The last few days have been terrific. Cold and challenging at times, but terrific. I now understand why most people choose to head outside of the ICW in South Carolina and skip Georgia. The shoaling is pretty extensive in spots and the navigation keeps you on your toes. Not fun watching the sounder hit 6-8' here and there! But we're glad we decided to head through this stretch. The scenery has been phenomenal. The huge expanses of marsh give you a horizon-to-horizon view, almost like a Western landscape. Great wildlife viewing too. And the tricky stretches have given Betsy and me a good opportunity to brush up on our navigation skills and get a feel for how Chere handles in different conditions. Here's what has happened the last few days. (Sorry if these are long and include too many place names; we're using this blog to keep track of things as much for our own purposes as to keep folks up-to-date).
Saturday, Jan 14
We left Hilton Head Saturday morning. It was clear and breezy and very, very cold -- in the high 20s when we woke up. We realize that this probably sounds warm to our friends back home (my buddy Willy told me it was -15 at the top of Cannon that morning). But it felt very wrong to be cruising by white beaches with palm trees when the wind chill hovered around 15 degrees. We had to hit the tides right at a few cuts that day, so we left the dock early and pushed hard down Calibogue Sound and around Daufuskie Island (taken from "da" "first" "key") to Daufuskie Landing, our first tight spot. We cleared that area without much trouble and caught the tide through Walls Cut and then across the Savannah River into Georgia through Elba Island Cut, where again our sounder started to show some pretty shallow depths. The entire section from Daufuski Landing through Elba Island Cut was a bit nerve-wracking with a stiff 20 knot wind, pretty shallow depths and some large commercial traffic heading down the Savannah River just to make things more interesting. But once we made it through that stretch, we had a nice glide down the Wilmington River to Isle of Hope, a small riverside town with some jaw-dropping antebellum architecture. Once again, we saw dolphin everywhere along the way. The marina we stayed at in Isle of Hope had loaner cars, so we were able to head to a local watering hole and watch the first half of the Patriots game while chowing down on a huge basket of fried pickles. Good eats. We car-pooled with a nice couple from Falmouth, MA, who tied up at the same marina right in front of us (in the "Rachael J."). They are one of only two boats that we've run into heading South in the ICW. And we've only passed a handful of boats heading the other way. They've made this trip over 10 times and have given us some great advice over the radio during the last few days.
Sunday, January 15
We all slept well after staying up late to watch the Pats blowout and woke up to another cold morning; ice covered the docks. After debating whether to stay another day, we finally decided that we needed to head out in order for the tides to be right in a few tricky areas on Monday. We were off the dock 15 minutes later and cruising down Skidaway Narrows (yes, it's pretty narrow) past Moon River (yes, that Moon River) and into the Ogeechee River. From there, we headed through the ominous-sounding and somewhat notorious Hell Gate, which is a narrow cut toward the mouth of the Ogeechee River that keeps the guys at SeaTow quite busy. Betsy steered us through that cut and Florida Passage without breaking a sweat; she's a natural at the helm. After another tricky spot we cut across St. Catherine's Sound, down the North Newport River, and then headed waaaaay up an offshoot of the ICW called Wahoo Creek, where we anchored for the night next to a small island in the middle of the marsh. It was an incredibly remote and beautiful spot. Once we were on the hook, the boys and I jumped in the zodiac and headed to the island. It was covered with small palms and large pines and had a earilly Jurassic feel to it. I'll post some pics. One strange thing -- in the middle of this island -- which, again, was in the middle of a marsh miles and miles from anything -- we found an electrical junction box. I half expected it to see "The Darma Initiative" painted on it. That night we hung our shrimp lights over the side of the boat to see what we could attract. No shrimp, but we had fun netting some good sized Silversides. Thank Nana and Grampa for the lights and nets!
Monday, January 16
We were off the hook by 9am and on our way to catch the right tides at the last shallow run we needed to get through in Georgia -- the Little Mud River. The folks we had met back in Isle of Hope had warned us about this stretch, and in fact they had grounded out there last year for a while. After some tense moments here and there with the depth sounder hitting close to 6 feet, we made it through just fine. Betsy and I took turns at the helm and navigating, and the boys enjoyed the views, shipwrecks and dolphin along the way. Toward the end of the trip, one dolphin followed right alongside the cockpit, coming up again and again just feet from the kids. Very cool. We ended the day at the Lanier Island Marina, just off St. Simon's Island. After some showers, fresh laundry and a hot meal, we're all in good shape and ready to head out again. Our plan for today is to do a short outside hop down to Cumberland Island, where we'll spend a day and a couple of nights exploring the island's fort and ruins, and looking for wild ponies and armadillos.
On the big picture side of things, everything is going very, very well. We're all feeling as if Chere is home, the boys have settled into life on a boat, we've all put together good routines when it comes to docking, anchoring, cleaning, navigating, etc. Life is good. We probably won't have the internets for a few days, but we should have cell coverage.
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