Northward into Georgia

After spending a bit more than 2 weeks at Marineland Marina, we were ready to move on.  As long as we had the car at Marineland, it was convenient driving to a lot of spots in NE Florida.  We positioned our car to Brunswick Landing Marina in Georgia, and resumed our cruising on Monday August 19 on a 3-day trip to Brunswick GA. 

The trip was only 125 miles, and we could have made it in 2 easy days, but the Georgia ICW has so many areas that have shoaled in, that we had to wait for high tides before crossing those areas, and those daytime tides were all around 10 AM.  Earlier this summer, we had planned to cruise as far north as Savannah GA, but because of so much shoaling, and the fact that Georgia normally has 6-7’ tides, I wasn’t too excited about travelling that far.  Other factors were that we would always have our car with us, so we decided to visit Savannah GA and Beaufort SC and Charleston SC by car.  It had to be a lot cheaper that visiting by boat!  And, finally, we have decided to spend this winter at the head of St Johns River near Orlando, so however far north we went, we would need to re-trace our steps at the end of summer.

Small USCG buoy tender for the ICW buoys

We departed Monday rather late, to catch the outgoing tide as far as St Augustine Inlet.  The day turned hot & steamy, and, for most of the day, we were surrounded by rainstorms.  We saw the rain falling only ¼ mile from us, but we ran the entire day without getting wet.  But the hot day affected us all.   When I did my engine room checks, I measured 126 degrees at the engine inlet!  Just too hot to call this “pleasure boating”.

I was a bit concerned about following the ICW out the St Aug Inlet (where the buoys mark the channel around all the shoaling), since we had an outgoing tide with onshore winds at the inlet.  We encountered about 4 knot currents, with swirling turbulence, but we were OK since we expected it.  Boating along the East Coast sure ain't like boating along the Tennessee River!

We made our marina at Jacksonville Beach, and while the boat cooled down, we walked 1/2 mile down US Hwy 90 to the Engine 15 Brewery, which had 50 specialty beers on tap.  Sue is making a habit of finding the places which serve microbrews or specialties, since she did such a good job in St Aug.  We also called our daughter in Los Angeles, who lives at one end of Interstate 10, while we were at the other end of I-10 across the country.

The next morning we got up to that darn thing called an alarm clock, to get underway 1/2 hour before sunrise, in order to get through the shoaling in Georgia at high tide.  We crossed the St Johns River between Jacksonville and the ocean, and encountered quite a bit of turbulence with the incoming tide.  All the tides are extreme this week because of the full moon tomorrow night.

Big bad USCG cutters leaving the Navy ballistic
missile sub base at Kings Bay GA

We saw the normal wildlife along the ICW, but for the first time, we saw a flock of roseate spoonbills on the shore, mixed in with the brown pelicans.  Our other interesting sight was when we passed the Navy ballistic missile nuclear submarine base at Kings Bay Georgia.  When we saw the first 64' USCG cutter exit the base, we thought he was coming out to inspect us.  Then we saw the other 3 cutters speed past us, all with 50-caliber machine guns mounted on the bow, and we knew then that they were headed out to the inlet to escort a nuclear sub back to the base.  Shortly afterwards, were heard the cutters talking on VHF radio to a Navy P-3 patrol aircraft, and I knew from my Navy days that the P-3 was sweeping the wake of the "boomer" (the ballistic missile sub) to make sure no other sub was following it in to port.

Setting of full moon on Wednesday morning
over our anchorage in the swamps of GA

We found our planned anchorage for the night, and, even though it was only 1 PM, we dropped our hook in the absolute middle of nowhere in the Georgia swamps.  We turned on the generator, turned on the air conditioning, took a hot shower, and watched some TV.  It's amazing that we can do these kinds of things when we're lost in the middle of nowhere.  We watched as the tide shifted every 6 hours, and built up a 3 knot current in the other direction.  Luckily, our anchor held for the entire night, but when I raised it the next morning, the chain and trip line were wrapped several times around it.  Talk about a "fouled anchor"!  I think the only reason we didn't drag anchor during the night was because our ground tackle was so heavy.

8' tide difference at our Brunswick GA marina.  Note
position of the boat relative to the Manatee sign.
And this happens every 6 hours!

On Wednesday, we made our passage through the final shoaling at high tide, and our depth sounder showed nothing less than 13'.  The problem was that at least 8' of that depth was due to high tide, meaning that at low tide, you had only 5' water depth!  We entered the big, wide Brunswick River, and cruised up to Brunswick Landing Marina after only 25 miles of travel today.  When we finished tying up at our slip, we look immediately to the next dock and see a boat home-ported in Marblehead (Sandusky) Ohio, only 20 miles from the place we've home-ported our boat!  Small world.  As we're putting out more lines, we find a moon jellyfish right next to the boat at the surface of the water.  Really interesting to watch it move around & finally swim away.  Just another reason for us to NOT go swimming at the marina!

We'll leave the boat at this marina for a month while we head back to TN for family issues, and also to act like a tourist around here when we return.