I turned my face toward the Atlantic and felt the chill air spilling inland from that great ocean wash over me, leaving a taste of salt on my lips and a sheen of moisture on my face. I could visualize the surface of the sea today. It would be gray and forbidding. Not yet angry and hostile, but a veteran seafarer, recognizing the signs, would know of a building violence soon to come and take heed.

Looking downstream I could just make out the upper mast of a sailboat anchored in a small cove on the western shore, the hull of the boat hidden in the whiteness. Standing under the awning of the aft deck, I felt the chill of the morning wash over me as though it were a cold bath, and a shiver ran down my back. For some reason I thought of the last time I was in Lima, Peru, that city of cold ocean and perpetually dreary skies, and unexpectedly, my lips spoke the word llovizna—Spanish for drizzle or light rain.

It was a good day to stay inside, turn up the heat, wrap up in an old army pancho liner, and read a novel between intermittent naps. But this was the day I intended to visit Joree Causey at her home and see if I could find a thread that would help lead me to the discovery of her daughter’s whereabouts for the last year and a half.

So, finishing my coffee, I went back inside and busied myself with chores in the engine room while waiting for the fog to lift and the morning traffic to die down. A couple of hours later, I locked up Miss Rosalie, fired up the old Bronco, and began to wend my way northward.

I think Savannah is just about the most beautiful city in North America, and that’s no adman’s pitch. Even on a day such as this, she shows her charms with a rare style and grace. Savannah, when founded in 1733, was the first planned city on the continent. Laid out around a series of small parks, or squares, shaded by monumental trees covered with Spanish moss, the stately old homes are dream-like in their tranquil beauty.

River Street, and Factors Walk, down near the riverfront, are living pictures of a time long gone, but here, they continue to live as they ever have. And to drive over some of the old streets, paved with the ballast stones of ships from the age of sail, is a history lover’s—and a romantic’s—delight.

Like all other cities, Savannah also has its rougher side. But in contrast to many American cities, in Savannah, the poor and the affluent live almost side by side and cheek by jowl, with little or no buffer space between.