Saint Marys

Saint Marys Georgia Welcome Center
No LL

Libby and I decided that tonight, we are putting out to sea. We'll have southerly winds for at least 48 hours. Perhaps too little wind, but what the heck. We'll try. The weather for Monday sounds doubtful, so we'll stick close enough to shore to put in Monday morning wherever we are. If the weather holds for 72 hours, we can make it all the way to Beaufort, NC. In 48 hours we should be able to get north of Charleston, SC.



Today we came to St Marys for the first time. On all previous trips north and south, we didn't take the short 5 mile side trip over to see this place. What a mistake that was!

This is a delightful little village. It is just packed full of charm and beauty, and history and beautiful architecture, and interesting things. It's also not very big so it doesn't take a long time to tour the whole place on foot. The only other place we know on the east coast of comparable charm is Bath, NC.

Libby and I went to the Submarine Museum and to the Cumberland Island Museum.

The submarine place was full of artifacts from the diesel powered submarine era. I recognized a lot of the technology used in the control panels was only slightly more primitive than the panels I worked on for the Dresden II nuclear plant simulator in the 1960s. Today, there was also a group of submarine veterans touring the museum with us. For them, it really really brought back memories.

The submarine connection to St. Marys has to do with the huge Kings Bay submarine base which is just a mile or so away from here. There, all sized of submarines put in for maintenance. They have two hanger like buildings big enough to hold 570 foot long Ohio Class submarines inside up on the hard. That's really big.

Two amusing items.

1. Before leaving the submarine museum, I stopped in the men's room. I noted that the urinal was decorated with a picture of Osama Bin Laden neatly centered in the target area.
   
   
2. Our friend Fred Olsen who lives in Niskayuna once got fired from his pilot's job because he took an aerial picture of the "secret" navy training reactor at the Kesselring site in West Milton, NY. Well Fred, you'll be interested to learn that framed but forbidden aerial pictures of that site and of the equally forbidden KAPL site in Niskayuna are hanging in the museum.
   

Land lubbers can come to St Marys as a jumping off point to visit Cumberland Island. That's the island that we wrote about last November that has wilds horses and armadillos. There are also grand old houses owned by the Carnegie family that resemble the Vanderbilt house at Shelburne Farms, VT. I really recommend Cumberland Island as a vacation stop if you ever have the chance.