The Green Headed Monsters

The numerous people we talked to about heading for the Chesapeake extolled its virtues and were quick to tell us about the possible heat in late July and August. " The trip up is great with many interesting cities to visit, yada, yada".  What they forgot to tell us (maybe it was a mental block, been through it, don't want to do it again mental block, who knows) was about the viscous and plentiful Green Head Marsh Flies.  These huge buggers began to appear when we left Cumberland Island but were just a nuisance. Tuesday night they became a little more bothersome as we got into more marshland but we still didn't understand the scope of our "problem".

We were waiting to head for Brunswick Landing to meet Wayne and Colleen on Thursday, so we spent all day Wednesday anchored  near the marsh (because there isn't much but marsh), not aware that we were in the midst of the breeding ground for these nasty buggers.   With their numbers multiplying we spent the day  inside the boat afraid to go out the door for fear of being swarmed.

Early Thursday morning we braved the bridge and headed for Brunswick.  A few more flies but once we hit civilization again they left us pretty much alone.  After docking we immediately started to wash the ash from the paper mill in Fernandina and 3 days of the Okefonokee Fire ash from the boat.  We were once again sparkling, well maybe twinkling, and then went grocery shopping.  I am sure that Wayne & Colleen, our chauffeur's for the day, were impressed with the way we could fill up the back of their Trail Blazer and we appreciated their efforts to make our visit to Brunswick enjoyable.

Since our budget dictated one marina night.. we cast off lines this afternoon and we were not even out of the river before we were boarded by the Coast Guard for a safety check ( just when we had started to devour our lunch), turns out they were the nicest guys and we
passed with flying colors, whew!

Jeckyl Sound was a sheet of glass and soon we turned and started up the Intracoastal again.  Back to marshland and you guessed it.....the green headed monsters, with a vengeance. War path, mating I don't know what but this is insane....

We can honestly say that we can NEVER, EVER, remember flies this bad.  Lets just say, we had 3 brand new fly swatters, 2 were crying "mercy" from overuse and their is a mass fly grave on our bridge!  It was ugly and our arms are tired.

Tomorrow we will abandon the bridge and try navigating from below.  

WHAT WAS MOTHER NATURE THINKING?

Sea Grass beard on our anchor rode

Cumberland Island Light now abandoned

Sydney Lanier Bridge....Brunswick, Ga.

We have come to think of this as "our train", it has been with us since Miami!

Wayne, Colleen, Jann, Gary ...our good friends from Charlotte, N.C.

Armed and ready...but as it turned out we were no match for the "Devil Flies"