Brunswick, GA

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It rained again over night as another cold front came through. I don't think the high today exceeded 60F, but at least it didn't rain. They had breakfast a half hour early this morning to accommodate an 8:30 am tour departure. We and the others at our breakfast table were seated and had ordered by 7:05, then we waited until 7:45 am to get our food. The it was only after complaining up the management chain. Sadly, the hotel manager blamed it on our new and inexperienced waitress. Back to the bad old days we remember and what keep us away from ACL. If your employment policy is 90 day training cycles as new hires only, then your managers are responsible for supervision and training. You don't ever get to blame new untrained workers! So, not a good start. It has been a blessing to only have 43 passengers, but you know after 3 days... Anyway, not a good start. Then there was a blowup, a melt down and an equipment failure as we tried to load the bus to St. Simons. We have a mother and son in power chairs and they have not been handled smoothly or even allowed ashore at all ports, so this was important, but people were out of patience this morning. We were on the bus with about a dozen who were not taking the $45 tour but the $15 transfer only. It turned out we need not have been rushed because all of the sleepy little waterfront community did not open before 10 and we were back on the bus to leave at 11:30. We just wandered, saw the waterfront and tried to stay out of the wind. I got to put a pin in St. Simons Island. The people who did the sea turtle & Jekyll Island tour may not have fared much better as their last hour was spent in an open-air trolley. With a high of 51 F or so and a stiff wind, the chill must have been near freezing. Again, at least no precip! After a reasonable lunch, Clay left at 2 pm for the shrimp boat tour at $50. He gave me a downtime assignment of using the Internet or my feet to research finding a place to eat pizza ashore tonight. If it isn't raining this evening, it is Fox's for pizza. It is only about 3 blocks away. We sail from here at 3 am tomorrow, so we have time!

There is a statue, I guess you'd call it, near a historical marker at the town end of the park we are docked along side. There we learned about Brunswick's Liberty Ships. We'd never heard about that before somehow!

Tomorrow at 8 am we anchor off Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, Fl. We disembark on Saturday. We had to return our disembarkation forms yesterday. Not looking forward to my birthday in Disney's Animal Kingdom as much as I was 3 weeks ago! If we'd known that we were going to take the fall train trip and this 2-week cruise, we probably wouldn't have booked Disney World. But that was already planned before the other 2 came up.   Oh well, you only turn 60 once.

Clay returned from his Lady Jane Shrimp Boat tour very excited. He had run out of battery on his phone, so I guess he took lots of pics. He declared it the best excursion of the trip and maybe one of the best ever. There were only 11 participants. He said he stayed back and never handled any of the catch so he didn't get stinky or dirty. He still didn't think I'd have enjoyed it.

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