging has been pumped up leaving behind the time enduring fossilized sharks teeth
from a time long before man ever set foot on earth. It is hard to imagine just how many ice ages have come and
gone in that span of time.
Jane and I have had the opportunity to discover many of these fossilized sharks teeth in our beach combing along
the Sea Islands. At Cumberland Island on the Florida-Georgia border, the American military dredged a 40-foot deep
channel up to Kings Bay for their atomic submarine missile loading station. The dredging was dispersed in several
spoil islands that are strewn with millions of fossilized bones and teeth blackened by the soil they were interred in.
The Savannah River also has similar spoil islands equally rich in these fossils.
Jane with her homemade sailcloth hat
This is the very first fossilized shark's tooth
that Jane found. I drilled the holes in it
using a dentist's drill and Jane made the
necklace. (Acutual size 1 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches.
that Jane found. I drilled the holes in it
using a dentist's drill and Jane made the
necklace. (Acutual size 1 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches.
Back to the Sea Island Description:
For several thousand years humans have inhabited these Sea Islands and the first were the American Indians who
only left fragments of their time here in the form of arrowheads and their pottery. Jane and I have been fortunate
enough to find some of these curious artifacts in our beachcombing due to the fact that the islands are suffering a
great deal of erosion because of the very noticeable and steady rise in the sea level over the recent years.
For several thousand years humans have inhabited these Sea Islands and the first were the American Indians who
only left fragments of their time here in the form of arrowheads and their pottery. Jane and I have been fortunate
enough to find some of these curious artifacts in our beachcombing due to the fact that the islands are suffering a
great deal of erosion because of the very noticeable and steady rise in the sea level over the recent years.
These are just two of the many arrowheads Jane and I have found over the years while beachcombing
the Sea Islands. Many of our beachcombing treasures we donated to Billie Burn at Daufuskie Island for
her private museum along with clay smoking pipes, musket balls and Indian pottery dating back in age
some thousands of years.
We have walked every beach from Charleston, South Carolina to the Florida Keys over the years and have found
other remains of these American Indians, the largest being pyramids near to New Smyrna Beach, Florida that were
nearly one hundred feet in height made completely of oyster shells.
We have eaten a lot of oysters over the years but to make a pile of shells as large as these boggles the mind as to
the countless feasts required to devour that quantity.
Some of the old navigational charts even denoted those pyramids as landmarks to be used for navigational
reference.
The Spanish were the first Europeans to leave permanent structures as monuments to their presence in the area,
the largest being the Castillo de San Marcos in Saint Augustine, Florida.
In the wooded islands of the Sea Islands, Jane and I have come across several of their outpost missions constructed
from coquina stone that is quarried along the coast. These ruins have become rank with overgrowth of vegetation
but still attest to the Spanish presence.
Civil War memorabilia is also present and we have found the musket balls and clay smoking pipes of the soldiers
also along the eroding beaches.
Back to our travels
May 22nd 1973 on our first trip up through the Sea Islands aboard Dursmirg to begin our cruising life: Our lives were
about to take yet another radical turn with totally new and different experiences we had never seen the likes of or for
that matter would never again be able to duplicate anywhere else ever again.
This evening we arrived in Fernandina Beach after motoring up from Saint Augustine. We anchored a long way from
the city dock on the northern shore of the Saint Mary River that forms the border with Georgia and drains the
Okefenokee Swamp. Shortly after we pulled in and anchored, our friends, Don and Betty Currie, aboard their boat
the Ione arrived and also anchored up near us.
It was good to be neighbors again and we always seemed to have plenty of stories to exchange.
Oh, by the way!
Don and Betty had now lived aboard their boat the “Ione”, for four winters. Three of those winters had been up in
Duluth, Minnesota where they had to use a special device under their boat all winter to keep the ice from wrecking
their hull. The last winter they were down in the Florida Keys with a side trip to the Bahamas that proved to be more
big seas than they or their little boat was ready for.
Don had sold out his share in the family wholesale tobacco and candy distributing business back in Duluth and was
receiving a monthly check to do his boating with. At the time, his $750.00 a month seemed like a lot of money but
the inflation in the coming years made it a meager amount.
