Having visited Savannah by car from Hilton Head, we decided to bypass it on our journey south and instead headed for Brunswick in Georgia, about 100 miles south of Hilton Head. As with our last four ports of call we arrived after dark and negotiated the long entrance channel, and we're talking up to 10 miles long, using the lit channel marker buoys. Sometimes picking the one you need to follow out of all the others can be tricky, but we made it in with no problems and anchored at 10pm last night in the middle of nowhere. We set the alarm to wake us early this morning to move up to a small marina, timing it to arrive before forecast winds picked up. We needn't have bothered: Yet again the forecast was wrong and the winds actually have dropped as the day has progressed.
After a couple of hours relaxing we walked into downtown Brunswick. Settled back in the late 1700s as are a lot of towns/cities in this part of America, Brunswick definitely has a feel of being down on its heels: Lots of vacant shops for lease, no-one around (although it is Sunday so everywhere is closed up) etc. It's a shame for the place as it obviously was a thriving community in the late 19th / early 20th century but the damage from hurricanes, flooding and the economic crisis back in the 1920s have all taken their toll. Whilst effort are being made to revitalise the town, it's not somewhere we want to spend much time so we plan on moving on tomorrow.
We're not far from the Florida border now and plan on visiting two more places in Georgia before we leave it: Cumberland Island, a natural coastal border island, and St Marys, another old town and somewhere a lot of cruising sailors congregate for Thanksgiving so we thought we'd join them!