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Aerial Shots
click for larger
Two years ago this month I was cleaning the bottom when Peter happened by. He had this odd looking set-up… a big box kite with a hand held crank on the kite string fixed to a homeade spool that was mounted to a pvc frame he wore around his neck. The kite lifted his camera, which was also hard wired to a control box mounted on the frame so he could see it as he maneuvered the kite into position! I was working furiously to beat the tide, so I didn’t have time to chat, but he took several shots and before he left , he promised to e-mail some pictures. I scrawled my address in the sand and he took a photo. I never heard back from him. It turns out, the photo of the address was unreadable. Then two years later, after the hurricane, he happened to come down to my neighbors house where we ran into each other again. After a good laugh, he re-copied my e-mail again and sent me these nice shots.
I hope to entice him to go out with us soon and get some more aerials of the boat under sail. I am still trying to get a good “money shot” of the boat for my charter brochure. He has made a beautiful calendar with photos of local stuff. They have them down at Ford’s bookshop down at shops of Sea Island.
Hurricane Irma
Friday PM 4:30.
We are at the head of Jones Creek, with six hooks set. There is no room to swing, so I have a mambo sized danforth set as primary to the NorthEast with the bow oriented in that direction. NorthEast is the most exposed fetch here, with wind from that direction now at about 20 Kts. If the storm stays on track to the west of us the wind should veer on around to the East. That would be the Manson Supreme taking over. It is a back breaking mambo too. I may never see these anchors again in this mud. To the north I have my working plow set, right in the axis of the creek current, which is not too bad up here. The other good thing is the hill behind us, to the South and South West, and I have two fortresses and another danforth spread out there with lots of chain. I am trying to leave enough slack to allow the boat to pivot with the gusts so that there is no broadside load. Hopefully that will work out. Problem is there is not unlimited scope due to the width of the creek, and the surge also has to be taken into account. I guess the biggest concern is floating trees and debris, though that should be minimum problem here compared to other spots. All other things considered this seems like the best plan.
Y’all say a prayer for the Spirit of St Simons (and everybody else too, while you are at it) Even if you aren’t a Christian, say a prayer anyway.
If the storm comes and it is very bad we are leaving. There is nothing more to do I reckon. I will go out there in the morning and make a few adjustments, then we will decide whether to leave or not. We are packed, pretty much. My camera must’ve got wet. This pic was taken with my phone on the row back to the dock.
When you’ve done all you can do, that is all you can do, so there is no more need to worry about it.
I like what John Masefield said:
Dust to dust and die we must
so let us all be merry!
Let us drink the cocktail down,
and let us eat the cherry!…
Blue and slapping run the waves
ebbing out or flowing
Let us go to life! or graves,
but let’s at least be going
EDIT:
We rode it out fine. I still think I would prefer to have a monster bridle, and single rode setup, with lots of chafing gear and one big manson supreme or similar, probably in tandem with a kellet of some kind, lots of heavy chain and good snubbers. problem is finding a good protected spot with no sharp objects nearby that also has the sea room you need to swing, preferably with little current. I am still looking. I will definitely take off the mainsail next time also. Broadside loads are huge, even with everything else stripped. We got lucky (again).
The Chichimeco Invasion
Looking Northeast from Jones Creek. Cannon’s point is to the right, with Sapelo Island on the horizon.
The following excerpts were copied from John Worth’s The Struggle for the Georgia Coast p. 15-16
“The year 1661 marked the beginning of the end of the Guale and Mocama mission provinces. Late that spring, news arrived in St Augustine that “a nation of warrior Indians”, had struck Guale from the mainland……Although the details of this assault are only fragmentary, it seems clear that a body of perhaps as many as two hundred canoes and rafts, carrying between 500 and 2000 Chicimeco warriors armed with firearms , descended the modern day Altamaha River from the interior of Georgia and attacked the first town of Guale, Talaje,situated on the northern bank of the river near the modern day town of Darien. Based on accounts…this mission appears to have been abandoned as a direct result of the attack on Jun 20th, with its inhabitants fleeing to Mission San Joseph de Sapala, situated only five leagues distant in a more protected barrier island location off the coast….