Don and Betty had a big, flashy, chrome covered Italian Moto Guzzi motorcycle on their back deck and that was their
transportation when they were at dockside. I must admit that they did put some miles on it and it certainly got them
too many interesting places.
It was not the vehicle for an anchored out boater however because you had to be dockside in order to off-load it…it
was very heavy and not the kind of thing that could be loaded into a dinghy.
(Read about Don and Betty and their boat Ione in Travels of Dursmirg Volume 1.)
Back to Fernandina
Don was in a big hurry to get his boat bottom painted and asked us if it would be all right if he took our turn on
“Chancy’s” marine railway in Saint Marys, Georgia. We had no rush and as long as Don was in a big hurry we
thought that he might as well go first.
So the next day before the tide was fully high, Don and Betty headed up the river to put their boat on the marine
railway there.
Jane and I thought that we would give Don and Betty some time to get started on their bottom paint job so we loaded
our bicycles into our dinghy and took them to shore to explore.
Fernandina Beach as we saw it in 1973
From where we anchored our boat the Dursmirg over on the Georgia side of the Saint Marys River, that drained
down from the famous Okefenokee Swamp the view of Fernandina Beach was that of a small but busy industrial
town. Sea-going ships were loading and unloading while a steady flow of railway freight was being switched along
the busy waterfront municipal wharf.
Several wood processing plants with tall smoke stacks persistently and steadily belching various colors of smoke
added to the skyline silhouette. I have wondered if any of this belching smoke could have possibly had something to
do with the fact that little Fernandina had the dubious distinction of being the number one place in the entire state of
Florida for tuberculosis.
The sounds were echoed across the harbor both day and night from the busy switching railroad locomotives and
their screeching wheels commingled with the factory whistles summoning the next shift of workers.
The briny sea breeze was pleasant but when the wind shifted, sulfurous and acrid wood resin scented aromas would
get your attention.
The downtown business district was small and gave the appearance of being from the previous century, which much
of it was. The biggest and most prominent building was Standard Hardware Company and they had their business
name prominently and conspicuously displayed so it could be easily read even from across the river. This was one
of Fernandina’s most prominent businesses with several waterfront buildings that included their fabrication shops for
fishing nets and another for rigging. This is where the local fishing fleet also tied and it was common to see twenty or
more commercial shrimp trawlers at a time tied there.
The view from our boat by day was impressive not just because of the interesting and unique little town but also the
surrounding “big sound country” of the famous Georgia Sea Islands with its rivers, sounds, bays, savannas and wide
open spaces where wildlife abounded.
The view from our boat at night was beautifully illuminated by the multicolored city lights reflected across the
expanse of river that made the town have a strange inviting charm. The city was not quite as beautiful as it looked at
night from across the river but we enjoyed a view from our boat that none of the town folk even in the best homes
could equal.
Going ashore the town took on a different perspective. This was a paradoxical place geographically because it didn’t
fit with the rest of the state of Florida in any way. Far off the main highway, it was definitely not the first place or the
last place that vacationing out-of-state tourists would want to visit. This was a small isolated industrial town in
Georgia ironically placed in the wrong state.
At the City Yacht Pier, located at the foot of the main street and amidst the hubbub of switching railroad cars and
next to the local fishing fleet dock, there was an official Florida welcome station where all visitors were treated to a
free glass of fresh Florida orange juice compliments of the State of Florida. The reception center was set up for
people entering Florida by boat and was designed to promote all of the attractions in the state. Brochures by the
thousand were neatly displayed in this cone shaped building that resembled an oversized Indian wigwam that was
painted white andhad lots of plate glass windows that looked out over the harbor. All visiting boatman were invited to
use the bath facilities at no charge…bring your own towel. In all of our travels this was the only state that we had
ever seen that did such extensive advertising and promoting… Florida wanted visitors.
We docked our dinghy at the City Yacht Pier and unloaded our bicycles. Our first stop was in the welcome station
where the very nice young lady attendant went out of her way to be helpful to us.
She found us a place to store our bicycles at the police station just a block away and gave us tips on various “must-
see” things in the area plus told us about Rawl’s Boatyard where we might have our boat pulled and painted.
With our bicycles, we were off to explore the little town and the north part of the island.
the Sea Islands. Many of our beachcombing treasures we donated to Billie Burn at Daufuskie Island for
her private museum along with clay smoking pipes, musket balls and Indian pottery dating back in age
some thousands of years.
