As I think you know we had planned to be in St Mary's, GA for Thanksgiving. We are here. As I am sure you have learned, we don't do anything the easy way. The place with the least amount of water along the ICW is the passage by Jakwll Island. We have done it several times. We got all worked up and went through yesterday without any problem by waiting for a bunch of other boats. In the past we did it on our own and ignorance was bliss. We anchored in a great creek last night next to Cumberland Island. There are wild horses and alligators. We saw neither although I had Moose looking for the latter early this morning. We then headed for St Mary's. We were going to be their early and find a place to anchor among what looks to be at least a hundred boats. Half way up the river I ran aground. Remember the tides in Georgia are seven feet or more. The tide was falling. We had no choice but to wait for it to come back. When it came back in we started the engine and got ready to float off the bottom. I instructed Elyse to move the wheel back and forth in the hope it would free us. All of a sudden Elyse announced that we had no steering. The wheel would spin. We called Tow Boat to pull us off and take us someplace. While they were on their way we floated off. Actually we were under power. Instead of dropping anchor which would have been the smart thing, I ran below and started to assemble our emergency rudder. As I was putting it together the tow showed up. They took us to this old boat yard full of great characters. They promised the would be sure to get us to the Thanksgiving dinner.
We are hoping the steering problem is small. The guys at the ;yard think so. it's like the chain coming off your bicycle. We will see in the morning. We have now both showered and will have our dinner. We are safe. We miss you all and look forward to hearing from you.
Eat lots of turkey.
John & Elyse
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