The freshest oysters

A lay day and a day of discovery. Still in Rock creek due to the breeze out of the north. 

Spent the morning studying charts and guides for the section down to and thru part of Georgia. It's truly a maze of creeks, cuts, rivers, islands. It also has 8 - 9' tides which means lots of currents. 

I know it's really cold up North, but I am looking forward to warmer climes down here. It's in the 30's in the morning then climbs to the mid 50's in the afternoon. 

As I write this on the morning of the 16th guys are hunting with really big shotguns not too far away. Little scary. 

In the afternoon I decided to go for a row up the river to investigate what's around the bend. I a mile or so and found an area that was mostly land with cedar, palm, live oak, and what looked like azalea. Very beautiful but I didn't get out of the dinghy, snake bites when one is 20 miles from civilization does not appeal. 

I the way back I just drifted along the edge with the tide and breeze. There are large clumps of oyster beds. I had no idea how to open them but thought I'd give it a shot. I pulled out a clump and brought it back to the boat. I had to scrub the shells to get rid of the muck and then tried my hand at opening them. They grow on top of one another so the big ones may have 5 little guys on the outside shell. Once you get s big one open it's had to believe this thing was in a muddy silt. Their beautiful inside and clean so much so you don't have any doubts about eating them. I have not had a lot of oysters but I'll bet these were the freshest I've had!