We have walked every beach from Charleston, South Carolina to the Florida Keys over the years and have found
other remains of these American Indians, the largest being pyramids near to New Smyrna Beach, Florida that were
nearly one hundred feet in height made completely of oyster shells.
We have eaten a lot of oysters over the years but to make a pile of shells as large as these boggles the mind as to
the countless feasts required to devour that quantity.
Some of the old navigational charts even denoted those pyramids as landmarks to be used for navigational
reference.
The Spanish were the first Europeans to leave permanent structures as monuments to their presence in the area,
the largest being the Castillo de San Marcos in Saint Augustine, Florida.
In the wooded islands of the Sea Islands, Jane and I have come across several of their outpost missions constructed
from coquina stone that is quarried along the coast. These ruins have become rank with overgrowth of vegetation
but still attest to the Spanish presence.
Civil War memorabilia is also present and we have found the musket balls and clay smoking pipes of the soldiers
also along the eroding beaches.
Back to our travels
May 22nd 1973 on our first trip up through the Sea Islands aboard Dursmirg to begin our cruising life: Our lives were
about to take yet another radical turn with totally new and different experiences we had never seen the likes of or for
that matter would never again be able to duplicate anywhere else ever again.
This evening we arrived in Fernandina Beach after motoring up from Saint Augustine. We anchored a long way from
the city dock on the northern shore of the Saint Mary River that forms the border with Georgia and drains the
Okefenokee Swamp. Shortly after we pulled in and anchored, our friends, Don and Betty Currie, aboard their boat
the Ione arrived and also anchored up near us.
It was good to be neighbors again and we always seemed to have plenty of stories to exchange.
Oh, by the way!
Don and Betty had now lived aboard their boat the “Ione”, for four winters. Three of those winters had been up in
Duluth, Minnesota where they had to use a special device under their boat all winter to keep the ice from wrecking
their hull. The last winter they were down in the Florida Keys with a side trip to the Bahamas that proved to be more
big seas than they or their little boat was ready for.
Don had sold out his share in the family wholesale tobacco and candy distributing business back in Duluth and was
receiving a monthly check to do his boating with. At the time, his $750.00 a month seemed like a lot of money but
the inflation in the coming years made it a meager amount.
Don and Betty had a big, flashy, chrome covered Italian Moto Guzzi motorcycle on their back deck and that was their
transportation when they were at dockside. I must admit that they did put some miles on it and it certainly got them
too many interesting places.
It was not the vehicle for an anchored out boater however because you had to be dockside in order to off-load it…it
was very heavy and not the kind of thing that could be loaded into a dinghy.
(Read about Don and Betty and their boat Ione in Travels of Dursmirg Volume 1.)
Back to Fernandina
Don was in a big hurry to get his boat bottom painted and asked us if it would be all right if he took our turn on
“Chancy’s” marine railway in Saint Marys, Georgia. We had no rush and as long as Don was in a big hurry we
thought that he might as well go first.
So the next day before the tide was fully high, Don and Betty headed up the river to put their boat on the marine
railway there.
Jane and I thought that we would give Don and Betty some time to get started on their bottom paint job so we loaded
our bicycles into our dinghy and took them to shore to explore.
Fernandina Beach as we saw it in 1973
From where we anchored our boat the Dursmirg over on the Georgia side of the Saint Marys River, that drained
down from the famous Okefenokee Swamp the view of Fernandina Beach was that of a small but busy industrial
town. Sea-going ships were loading and unloading while a steady flow of railway freight was being switched along
the busy waterfront municipal wharf.
Several wood processing plants with tall smoke stacks persistently and steadily belching various colors of smoke
added to the skyline silhouette. I have wondered if any of this belching smoke could have possibly had something to
do with the fact that little Fernandina had the dubious distinction of being the number one place in the entire state of
Florida for tuberculosis.
The sounds were echoed across the harbor both day and night from the busy switching railroad locomotives and
their screeching wheels commingled with the factory whistles summoning the next shift of workers.
The briny sea breeze was pleasant but when the wind shifted, sulfurous and acrid wood resin scented aromas would
get your attention.
