St. Mary's Thanksgiving

Once a year cruisers gather in the St. Mary's River (Georgia) for a Thanksgiving feast.  (They also do this in other places, but I wasn't in any of them!)  This year there were 90 boats in the anchorage on Thanksgiving morning.  The Riverview Hotel (c 1916) closes for the day and opens all its spaces for the Thanksgiving dinner.  And what a dinner!  Members of the town (I was corrected - this event is put on by a group of people that live in St. Mary's, not any official body) provide the turkey, ham, paper goods, drinks, and utensils.  The cruisers provide the "Fixin's."  And oh what fixings.  From salad to main course to desert there was more variety then I have ever seen in my life.  And enough food to feed not only all of the cruisers and towns people but the entire Kings Bay Submarine Base!  After the big meal we adjourned to the local park for dancing under the stars.  Of course supper was left-overs from the Thanksgiving dinner.  What a great event.

I left St. Mary's Friday morning and went "outside" to the St. John's River and back to Jacksonville Landing.  I am traveling in the company of GypsySails, friends I met in Norfolk.  We arrived at the Landing to find that tonight is there Christmas Tree lighting ceremony complete with fireworks in the river.  Fortunately we had already docked so we were not stuck out in the river doing circles until after the display.