GA: ICW Travel

Sunday 4/14/2018

No boat travel.

With no travel or activity plans due to the expected storm, we slept late and had a late breakfast. After losing sleep at our last anchorage due to the alarms going off, we needed recovery time. I worked on blog updates through most of the day. Sifting through all the pictures we collected over the past few days took more time than I hoped.  Clark did some repair-related work, studied options for trip planning, and took a long nap.

Heavy rains forecast to arrive at 2:00 held off until 3:00. When they came, they brought lightning, thunder, and even hail stones.  Staying an extra day in Brunswick definitely made sense as the winds really kicked up as well.

Storm Clouds at Brunswick Landing

Rain Started

Poor Visibility in the Marina

Torrential Downpour!

 

Even with all the rain, at the end of the day Clark still managed to get a sunset picture.

Lavender-colored Sunset 

Monday 4/16/2018

Depart: Brunswick Landing 8:15

Arrive: Cane Patch Creek Anchorage 4:45

Distance: 69.5 nm

Once again we found ourselves with unusually cold weather following a passing storm. We woke this morning to 49 degrees outside and 62 degrees in our stateroom. Needless to say, I did not feel like climbing out of my warm bed this morning.

Knowing we had a reasonably long day ahead of us, we forced ourselves to face the cold and start the day. We managed to pull away from the dock at 8:15. Although we like to travel on the “outside”, i.e. in the Atlantic Ocean, when we pass by / through Georgia, today that did not present itself as a viable option. ICW here we come!

As we started our trip, I noticed a large number of fishing boats at a nearby dock. Hmmm, I guess even die-hard fishermen did not want to face ocean waters today.

Fishing Boats at Dock near Brunswick, Georgia

With seagulls swooping over our boat for the majority of today’s run, I dearly wished those fishing boats were out doing their job. Perhaps some of the anxious birds would chase them instead.

Seagulls Following Sunset Delight

We wove our way through the Intra-Coastal Waterway switchbacks of Georgia watching for shallow water, crab pot floats, and channel markers. Although the temperature read 57 degrees, because of the high winds, the air felt brutally cold. We piloted from the upper helm but kept the front panel closed to cut the wind. Initially this worked reasonably well, but the longer we drove, the more the buildup of salt spray on the panel reduced our visibility. Finding crab trap floats and channel markers became more and more difficult as the day progressed.

High winds buffeted us for the majority of our ride today. Gusts reaching gale force, as high as 40 knots, hit the boat causing some difficulty maintaining course. With some passages, such as in Little Mud River, we had to be extra diligent to keep within the narrow channel.

We saw very little boat traffic today. Although we started out later than them, we did catch up to Horizon Chaser and traveled with them for a part of the voyage.

Horizon Chaser

In Little Mud River, both Horizon Chaser and we got slowed down behind American Star, a cruise ship for American Cruise Lines. Clark and I saw this same cruise ship at the dock in St. Augustine when we stopped there at the end of March. I decided to do a bit of Google research and read about their various river tours. I found it interesting to compare their cruises to our boat travels on Sea Moss / Sunset Delight. We have been to a majority of the places they list on the east coast.

The skinny channel made passing in Little Mud River extremely difficult. Clark called the captain of the cruise ship regarding a pass. He replied, “I will stay in the middle of the channel. It is on you if you decide you want to pass.” As a consolation, he offered that he could speed up from his current 5 knots speed if we wanted to follow behind. Clark chose this alternative, and we followed him at around 6 knots until we reached wider waters.

American Star – River Cruise Ship

Our boat requires a depth of 4 feet of water. The cruise ship needs 7’.  I wondered what they were doing in the middle of the mud flats of Georgia with low tide rapidly approaching. The captain said he was heading for Savannah tonight.

When Clark inquired about “Hell Gate”, the captain said he would have to wait until 1830 hours to get through there. To kill time, he said he was running the boat on one engine and “clutching” regularly. In other words, he was doing everything he could to go slowly. Clark heard the captain say he might have to turn around and cruise south for a while to waste time until he could get through Hell Gate.

Initially we planned to anchor in Kilkenny Creek where Horizon Chaser said they would be anchored tonight. With the continuously howling winds, Clark decided to see if he could find a more protected anchorage. After doing some research on the “Active Captain” application, he came up with a site on Buckhead Creek. This required traveling further but puts us that much closer to Hell Gate for early passage in the morning.

When we checked out Buckhead Creek Anchorage #2, however, we felt that it did not offer the stellar protection from north winds that the reviews said it would. Clark decided to check out a nearby spot on Cane Patch Creek. He decided this would do and dropped our anchor. Adding an 8’ water depth at low tide and a 7’ to 8’ tide change in water depth to the 8’ height of our anchor pulpit gave us a required anchor line length of 175’.

As we tidied up the helm from the day’s travel, we heard some chatter on the VHF radio coming from other boaters on the ICW. They all seemed to be discussing Hell Gate. Quoting from the internet … “Hell Gate in the Georgia ICW is a place that many fear. It’s a dredged cut connecting the Ogeechee River and the Vernon River, just above where they merge into the Ossabaw Sound.”

The shallow water at Hell Gate at low tide make it unpassable by many vessels. Listening on the radio I heard Sea Tow talking to a boater who was aground. The boater said he saw a depth of 4 feet near his vessel. His boat required 5’ of water to float! The ICW can be very unforgiving at low tide. When I stopped listening in on this conversation, Sea Tow was still circling trying to discover the best way to reach the stuck boat.