The downtown business district was small and gave the appearance of being from the previous century, which much
of it was. The biggest and most prominent building was Standard Hardware Company and they had their business
name prominently and conspicuously displayed so it could be easily read even from across the river. This was one
of Fernandina’s most prominent businesses with several waterfront buildings that included their fabrication shops for
fishing nets and another for rigging. This is where the local fishing fleet also tied and it was common to see twenty or
more commercial shrimp trawlers at a time tied there.
The view from our boat by day was impressive not just because of the interesting and unique little town but also the
surrounding “big sound country” of the famous Georgia Sea Islands with its rivers, sounds, bays, savannas and wide
open spaces where wildlife abounded.
The view from our boat at night was beautifully illuminated by the multicolored city lights reflected across the
expanse of river that made the town have a strange inviting charm. The city was not quite as beautiful as it looked at
night from across the river but we enjoyed a view from our boat that none of the town folk even in the best homes
could equal.
Going ashore the town took on a different perspective. This was a paradoxical place geographically because it didn’t
fit with the rest of the state of Florida in any way. Far off the main highway, it was definitely not the first place or the
last place that vacationing out-of-state tourists would want to visit. This was a small isolated industrial town in
Georgia ironically placed in the wrong state.
At the City Yacht Pier, located at the foot of the main street and amidst the hubbub of switching railroad cars and
next to the local fishing fleet dock, there was an official Florida welcome station where all visitors were treated to a
free glass of fresh Florida orange juice compliments of the State of Florida. The reception center was set up for
people entering Florida by boat and was designed to promote all of the attractions in the state. Brochures by the
thousand were neatly displayed in this cone shaped building that resembled an oversized Indian wigwam that was
painted white andhad lots of plate glass windows that looked out over the harbor. All visiting boatman were invited to
use the bath facilities at no charge…bring your own towel. In all of our travels this was the only state that we had
ever seen that did such extensive advertising and promoting… Florida wanted visitors.
We docked our dinghy at the City Yacht Pier and unloaded our bicycles. Our first stop was in the welcome station
where the very nice young lady attendant went out of her way to be helpful to us.
She found us a place to store our bicycles at the police station just a block away and gave us tips on various “must-
see” things in the area plus told us about Rawl’s Boatyard where we might have our boat pulled and painted.
With our bicycles, we were off to explore the little town and the north part of the island.
Main street in Fernandina with Florida’s oldest bar, “The Palace Bar”.
The main street was just a couple of blocks long with a drug store, grocery store and a couple of diners plus the
famous “Palace Bar” renowned to be Florida’s oldest.
Biking east across the island from the downtown to the ocean side we came to old “Fort Clinch” which was set in a
large stand of local vegetation consisting of wind blown oaks trees and palmetto palms. This day we would be too
busy to do much sightseeing but we would return soon to explore.
The main street was just a couple of blocks long with a drug store, grocery store and a couple of diners plus the
famous “Palace Bar” renowned to be Florida’s oldest.
Biking east across the island from the downtown to the ocean side we came to old “Fort Clinch” which was set in a
large stand of local vegetation consisting of wind blown oaks trees and palmetto palms. This day we would be too
busy to do much sightseeing but we would return soon to explore.
Fort Clinch at Fernandina Beach, Florida has the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Saint Mary’s River
the north. The fort has never been besieged and is now an unfortified National Park and tourist
attraction.
This afternoon we headed by dinghy up the Saint Marys River to Chancy’s Marine Railway in Georgia to see how
our friends, Don and Betty, were getting along with their haul-out and paint job.
This was a very long ride and we discovered that we just barely had enough gasoline for our return trip.
We wound around twisting and turning up the river past a wood processing plant that was emitting so much foul
discharge that our eyes burned and we tried not to breath. It was such a shame that this otherwise incredibly
beautiful open country was blighted with such a degrading thing as this. When we finally arrived at Chancy’s Marine
Railway, Don and Betty’s boat was up and in the process of being cleaned…it needed it badly. Don wasn’t exactly
thrilled with the place for a number of reasons. In spite of the low cost of the boatyard it was a long distance from
town and any shopping and that was a major detraction. It also turned out that Mr. Chancy, the owner of the
boatyard, was an active preacher that didn’t let any opportunity pass to preach his “good word”. Don and Betty were
at his mercy every minute. As Jane and I were then drawn into Mr. Chancy’s unwilling congregation along with Don
and Betty, we were told just how mighty and humane Mr. Chancy really was.
