Friday, April 14th (Day 13)
Partly cloudy. Light winds building from the south later in the day. 72 degrees
54nm today (433 total trip miles)
Off the mooring at 7:45am. Current was zooming so as soon as I released the mooring lines the boat started heading for the mooring (and boat) directly behind us. Whoa! Get on the helm!
Waves off-shore were still high from the storms yesterday so we ran the ICW north from St. Augustine. An outgoing tidal current helped us the 1/2 mile to the inlet then it was against us for the next several hours. I think we averaged only 4.5 knots all morning (our normal speed is 6). My goal was to make it near Fernandina Beach which would set us up for an easy off-shore run tomorrow.
This part of the ICW was still busy with day-cruisers until the St. Johns River. Then it was just us and a few powerboats that passed us. It was a nice day to be cruising the ICW and we enjoyed it.
Just before Fernandina there is a high-rise bridge over the ICW (to Amelia Island) and, just after that, a railroad swing bridge. We've seen this closed before and had to wait for a train to the paper mill. This time it was wide open so we continued through.
Laura and I were talking as we slowly motored through the bridge against the currents and we both heard a machinery noise starting near the boat. Laura was looking around and I saw the railroad swing bridge was closing on us. "Holy Sh...!" I pushed the throttle forward (maybe another 1/2 knot on a sailboat) and we made it through the bridge just in time. I couldn't believe it! No notice on the marine radio. No horns or sirens at the bridge. Just close it and assume nobody is around? That was crazy. Here was the Kingsley Creek Railroad bridge closed behind us. Boaters beware!
Tidal currents were more helpful the rest of the day and we motored into Fernandina just after 5pm. I had tried to call the marina earlier in the day to reserve a mooring. It used to be a City Marina but I guess they sold (or leased) to a company called Oasis. I wasn't impressed.
There was probably plenty of room to anchor but the wind was picking up and, with the high tidal currents here, the mooring would give me more piece-of-mind.
I called the marina earlier in the day to try and reserve a mooring. "Press 3 for reservations...". After waiting over 10 minutes on hold, I hung up. "Press 1 for Dockmaster...". Nobody answered there either but I left a voicemail saying I wanted to reserve a mooring.
There were several moorings open so we tied up to one. Even as experience as Laura and I are after 17 years, it took us 2 tries because the winds were now honkin' and the currents were pushing us away from the ball. After getting our two mooring lines attached, the boat settled down. Nobody ever called me back.
Just after dinner we were relaxing watching TV. I was thinking about the off-shore run tomorrow and realized we hadn't taken the outboard off the dinghy. Just before dark we dropped the dinghy in the water and pulled up the motor with our block and tackle. I flushed it out with a little fresh water, pulled up the dinghy and cleaned up everything on the deck for an ocean run. Nice!
Unfortunately, we were directly downwind from the paper mill. The smell was terrible but I eventually was able to put up with it. Laura ended up sleeping in the salon with closed windows.
Saturday, April 15th (Day 14)
Sunny and warm with light SE winds. Air temp 74. Water temp 73.
81.5nm today (514 total trip miles)
Neither of us slept well last night. The boat was pretty warm and stunk from the paper mill. I had the alarm set for 6:10am and by 1/2 hour later we were off the mooring and heading out to sea. Laura took this picture of the sleepy Fernandina as we motored passed. Pretty sky....
We had the currents with us (that was the plan) so within 45 minutes we were out the inlet and had turned north up the coast.
It sometimes works out that the high tide is in the early morning and the falling tide afterwards can help us out the inlets a little later. Then, by early evening, the flood currents will help us come in so we can anchor for the evening. The coast of Georgia is very shallow and sometimes you have to go out 5-10 miles before turning up (or down) the coast. If we don't have the tides helping us, it's just not worth the effort to spend a little time off the ICW. The currents helping bring us to 7-8 knots - the currents against us bring us down to 4. Big difference, right?. This trip up the coast the tides worked in our favor we we headed out onto a pretty calm ocean at 8 knots.
By 7:30am we had our big sails up and were motor-sailing north at over 7 knots. The winds were only 6-8 knots so we would have been going only about 3-4 knots with the motor off. If we wanted to make miles (and we did!), we'd need to keep the engine running. But, it would have been running all day up the ICW anyway, right?
Winds were from the west (from shore) so never built up any waves. There was a small swell from the SE (like always!) but we had both the jib and mainsail full out which kept the boat pretty calm. As we sometimes say, it was a rock-a-bye-baby ride. And, we actually were both able to take naps in the afternoon. Here was the ocean 5 miles off the Georgia coast at 10am.
A short while later I took this zoomed-in picture of the Brunswick Bridge from 5 miles off-shore.
One interesting thing that happened in the afternoon was both our cell phones went off with an alert of a chemical fire in Brunswick, GA. We could see the smoke plume behind us with the winds pushing it almost to the horizon. No worries though. We were many miles north of Brunswick by then.
In the afternoon, Laura and I discussed where we were heading today. We had originally hoped for St. Catherine's Inlet but maybe we could take advantage of the really nice ocean and make it farther. Current speed would put at at St. Catherine's with helping currents but only for a short time. If we went passed St. Catherine's, we'd have to go for another 6 hours for the tide to change and the currents not be against us. We could go all the way to Port Royal Sound (Beaufort, SC) and would arrive there around 11pm - just before the tide changed to help us up the river. We'd probably to up to Beaufort and anchor in the dark around 1am. Doable but not our favorite choice. Especially after neither of us slept well last night.