A boat passed us twice today. Given the waters we traveled, I am not quite sure how that happened, i.e. I wondered where he disappeared to that allowed him to get behind us a second time. When he passed us the first time, I thought he said his boat name was Rainbow, which did not suit his work boat in the least. When he passed us the second time, Clark heard the captain say, “This is Crane Boat.” Since the boat had a crane as part of its construction, this made a lot more sense.

When “Crane Boat” called us on the VHF radio to say he wanted to pass us the second time, he asked if we were going to New Jersey. Clark and I looked at each other and smiled. Clark responded, “Eventually, we’re stopping at an anchorage tonight.”

Listening to the chatter on the radio, we heard a boat called Holiday call Crane Boat. It became clear from the conversation that Holiday wanted to travel Hell Gate but did not want to go first. He asked Crane Boat how much water he took and if he planned to travel Hell Gate. Crane Boat replied, “I take 6 foot of water, and I’m going to give it a shot.” Not two minutes later, I heard the captain of Crane Boat say, “I already hit. Watch out, I’m backing out of here.” Thirty seconds later, I heard him again say, “Yeah, this is no good. I can’t make it.”

Since Holiday was behind Crane Boat, they both backed out of the waterway. A while later along comes another boat, and Holiday called them trying to convince them to go first. This boat had a 5’ draft. The captain of this boat chuckled when he heard from Holiday that he wanted him to go first so Holiday could follow. He told Holiday, “You go check it out and radio back the findings. I’ll wait here.” That was the last I heard. I expect they are all hung out somewhere near waiting for the water to rise.

Blue Dot is us,
anchored at Cane Patch Creek,
somewhere in the middle of nowhere,
just south of Savannah, Georgia

He probably would have remembered, but I reminded Clark to look for the sunset. He found a pretty one tonight.

 Sunset over Georgia Marshland

  

Tuesday 4/17/2018

Depart: Cane Patch Creek Anchorage 9:15

Arrive: Beaufort Anchorage 6:15

Distance: 53 nm

When I thought it was cold yesterday morning when I woke, I was wrong. This morning I woke to 38 degrees outside and 58 degrees in the stateroom. Enough already, we are in Georgia mid-April. I asked Clark why we don’t use heat or air conditioning in the boat like “normal” people. He said, “It’s like camping out! If we get used to using the heat, we’ll want it on all the time.” Sleeping is not bad. Getting out of bed in the morning is rough.

We hunkered down in bed longer than we should have but finally dragged ourselves out to set out for the day. With the low-voltage alarm on the house bank batteries the other day, Clark worried about what we would find today. Everything looked somewhat normal until he ran the microwave, and we lost all power. The battery voltage was too low to handle running the microwave! Since the batteries are only 5 months old, Clark says, "I am not happy!" What an understatement!

Mucking about with batteries, etc. delayed our departure by a small amount and we got going around 9:00. Our first hurdle of the day would be Hell Gate.

Georgia ICW “Hell Gate” Up Ahead

Because we came through at high tide, we had no issues with Hell Gate. Looking at the depths as we entered, we would have trouble getting through at low tide. 

Those pesky seagulls decided we harbored fish on board and they were willing to travel for miles to get some from us. Too bad for them! I told Clark it was a good thing I did not have a weapon at hand, or I might have tried some target practice. Given they "bombed" our boat yesterday, it would only be fair to fight back.

Under Seagull Siege Once Again

We followed the switchbacks of the Georgia ICW all the way to the South Carolina border and beyond today. Savannah requires a turn off, so we did not stop there. The closest we got was seeing the Isle of Hope and Thunderbolt Marinas as we passed by the Savannah area.

Isle of Hope Marina

We traveled through Hell Gate near high tide which meant that by the time we reached South Carolina and Skull Creek, the water sat at pretty close to dead low. We got to see the mud flats, lots of ramps at steep angles, and some docks sitting on the ground.

Skull Creek at Low Tide

Birds wading with their "ankles showing" in low tide waters

Typical Long Dock and Steep Ramp in Georgia / SC

Hilton Head Harbor RV Park and Marina
(looks like they have a single dock for their "marina")

Both docks shown in this picture are sitting on the mud!

Old Dock … Now a Bird Perch?

Clark decided to aim for Beaufort, South Carolina today. Nine hours after we hauled in our anchor, we were letting it out again. Around 4:00 I became somewhat stir crazy from sitting watching channel markers and crab trap floats go by all day long. I left Clark at the helm and went down below to get lost in a murder mystery I am reading.

Around 5:00 I decided I better go back up top because I figured we must be getting close to our destination. My timing was perfect, I got back up just in time to help Clark navigate through some seriously shallow water where he had hoped to anchor for the night.

Searching for an anchorage, we passed by the Beaufort Downtown Marina and under the Woods Memorial Bridge where we immediately turned right and entered Factory Creek. We should have "hugged the bridge" on the way in. Since we did not do this, we saw diminishing water depths until the depth finder on the port side finally showed zero depth under the keel. Clark used the bow thruster to push us to starboard and deeper water.

After we got through the entrance, the water got deeper but the creek did not meet our needs in width. We scouted around a bit more but eventually decided that this anchorage was not for us! Given that decision, we had to face the low water to leave the creek in search of an alternative place to drop our anchor. Since we knew where the low water sat, we hugged the bridge and found good depths to get us out of there.

We went back under Woods Memorial Bridge and anchored near the boats moored at the downtown marina. One benefit of anchoring here ... we found free "Waterfront" WiFi to use for Clark to do some Google research and me to make blog updates.

Sunset at Beaufort, SC Anchorage