Mr. Chancy, or should I say “Reverend Chancy” wanted us all to witness his love of all things worldly as he
demonstrated that he wouldn’t even kill a fly. Yes, his demonstration was sacrificial indeed as he calmly held out his
arm to give his blood to a thirsty fly. I couldn’t help but look around his premises at his big shrimp trawler that was a
killing machine if there ever was one and wonder just how the “Reverend Mr. Chancy” would rationalize that
business away. Jane and I decided that we would look elsewhere for a place to pull our boat.
***
That very night we got together with an English couple that had just sailed their home made Ferro-cement sailboat
across the Atlantic Ocean to America.
We all went to the Palace bar in downtown Fernandina that was renowned to be the oldest bar in the state of Florida.
The crowd was a jovial bunch and appeared to be regulars. A lady took her place at the piano and was excellent
with her continuous repertoire of songs. A man with a violin accompanied her and
the crowd was dancing, singing and generally having a good time.
Well, the song “Dixie” was played and all of the locals stood and sung along while reverently holding their hand over
their hearts. It was very inspirational to say the least as we sat in some awe and took it in. Our English friends had
never seen anything like it.
When the music finished a man who was one of the jubilant singers came directly over to me, put his finger under
my nose and screamed, “Yankee!!!” He was obviously in a highly agitated state of mind as I could tell by his
squinting eyes and trembling finger. Well, I burst into laughter and that was all I could feel at this moment. I just had
never seen how fanatically overzealous and worked up some one could become that they would approach a
stranger who was obviously from some other place in that manner.
I later thought that this was the same bunch of people that might form a lynch mob at the drop of a hat.
***
June 12th, 1973
(An anniversary card JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS)
Dear Mom and Dad
Hope you have a happy anniversary. I know that this card will reach you a little late.We finally got our boat
hauled out on Monday and we have been working every minute ever since.
We had quite a day Sunday. We left the boat anchored here in the river for two hours, when we came back
it was on the beach. Some one had pulled the trip line on our anchor-there are a million little boats out
every Sunday afternoon.
Anyway we got it off with a lot of nervous energy and the engine. Next we had to take the boat to the
boatyard. We were to follow a shrimper because the channel is tricky and unmarked. Only enough water for
us at high tide. Well, we got held up and had to go in after high water. We went aground again. This time it
took our dinghy, sails ands engine to get us off. A very exciting day.
You should see the channel; we go aground with our dinghy at low water.
Well we made it and will be here until at least Thursday.
I will write about our future plans later.
Love Jane and Bing
the north. The fort has never been besieged and is now an unfortified National Park and tourist
attraction.
This afternoon we headed by dinghy up the Saint Marys River to Chancy’s Marine Railway in Georgia to see how
our friends, Don and Betty, were getting along with their haul-out and paint job.
This was a very long ride and we discovered that we just barely had enough gasoline for our return trip.
We wound around twisting and turning up the river past a wood processing plant that was emitting so much foul
discharge that our eyes burned and we tried not to breath. It was such a shame that this otherwise incredibly
beautiful open country was blighted with such a degrading thing as this. When we finally arrived at Chancy’s Marine
Railway, Don and Betty’s boat was up and in the process of being cleaned…it needed it badly. Don wasn’t exactly
thrilled with the place for a number of reasons. In spite of the low cost of the boatyard it was a long distance from
town and any shopping and that was a major detraction. It also turned out that Mr. Chancy, the owner of the
boatyard, was an active preacher that didn’t let any opportunity pass to preach his “good word”. Don and Betty were
at his mercy every minute. As Jane and I were then drawn into Mr. Chancy’s unwilling congregation along with Don
and Betty, we were told just how mighty and humane Mr. Chancy really was.
Mr. Chancy, or should I say “Reverend Chancy” wanted us all to witness his love of all things worldly as he
demonstrated that he wouldn’t even kill a fly. Yes, his demonstration was sacrificial indeed as he calmly held out his
arm to give his blood to a thirsty fly. I couldn’t help but look around his premises at his big shrimp trawler that was a
killing machine if there ever was one and wonder just how the “Reverend Mr. Chancy” would rationalize that
business away. Jane and I decided that we would look elsewhere for a place to pull our boat.
