Moon River

Bruce's hat made up for missing the rising sun

Author's Note:  I am going to be away most of the next week.  Early Monday morning, I'm heading to the Okefenokee for another 3 day wilderness paddle and then I'm heading to North Carolina for a wedding.  I'll check blogs when I get a chance, but that won't be often.  

Well, it's not wider than a mile, but it might have been for we couldn't make out any details of the other side when we slide our kayaks into the water beside the bridge on the Diamond Causeway.  The air was saturated with humidity and fog reduced visibility to a few hundred feet.  There would be no brilliant sunrise this morning, but it was good to back in the water with a sailing and kayaking friend from Michigan.  We were paddling the famed "Moon River," a small tributary of the Vernon River near Savannah.  There are many songs named for rivers; this might be the only river named for a song as an honor to one of Savannah's famous sons, Johnny Mercer. The Mercer family owned a home on this marshy river.  The song became iconic after being featured in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's and Savannah felt the world needed a real Moon River.  I have been wanting to paddle this river since arriving--and some night when the moon is full and the tide high, I'll paddle it again.

We paddled up river from the causeway.  I'd chosen to take Bruce on this section of water because I knew we were not likely to get lost.  If we were paddling in the open waters of Green Island or Wassaw Sound, we might have ended up somewhere we didn't want to be before the fog burned off.  As the crow flies, it was two and a half miles between Diamond Causeway which runs to Skidaway Island and the causeway running to Isle of Hope.  Of course, the river isn't straight, and we did some exploring, so I figured we'd cover six or seven miles and had a favorable tide.

Entrance to Wormsloe
(photo taken by Bruce's wife)

The tide was nearly high when we began paddling.  The top of the Spartina (grass) was barely out of the water.  Once we'd headed up north a bit, the fog seemed to dampen the sound of the cars on the causeway and we were in our own world.  Occasionally we'd pass a pier from one of the houses on the west side, but no one was around.  Much of the east side of the river is wild, a part of the Wormsloe plantation which is a state historic site and has an incredible drive though a long row of Spanish moss draped live oaks.  I'm sure many of you have seen this driveway as it was featured in the movie "Forest Gump."  In the wooded areas to our east, we heard a number of owls.  

Isle of Hope Causeway (the fog is burning off)

At Isle of Hope, we turned around. The bugs were getting bad as the causeway was blocking what little wind there was and we were mostly in grass and not open water.  The tide was now going out and it gave us a good push as we paddled back the way we came. The fog had mostly burned off by the time we were back at the take-out where were encouraged to quickly load the boats and get moving by a hoard of mosquitoes.  At least, the repellent kept them from biting, but they were still annoying and I'd swallowed a few of the buggers. 

that's me!

Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Oh dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're going, I'm going your way

Two drifters off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end
Waiting 'round the bend, my huckleberry friend
Moon river and me