Last minute change of plans

As I was packing up my boat today at the ramp a couple of crabbers pulled up and began to unload their haul. After striking up a conversation they mentioned how earlier that day they had an altercation with an alligator. Their exact words were that they were "confronted with an gator that challenged them." They also claimed that they saw a total of 4 alligators just today alone all in the marsh, and that around here they are completely accustomed to the saltwater and are extremely brazen. Now, I'm sure you're as skeptical about all this as I was but they assured me and didn't seem like the kind of people to lie and mess with a stranger. In fact, one of the crabbers was a middle age woman who sincerely told me that she would be praying for my safety so I highly doubt she would worry me with fabricated gator stories and then be concerned for my well being. Anyhow, the point is that I decided to change my plan because of this new knowledge and abandon my intentions to camp on the VERY small speck of spoil land that I had scouted out on my charts and google maps. Instead I paddled a shortish session across to St. Simon Island which seems to be the most developed of GA's barrier islands that I've seen so far. My camping spot tomorrow night has to be gator free - its a little nook of beach on the north end of Blackbeard Isl but it means that its about 10 miles farther then I had expected. So tomorrow will be a BIG day if I'm able to make it. If I see something good before this spot that I have in mind and its getting late then I'll just stop there.

Now, you are going to think I'm totally cray and completly stupid if I tell you this but I will anyhow: one of my shortcuts got me into a very sticky situation today. Just one day after having such good self control and passing on a sure-thing shortcut I made a horrible decision to paddle up something called Mud River (should have been my first sign that it was a bad idea) under the impression that it was going to bring me out to Jekyll Sound west of the ICW which would make it nicer to cross with a quickly picking up outgoing tide. I think the sun and heat causes me to make bad decisions and I really need to be careful about that bc this was the most serious mistake yet, I think. My route kept getting narrower until and when I finally gave up and decided to turn around, well, I found I couldn't. There wasn't enough room to swing my 17.5 foot boat around so I HAD TO BACK OUT. It was miserable. Plus all I could think about were the alligators that I imagined lurking there, waiting to devour me amongst the marsh grass where I would never be found again. Those crabbers had really freaked me out.....


I guess thats all for now. Early day tomorrow so I need to sleep.

Peace,
Bishop