…Mission San Joseph de Sapala, by then flooded with refugees, seems to have been the target of a second assault soon after the abandonment of Mission Santo Domingo [de Talaje.] Having constructed a “boat that they made from the boards of the church and the convent at Talaje,” (Barreda, 1663) The Chichimeco apparently endeavored to follow their initial victory with an attack on Sapala, probably navigating along the inland waterways to the bar of Ospogue ( modern Doboy sound), just across from Sapelo Island. filing the vessel with 70 warriors, the Chichimeco launched their construction into the open water, at which point “the current of the bar of Ospogue drew them out to sea, and they drowned in view of everyone, with no little sentiment from the enemy, though the said people being among those of the most valor.” Other Chicimecos, including “some of their principal leaders’ were killed in battle with the Gaule indians, and they lost “many more, who in their retreat and flight died of hunger on the roads”…
…The destruction and abandonment of Mission Santo Domingo de Talaje at the mouth of the Altamaha river was followed by the re establishment of the mission on nearby St Simons island under another name, Santo Domingo de Asao, probably located at Cannons point on the north end of the island. Although this southernmost Guale mission was situated on the same island as the northernmost Mocama mission San Buenaventura de Guadalquini [on the St Simons south end], the island location provided far greater security from raids originating from the interior, and probably easier access by boat…”
July 4th 2017
Perfect weather this year for sunset and fireworks! Wind SSE 10-15. No clouds.
Memorial Day 2017
and some memories were made…
Vasudeva
And once again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy season and made a powerful noise, then said Siddhartha: “Isn’t it so, oh friend, the river has many voices, very many voices? Hasn’t it the voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird of the night, and of a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand other voices more?”
“So it is,” Vasudeva nodded, “all voices of the creatures are in its voice.”
“And do you know,” Siddhartha continued, “what word it speaks, when you succeed in hearing all of its ten thousand voices at once?”
Happily, Vasudeva’s face was smiling, he bent over to Siddhartha and spoke the holy Om into his ear. And this had been the very thing which Siddhartha had also been hearing.
Random photos
We’ve made several afternoon daysails in the St Simons Sound over the last few weeks. Temps have averaged in the low 70’s, wind usually from ENE, 15-20 kts. Earlier this year, we decided to remove the bench seats to lighten up and give more elbow room. So far I think folks like it better, though we are still debating over which are the best chairs to use. It’s really nice to have all that extra real estate for the passengers to mill about. The table stows forward under the solar panel, with a “kitchen box” underneath, and room for a large cooler as well. If we want to “dine out” it attaches to the console on the aft end with scissor legs fwd. It is very light, and seats seven easily.
Spanish Account of the Attack on Georgia
These are a few images taken from a 1913 Georgia Historical Society publication of Spanish documents. They give an account of the invasion of Gualquini, and make a good supplement to the previous post. Note the map is English and Spanish, with different names for some of the same features shown on the Spanish maps.
Click to enlarge
The fort appears to have been right about where the pier is now, and the Spanish beach head somewhere near the Sea Island lodge and golf course. Early the next morning they marched up the beach toward the village.
Georgia Historical Society https://archive.org/stream/spanishofficiala01geor#page/n7/mode/2up
A collection of the documents in book form
Another Arredondo Map
click to zoom in
My second cousin and childhood friend, Farris Cadle, sent me the link to this map of St Simons Island. It portrays the Spanish invasion in 1742, including a list of the ships involved, the armaments, and numbers and types of personnel. The legend also describes the English fortifications, houses, roads, etc. on St Simons (Gualquini, the indigenous name), and Jekyll (Isla de las Ballenas, the spanish name, “isle of whales”).
The original is in the Spanish Archives in Madrid, and has now been digitized for all the world to see. Another, earlier Arredondo map, made in 1737, of the St Simons sound area is in the Hargrett library collection at UGA, and also in the Library of Congress. More here about it.
Here is the link to the Spanish National Library (BNE) with a viewer. There is a lot of information packed into these online files- if you have access to a large printer a good sized wall copy could be made. I would like to get a translation of all of the legend to print out, and would really appreciate some help with that. if anyone is interested please drop me a note.
Thanks to Farris for the heads up and to Bob Drury for the print!