We're in Georgia after a very nice Atlantic Ocean cruising day!
Of course, when you look out the other side, Europe wasn't visable at all!
We only saw one or two other boats all day, which made the "out in the ocean" feeling even better. However, we did see a few other ocean inhabitants sharing the space with us:
There was also a single fishing boat out hauling nets. It was probably a shrimp boat with most of the crew sleeping because they net shrimp at night. 
We arrived at St. Simons Island early (about 1:00 PM) because we made good time by going outside. It was a nice easy day. We'll probably decide how long we'll stay here based on tides and waves. The wave reports are for 4 to 6 ft. waves in the ocean tomorrow but 2 to 4 ft. on Saturday and 2 ft. on Sunday. Because the ICW is badly shoaled in Georgia, we need to go either during high tides only, or go outside in the ocean. Tomorrow's tides would require us to leave before dawn to time tides right for the shallows, but we need light to go safely, so we'll probably stay here a day or two and go to Savannah outside on Saturday or Sunday.
We went outside into the Atlantic Ocean to come up from Amelia Island, FL to Saint Simons Island, GA. The wave forecast was for 2 to 4 ft. waves in the ocean and we had heard lots of reports that there was bad shoaling in the ICW between Amelia and St. Simons, so we just stayed out of the ICW altogether by going outside. When we got out past the inlet channel at Amelia Island, we discovered that the waves were actually about 1 ft. to 2 ft.! Very calm for the open ocean.
What's nice about it is you can just set auttopilot for your course and sit back without worrying about staying in the ICW channel, watching the depth gauge if the channel is shallow, and slowing down for passing boats or low wake zones. You just go! We mostly cruised about 5 miles out from land, so the shore was just visable on our port side all day.
Of course, when you look out the other side, Europe wasn't visable at all!
We only saw one or two other boats all day, which made the "out in the ocean" feeling even better. However, we did see a few other ocean inhabitants sharing the space with us:
We saw Northern Gannets for the first time on the trip. They're very common, but we just haven't seen them because they seem to stay offshore. They're fun to watch because they're absolute dive bombers! They fly about 100 ft. up and when they see a fish, they swoop straight down and fold their wings out behind them so they go into the water like an arrow.
There was also a single fishing boat out hauling nets. It was probably a shrimp boat with most of the crew sleeping because they net shrimp at night. We arrived at St. Simons Island early (about 1:00 PM) because we made good time by going outside. It was a nice easy day. We'll probably decide how long we'll stay here based on tides and waves. The wave reports are for 4 to 6 ft. waves in the ocean tomorrow but 2 to 4 ft. on Saturday and 2 ft. on Sunday. Because the ICW is badly shoaled in Georgia, we need to go either during high tides only, or go outside in the ocean. Tomorrow's tides would require us to leave before dawn to time tides right for the shallows, but we need light to go safely, so we'll probably stay here a day or two and go to Savannah outside on Saturday or Sunday.
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