I have been trying to decide where to start with the photos I took on my recent vacation to St. Mary's, Georgia. You've already seen some images from the trip; the wildfire cloud from I95, the faun on the tombstone, and the magnolia and daylily photo. But now I decided to try and go in a somewhat sequential order. As I had hoped, the St. Marys area had tons of photo ops. Unfortunately, the sun rarely showed itself and it was overcast and raining most of the time. As a result, many outdoor shots were difficult to expose properly and the sky is usually a bright hazy white. However, it did lend a certain mood to the photos, so I guess not all was lost. Here is a view from a side street in St. Marys. It led right out into the salt water marshes (or estuaries) surrounding the town along the St. Marys River. The gently swaying cordgrass bequeaths a quiet, peaceful beauty, yet camouflages an amazing variety of life. More on that later... ----- Estuary An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water which has a free connection with the open sea and within which sea water mixes with fresh water. The key feature of an estuary is that it is a mixing place for sea water and a stream or river to supply fresh water. A tide is a necessary force to maintain a dynamic relationship between the two waters. Though something in the nature of an estuary can exist in a non-tidal sea, such areas go by names such as lagoon,