Depart: Isle of Hope, GA 7:20
Arrive: Morningstar Marina at Golden Isle, GA 3:20
Distance: 78 NM
To get an early start, we were up before sunrise, so Clark was able to capture a picture of the morning sky. This is a rare event for us.
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| Sunrise at Isle of Hope Marina |
As we pulled in our lines, Clark noticed the early-morning mist coming off the water.
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| Into the Mist |
We had two choices for today's route: ICW or outside in the Atlantic. Before deciding, we needed to make our way through Hell Gate, which is a cut that has less water depth at low tide than the draft required by our boat. Considering that low tide was midday, this drove our decision to get up before the sun in order to catch the cut as close to high tide as possible . The 8' tide change gave plenty of water during our passage through Hell Gate, but we found the Elba Cut that followed to be much tighter.
As we approached St. Catherine's Sound, Clark checked the chart and the Active Captain app for trouble spots and found that we would be passing through one of them, Mud River, at dead low tide. There would be 3' of water and the boat needs a minimum of 4'. With good weather conditions on the ocean, the choice was clear. We departed the ICW at St. Catherine's Sound Inlet and ran the 40 NM to St. Simon's Inlet on the outside.
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| Chased by Hungry Sea Gulls that think we have fish |
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| Calm Seas and Sunny Skies in the Atlantic |
The trip to St. Simon's took about 4 hours. During that time, we passed almost no other boats. To counter the tedium of hours on the calm water, Clark turned on the radio to keep us awake while I headed to the galley for a much-needed cup of tea.
When we reached St. Simon's channel, a large yacht, Cedar Island, suddenly appeared and passed by. Looking the other direction, coming towards us, we saw a very large commercial ship, Hijon. The yacht looked large until it passed the ship.
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| Cedar Island |
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| Cedar Island passing Hijon |
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| Pilot boat following Hijon |
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| Close up of the pilot boat |
Because of the low tide, the ship radioed that they needed the center of the channel and asked our intentions. Clark advised that we planned on running in on the red side of the channel. With breakers just outside the reds and a cross current that set us towards the greens, we had to crab the boat to stay on the red side. In hindsight, it might have been safer to have passed on the other side.
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| Breaking waves on the shallows outside the red markers |
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| St. Simon's Lighthouse |
Tonight's sunset offered great picture opportunities making it hard to decide which to include here.
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