I was just about to sign off and head to bed and the long, low sound of a cargo ship horn filled the motor home.

To my left is a shallow inlet that is nearly all mud flat at low tide, the shore birds love it.  To my right is freshwater and a skyline silhouetted with the profiles of half a dozen ships (The Mayfield Navy yard…they are all that tell tale grey).  Pelicans and cormorant nonchalantly dive for diner as grey helicopters swirl overhead.   The view of the ships is occasionally eclipsed as behemoth cargo ships move out the river to the sea.

We are out on a sandy point between an ocean inlet and the St Johns River at  Huguenot Memorial Park in Jacksonville.  The sun is bright, the sea breeze is cool, and there is plenty to watch between the shipping activity, the navy, and the birds.  We just got here today so I will have to let you know how this all balances out.

We have checked out lots of wildlife refuges as we work our way down theCarolinacoasts.  Our bird list continues to get longer but I think that we saw more types and just more birds along the gulf cost last winter.  Maybe January will be better here.  It is still great to get outdoors and watch the crazy diving pelicans and graceful herons.

Farmers market, the one the locals sell at.  Local veggies are still in season and there were sea grass baskets everywhere.  Add to that local stitchery and pottery crafts and a pretty nice collection of food stands.  We had to go local for lunch with a savory cheese/tomato/pesto crepe and some bbq.

We strolled a bit to the city market and the Nat’l Park Ft Sumter visitor center along the wharf.  We caught a glimpse of the Lynx, a replica of a Privateer tallship of the Revolutionary war times.  She was at the dock so no sails up.  She sails everyday for the next month or so, maybe we will see her out and about with sails unfurled?

Cut just the new growth from the top of the bush, wilt it, crush it, let it oxidize, then dry it.  I guess I never knew that black, oolong, and green tea all originate from the very same plant.  It’s just a matter of how long the crushed leaves are allowed to oxidize that makes the difference in flavor.  Pretty simple.  We walked through the tea processing plant at the only American tea plantation.  Interesting.  We had samples and wandered through the shop full of wonderful tea things….tea pots and cups, tea bag rests, every type infuser one could imagine and kitchen whatnots.

Then, a visit to the tea plantation’s partner, Firefly Distillery.  Their signature product, sweet tea vodka.  A pretty creative way to expand the market for a rather run of the mill product.  I had to give it a try.  My sampling flight included the sweet tea vodka, their lemonade vodka, sweet tea mint vodka, tea infused rum and a peach cobbler liqueur.  The lemonade and peach cobbler came home with me.

Tried something tasty and learned something new today.

Awful colds. Kent suffered first so I blame him for dragging it home from somewhere but we both are fighting terrible chest colds.  Combine that with chilly rainy weather and the result is a number of days when we are just hanging around home and taking afternoon naps.  That doesn’t generate much interesting input for the blog!  We and the weather are both getting better though so we are heading out to explore Charleston a bit.

We are at Santee State Park along the shore of Lake Marion,SC.   Our site overlooks the peaceful (at least during the week) lake and there are some cool birds to watch: bald eagles, heron, grebes and lots of woodpeckers.  Huge flocks of some sort of migratory birds come in over the far side of the lake in the evenings.  They are too far away for me to identify but the undulating clouds that stretch on for miles are amazing to watch.  I have seen deer close to camp most mornings.  We spent a few hours out in the boat yesterday.  We fished but we didn’t catch anything but naps in the sunshine.  That was just fine.