Did we need to be in a hurry? Our goal is to be back in Catskill, NY around May 20th so Laura can make a flight out to her grandson's high school graduation a couple days later. That gave us about 7 weeks from Marathon. Should be no problem, right? But, we've already used 2 weeks just to get to Georgia. We were thinking we should be in Norfolk around May 1st to give us time up Chesapeake Bay then find a good window for the NJ coast. That's just over 2 weeks away. Do we need to do things like an 18 hour day to make that comfortably?
We sailed up the coast of Georgia discussing this and actually counted the days we would need. After 34 trips on the Atlantic ICW, we know it pretty much by heart.
April 16 & 17 - Savannah (extra day to sit out weather)
April 18 - Beaufort
April 19 - Charleston
April 20 - Georgetown
April 22 - Myrtle Beach (leave extra day for Waccamaw currents)
April 24 - Carolina Beach (leave extra day for Cape Fear currents)
April 25 - Swansboro
April 26 - Oriental
April 28 - Norfolk (2 days early)
This doesn't include any extra days to sit out weather in a marina or anchorage but it also doesn't count days saved by off-shore runs like today. We shaved 1 or 2 days off the trip just today by taking the ocean instead of the twisty-turny Georgia ICW.
OK. We don't need to panic and run 18 hour days. Plus, the winds picked up from the south later in the day (as predicted) which helped us get to St. Catherine's in plenty of time for the currents to help us to our anchorage.
We anchored at 7pm near Buckhead Creek. Peaceful and quiet. Nice dinner and we both slept great!
Sunday, April 16th (Day 15)
Cloudy with rain and storms in the forecast. Air temp 67. Water temp 72
22nm today (536 total trip miles)
This afternoon, tonight and tomorrow morning are supposed to be rain and thunderstorms. We decided we'd leave the anchorage early and treat ourselves to a marina around Savannah to sit for a couple days. Oh boy! Our first marina of the trip!
We pulled the anchor at 6:15am under a dark and dreary day. As we turned out of the anchorage back into the ICW, I took this picture of the sunrise.
Pretty right? See how calm the water is for the refection. But wait... That wasn't the sunrise in the east. This was looking west. East was totally dark but there was a little cloud break in the west that was lighting things up. Very weird.
We looked at marinas on AquaMaps using ActiveCaptain and Waterway Guide write-ups. Our first choice was Thunderbolt Marine because it was within walking distance of a few restaurants and had good reviews. We had never stopped here before. I called at 8am and left a message. Hmmm. How long would should I wait before calling somewhere else?
15 minutes later Greg called me from Thunderbolt. They had a nice slip for us on a floating dock. He asked me to make the reservation and pay on DockWa which I did. Easy piezy!
Just before 11am we approached the marina and I called them on the radio. Greg was a great help and a short time later we were tied up in the basin along the marina wall. This place was cool. They worked on huge boats and we saw several sailboats in the 100 foot range being worked on.
We had signed up and paid for 2 nights but, by time we checked in, tomorrow didn't look too bad. Greg said we could take until tomorrow morning to make up our minds and he could easily have DockWa refund us for the day if we decided not to stay. Nice!
Our engine was ready for an oil change so I set it to drain into a container then Laura and I took two loads of laundry to the office. I checked in while Laura started two washers. We walked around the marina yard a bit then I headed back to the boat for a little hull cleaning. I had noticed a few days ago that we had some rust stains on the starboard side - probably from the stainless over the rub-rail. It really needed to be taken off and polished but that would be a job for this summer. The boat really looked bad so I grabbed the water hose, my spray bottle and the jug of Muriatic Acid I had stashed. Turns out we were docked on the port side so I dropped the dinghy so I could work on the starboard side. It wasn't hard work and about an hour later I was done cleaning both sides then put away the dinghy. She looked much better! No more rust-bucket....
After relaxing for a bit, I then replaced the oil filter, drained and filled the transmission oil, then refilled the engine with fresh oil. An hour later I was cleaning everything up and Gertrude would be happy now until probably somewhere in Chesapeake Bay.
We relaxed a bit then decided to head to the recommended restaurant for a late lunch / early dinner. After cleaning myself up a bit, we walked about 1/4 mile to Tubby's Tank House. The place was pretty hopping for 3 on a Sunday afternoon. Our waitress was very nice and the food excellent. We both ordered the Grouper Sandwich (recommended by Greg). I had mine blacked - Laura had grilled. They came with Sparky's Spuds - potatoes dipped in beer-batter and deep fried. Yumm!
I posed for the picture this time.
Right now, I think we will leave tomorrow morning and motor the ICW to the Savannah River then tidal currents should help us out to sea again. Sea forecast looks great for the next 3-4 days with seas less than 2 feet swells and helping winds. We will probably bypass Beaufort (and the shallow ICW spots north of there) and run off-shore to maybe South Edisto River to anchor for the night. Then back out in the morning Tuesday for a long run to Winyah Bay. Whoa! That would put us 2 days ahead of the schedule above! We'll see. We won't count our chickens yet.....
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