#4: [01-Oct-10]

#3: [26-Jan-09]

#1: [11-Mar-00]

07-May-2008 -- Berthed at Savannah, GA and discharging bauxite from Guyana I realized that there is a Confluence rather nearby. It was anyway high time to visit my first "On Land" confluence in the United States. Checking out the previous visit of two young ladies in 2000, I was rather surprised to see that it is an offshore, too.

But going further into detailed maps, I understood that the point is so close to the shore that it can be visited successfully without touching water. So I called my shipping agent and ordered a taxi for today 10 a.m. which brought me swiftly to the Wilmington Island Club, from where it is only a short way ahead to what I believed to be a hotel.

So we parked the car in front of it and I proceeded towards the shore in order to check out the feasibility to go a 500 metres towards South. But soon a gentleman came along and with a bright smile, he said "Welcome to my property!" Well, I thought, very nice, still half a kilometer away and already trespassing. :-(

But it turned out soon that the owner of this "hotel" was previously working in the Port of Savannah, and seamen and port people do usually trust and understand each other.

The "Hotel" is no longer a hotel. In fact it is the 1920-built "General Oglethorpe" (later "Sheraton"), but the building has been sold and is now a condominium for private owners, and called "Wilmington Plantation on the Intracoastal".

The gentleman was good enough to give me a website where one can learn more about this building. I really strongly suggest to read this very interesting website about this remarkable hotel. And do not fail to download the PDF about the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa did probably play here!

It is often said and believed, especially by Europeans, the US not to have any history. But this is certainly not applicable on some old American hotels! However, it is not possible to pass along the shore from the Wilmington Plantation. So I went back on the Wilmington Island Road, and walking a 500 metres towards SSE, until I reached Latitude 32°00'N.

Passing an advertisement offering waterfront properties at a ridiculously low price ;-) you pass a Georgia flag, and finally you turn into the way to #816. There is a villa under construction. To this villa belongs a deep water frontage dock, and once you go to the end of it, you are comfortably within the 100 meter range of the Confluence, - to be precise: 72 metres (237 ft).

The view to South shows the Wilmington River and its entrance at the open Sea, to the West we see the opposite shore, to the North some of the other docks, and to the East my view is a bit restricted, but of course it shows the villa.

The area is what the Americans use to call "Good Neighborhood", ... Golf Club, properties for a $ 1.5 million, ... if economical crisis of which at present everybody is talking about really does exists, - here in Wilmington Island one won't feel much of it so soon. :-)

Of animals I saw a heron, sitting on a dolphin on the Wilmington River, and a squirrel.

In the Wilmington River, about 200 ft from the eastern bank.