***
That very night we got together with an English couple that had just sailed their home made Ferro-cement sailboat
across the Atlantic Ocean to America.
We all went to the Palace bar in downtown Fernandina that was renowned to be the oldest bar in the state of Florida.
The crowd was a jovial bunch and appeared to be regulars. A lady took her place at the piano and was excellent
with her continuous repertoire of songs. A man with a violin accompanied her and
the crowd was dancing, singing and generally having a good time.
Well, the song “Dixie” was played and all of the locals stood and sung along while reverently holding their hand over
their hearts. It was very inspirational to say the least as we sat in some awe and took it in. Our English friends had
never seen anything like it.
When the music finished a man who was one of the jubilant singers came directly over to me, put his finger under
my nose and screamed, “Yankee!!!” He was obviously in a highly agitated state of mind as I could tell by his
squinting eyes and trembling finger. Well, I burst into laughter and that was all I could feel at this moment. I just had
never seen how fanatically overzealous and worked up some one could become that they would approach a
stranger who was obviously from some other place in that manner.
I later thought that this was the same bunch of people that might form a lynch mob at the drop of a hat.
***
June 12th, 1973
(An anniversary card JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS)
Dear Mom and Dad
Hope you have a happy anniversary. I know that this card will reach you a little late.We finally got our boat
hauled out on Monday and we have been working every minute ever since.
We had quite a day Sunday. We left the boat anchored here in the river for two hours, when we came back
it was on the beach. Some one had pulled the trip line on our anchor-there are a million little boats out
every Sunday afternoon.
Anyway we got it off with a lot of nervous energy and the engine. Next we had to take the boat to the
boatyard. We were to follow a shrimper because the channel is tricky and unmarked. Only enough water for
us at high tide. Well, we got held up and had to go in after high water. We went aground again. This time it
took our dinghy, sails ands engine to get us off. A very exciting day.
You should see the channel; we go aground with our dinghy at low water.
Well we made it and will be here until at least Thursday.
I will write about our future plans later.
Love Jane and Bing
Dursmirg on the marine railway at Rawl’s Boatyard in Fernandina, Florida, 1973
A LETTER JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS;
1973 June 12 (Sea Islands-Fernandina Beach)
Have a Happy Father’s Day!
I don’t know where we will be on Sunday.
We changed our boat’s appearance. The top half is white and black and we are putting red bottom paint on
it. - At least it was until I got rained out. We are at a nice boatyard. The boat is surrounded by huge “live oak’
trees so we are always working in the shade. On the rail next to us is an old Baltic Trader (freight sailing
ship) built in 1899 in Denmark. It was sailed across by six boys from Washington DC this winter.
I was hoping that Judy and Dick would stop by to see us on their way but they didn’t.Or maybe they didn’t
recognize it with the new paint job. We painted the white a week ago.
We sure are enjoying the weather 75-85 all the time. Real comfortable especially when we are anchored out
as we get a nice breeze all the time.
I’ll write as soon as I know where we are headed. Hope you are feeling okay and the garden is doing good.
Wish I could send you some Florida sunshine for it.
Love Jane and Bing next chapter
A LETTER JANE WROTE TO HER PARENTS;
1973 June 12 (Sea Islands-Fernandina Beach)
Have a Happy Father’s Day!
I don’t know where we will be on Sunday.
We changed our boat’s appearance. The top half is white and black and we are putting red bottom paint on
it. - At least it was until I got rained out. We are at a nice boatyard. The boat is surrounded by huge “live oak’
trees so we are always working in the shade. On the rail next to us is an old Baltic Trader (freight sailing
ship) built in 1899 in Denmark. It was sailed across by six boys from Washington DC this winter.
I was hoping that Judy and Dick would stop by to see us on their way but they didn’t.Or maybe they didn’t
recognize it with the new paint job. We painted the white a week ago.
We sure are enjoying the weather 75-85 all the time. Real comfortable especially when we are anchored out
as we get a nice breeze all the time.
I’ll write as soon as I know where we are headed. Hope you are feeling okay and the garden is doing good.
Wish I could send you some Florida sunshine for it.
Love Jane and Bing next chapter
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