We departed Hilton Head in the first fog we have seen on this coast. It was forecast to burn off early so we were fairly comfortable departing, and the first hour would be on a channel we had come in on, so known waters. We crossed into Georgia at the Savannah River and continued south. We have stopped in Savannah previously and didn’t really feel driven to make another visit. Other than the Savannah River, there is only one significant river entrance to cross on this leg and that is relatively inland so went well.
Georgia is where the voyage really gets into winding channels. At some points there is a nearly 300 degree compass swing in just a few miles. South of Savannah the scenery very quickly turns to sea grass and marsh. There is very little to see or stop at on the Georgia coast. Our intermediate stop destination of choice is a little back country marina called Kilkenny, which is about a 7 hour run from Hilton Head. At sunset we saw another of the ICW cruise vessels headed north at a distance, and wondered where they would stop as I can’t imagine navigating a vessel of that size after dark thru those narrow and shallow channels.
We departed early the next morning for the 7 hour run down to St Simons Island. The ICW is generally pretty well marked but at some places in Georgia there are mysteriously fewer navigational markers. Fortunately, the US Army Corps of Engineers, who maintain the ICW leave a white line down the centre of the channel in some areas to mark the route.
The ICW does have some unique navigational challenges, in addition to the often shallow waters. You are probably familiar with the expression “red right returning” which refers to having red markers on the starboard side when heading upriver, or returning from sea, and green markers to port. On the ICW, there is no defined “returning” direction since it runs up and down the coast, so the Corps had to make a decision on how to mark it and went with red to starboard southbound. I think ROSES, Red on Starboard equals South. When a major river is encountered though which handles large commercial traffic, and crossing that river requires going downstream for a bit, the navigational markers for the river take precedence and revert to red on port downstream. And you end up with a mess of markers like this to sort out. You certainly want to have the route laid out well in advance so a decision isn’t been made on the fly, while looking into the sun.
This day required 4 major river entrance crossings but being a relatively quiet day all were good. We arrived in St Simons mid afternoon and used their courtesy car for a grocery store run as we had run out of coffee! We had been at this marina on a previous trip and knew that their Coastal Kitchen restaurant was worth the visit, and Judy had her fave, Shrimp and Grits.
The run for the next day was only to be 4 hours but we still got away with breakfast underway. We had 3 more river entrances to cross, the Brunswick, Cumberland and St Mary’s. Followers of the blog will recall that there was a large car carrying ship, the Golden Ray, that had rolled over in St Simons Sound at the entrance to the Brunswick River, two years ago. The cutting up of the ship has been completed and the cleanup and removal of the pilings required for the process is all that is left.
The Cumberland river proved to be the worst of all the river entrance crossings. The route requires poking ones nose out into the ocean for a few miles to get around a very shallow bar at the entrance, and with the swells coming in off the Atlantic steepening as they hit the shallower bottom, and 20 knots of NE wind, it made for a very miserable half an hour. We got well pickled with salt on the way out but with the 90 degree turn to come back in at the mark, it’s like “Where did the wind and waves go?”. No pics were being taken during that leg of course.
We crossed the state line into Florida just before arriving in Fernandina Beach, and were faced with docking stern first in 15-20 knots, which ended up just fine, but took a few runs at it to get it right. I believe in the maxim that if it doesn’t look right, you don’t have to be committed to it and there is no harm in redoing the approach. We spent the afternoon walking the streets of this historic small town which seems frozen in time in the 1890’s. Is quite a popular tourist destination and one of the ICW cruise vessels was in town that day. Fernandina is another pulp mill town though, and that distinctive olfactory stimulation was there.
So some of you might be thinking “Only 2 nights in Georgia?” Yup, that’s about all it needs. On our “Covid run” north two years ago, we only spent 28 hours in Georgia, 13 of which were at anchor.
We departed Fernandina Beach for the expected 8 hour run south to St Augustine, but the currents were very favourable to us and we were there in 7 hours. And that included running at no wake speed for an hour through a very upscale residential area. There were two significant river crossings, including the St Johns river leading up to Jacksonville, but all were good. We arrived to slack current and light winds, for an easy docking.
St Augustine is one of our favourite spots and we spent 2 nights. This spot is also a big milestone for us. We are well into Florida and we feel that “we have made it” on our trek south. Of course arriving to 70F temps certainly helps and we celebrated with our first Margarita, or two, of the season. The municipal marina is very well located within easy walking distance of the heart of the historic area. For a more comprehensive description of St Aug, see a previous visits post.
This being Thanksgiving day and marking the start of the holiday season here, the city is beautifully lit up. We wandered down the pedestrian only street in the evening to find a bar with live music. The place was incredibly busy. In our previous stops here it had been busy as it is such a popular destination, but this as crazy busy. Must have been the combination of Thanksgiving and the start of the night of lights celebration. We did find a bar with a great band though and actually stayed up quite late for a change.
We met another couple from Montreal on a sailboat heading for the Bahamas. Another of a group of 20 boats. They were quite disappointed that they couldn’t couldn’t all show up at one marina together. We also had the American Star river cruise vessel dock with us again. The boat was on the same pier as us, and We were initially quite concerned that the parade of people coming back from the bar at night would be loud. But then seeing the demographics, that was good for a laugh.
The next day we walked an historic area of the town we hadn’t seen before, and I got a very needed haircut. In the evening we went back to an outdoor bar, the Colonial Oak, which is beneath a massive old oak tree, to find live music again. This band wasn’t great but there was a very good drum circle group that played between the bands sets.
We departed Saturday mid-morning for a short 2 hour run down to Marineland. We had been by this small marina a number of times and thought it looked interesting, so we booked to stop this time. What a lovely little marina. Marineland is a small town, as well as the original oceanarium where dolphins were first trained, opening over 80 years ago. It’s not very big so half an afternoon is all it needs, and we did see a great dolphin training show. There is also very proximate access to the ocean beach at this spot, and walked the beach for a while.
As the docking here gave me access to the bow from the dock, I took the opportunity to clean off that awful yellow stain that builds up on the boat from the tannin waters of some parts of the ICW. (see previous boat pics) We departed the next morning for an even shorter run to Palm Coast, where we could get a provisioning run done. As much as we like St Augustine, there is no grocery store within a reasonable distance of the marina.
And in the continuing saga of maintenance issues arising, Judy’s phone died in the past 24 hours, which we had been relying on since the screen on my phone died in October. One really needs a phone to book marinas conveniently so I took advantage of the Walmart about a 4 mile bike ride away to acquire a burner phone on a 90 day plan. Enough to get us thru our upcoming connection with Tristan who will be bringing a phone from our Canadian carrier, who can’t ship to the US currently.
Tomorrow we head for Daytona Beach and continuing south. As the old saying goes, “What can go wrong?”
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