Depart: Crescent River Anchorage #2 (near
Doboy Inlet in Georgia) 8:55
Arrive: Thunderbolt Marina (near Savannah)
3:40
Distance: 52 nm
When I woke
this morning, the boat was so still I figured we must be aground. Sometimes
when I am on the boat, I can feel no motion, but when I look at a towel on a
towel rack, I see it swaying. This morning, the towel was also still. I
remembered that Clark said it would be high tide in the morning. Based on where
we anchored we should have plenty of water. As it turned out, we were in 16
feet of water – just not a ripple in sight!
The anchor
came up clean this morning, so Clark had no need to spend time spraying it down
to get the mud off as he brought it in. That meant we got underway a bit
quicker than usual for an anchorage. The scenery today was repetitive and
B-o-r-i-n-g!! All we saw for hours was marshland. We had a SW breeze following
us, so on the flybridge, we had almost no air movement. This made it
comfortable in terms of temperature.
However, the
lack of air meant that the insects came to investigate the boat. We had gnats /
no-see-ums annoying us for a while. Clark suggested I set up the Thermacell to
get them to leave. Instead we pulled out a large fan and set it on the helm
station to blow them away, i.e. we made our own breeze. That worked well.
We also had
two bees come to visit us. One stayed to the side, but the other swooped and
dipped right ahead of the front panel. The intracoastal waterway through
this part of Georgia is bend after bend with shallow depths along the edges. I
had a difficult time concentrating on the chart and navigation with the bee
distracting me. For some reason it did not enter the enclosure. Its mission in
life seemed to drive me crazy. Strangely enough, Clark slowed down (not because
of the bee) and rounded a bend to the right, and poof, the bee was gone.
The most
excitement of the day, if one can refer to it as such, was passing through a
shallow section of water known as “Hell Gate”. Reports on the Active Captain
application indicated that at low tide, which unfortunately was when we arrived
here, we likely would have less water than we needed by at least 6”.
Clark passed
back and forth in front of the entrance to Hell Gate trying to decide whether
to chance navigating the passage or hanging out for a while to let some water
flow into the area. Traveling the same
direction as us, “Imagine” also approached Hell Gate. Clark haled them to ask
them how much water they needed and what they planned to do. They replied,
“4’6” and We’re just trying to decide how to proceed.”
As we both
floated in the area contemplating the go / no-go decision when another boat
came by. On haling him, we determined that his boat, “Brewster”, required 3’5”
of depth. He said he would go through the cut and give us readings on depth as
he progressed. The lowest depth he called out to us was 6’, so we decided to go
ahead. Since we needed 4’ and “Imagine” needed 4’6”, we went first. We too saw
nothing less than 6’ of water. We can only surmise that the area has been
dredged since the Active Captain entry we read.
Views along today's travel included
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| Flock of Pelicans on the River |
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| View along the river |
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| Smoke in the air as we approach Thunderbolt, GA |
When we arrived at the
marina, the smoke was thick in the air. We made sure all doors and portholes
were closed to keep as much smoke out of the interior as possible.
Before
docking we got fuel. Our new indicators that Clark installed in Faro Blanco
said both tanks sat at around 33% full. The more inexpensive places he wanted
to get fuel were closed on weekends, so Thunderbolt was the next best choice.
432 gallons of diesel later, we moved to our assigned spot for the night.
The
dockmaster here works the store, pumps the fuel, and does a myriad of other
tasks. The one thing he did not do was walk the docks to meet us to assist with
securing the boat to the dock. We had wind, stronger than the thrusters,
blowing us off the dock. Clark got me close enough I could get a couple of
lines around using a boat hook for assistance, and then we could bring
ourselves into the dock and add the other two on the bow and stern.
Having been
on the boat for several days, I needed exercise and convinced Clark to go for a
walk around the area to explore since we have never stopped here overnight
before. We left the marina and walked down the street where we found a
restaurant, “Tubby’s Tank House”, and checked out the menu. Though interesting,
I found everything on the menu to have a much high caloric value than what I
was looking for tonight.
View seen along our stroll around the area ...
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| Tubby's Tank House Restaurant |
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| Thompson Park in Thunderbolt, GA |
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| Thunderbolt Town Hall |
We came back
to the boat where I cooked dinner. Then we relaxed for the evening watching our
favorite Sunday night lineup on CBS TV.
4/1/2019 – GA: Thunderbolt Marina
No boat travel today.
Besides
getting fuel, we stayed at a marina because we had a list of tasks to complete.
To get our jobs done, we opted to stay two nights here at Thunderbolt Marina.
We used their courtesy car (a nice one for a change from other marinas) and
drove to Publix to stock up on some essentials.
On the way
there we stopped at a local chancellery, “River Supplies”, to see what boat
supplies they had in stock. Clark found the store so well stocked, I had to
drag him out because we had a time limit on the use of the courtesy car. I told
him he could walk back later to stay as long as he liked since the store is a
short walk from the marina.
While here,
I also managed to catch up on laundry and bake Clark a new supply of Applesauce
Cakes to keep him happy for days to come.
The
dockmaster keeps telling us about a Nor’easter that will hit Charleston and
recommending that we stay here another night or make sure we have reservations
ahead of time if we decided to leave. Clark planned to leave but put off the
final decision until the morning as to whether we will stay or go.
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