2024 April: Fernandina Beach Florida to South Carolina

 21 April 2024
Depart: Daytona Beach anchorage 8:30
Arrive: Anchorage 769 north of St. Augustine 3:20
Distance: ~ 55 nm
Conditions: 12 knot winds mostly picked up to near 30 knots briefly before settling down again on ICW

 Our next planned stop to see friends was in Fernandina Beach to see DeAnna, Adam, and their dog Whatley. We needed an anchorage stop along the way, and Clark chose a spot about an hour north of St. Augustine.

Passing through St. Augustine, we saw the usual sights including the Bridge of Lions and the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument / Fort.

Bridge of Lions

As we exited the Bridge of Lions, we saw two pirate ships in front of us.

Mini Pirate Ship

Larger Pirate Charter Boat

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument / Fort

We also saw the charter sailing vessel “Freedom” as we transited the area.

"Freedom" Charter Sailing Vessel

Later, we traveled past the St. Augustine inlet where we saw numerous trucks parked on the beach.

Trucks parked on the beach
at St. Augustine inlet

Clark had said we would anchor north of St. Augustine. Unfortunately, he did not tell me how far north! At 2:30 I expected him to be preparing to drop the anchor. It didn’t get dropped until almost an hour later. When I asked Clark the name of the anchorage for my blog update, he gave me the clever name of anchorage, 769, named after the mile marker location.

 Just before 9:00 a thunderstorm came through the area. Clark had warned me about an hour earlier that it was coming, so it wasn’t a surprise. The bulk of the bad weather passed north and south of where we were anchored. Even so, we briefly experienced strong winds, heavy rain, lightning and thunder. The front brought a chill and the temperatures dropped drastically.

Clark took some interesting cloud pictures as we watched the storm approach.

At sunset

 

22 April 2024
Depart: Anchorage at Mile Marker 769 8:45
Arrive: Fernandina Beach City Marina (Oasis Marina) 2:45
Distance: ~ 46 nm
Conditions: North wind on the nose, low 60s temperature, occasional gusty wind

 

We traveled on the ICW again today and saw the usual sights, which included lots of covered boat docks. Many of them were elaborate, built to house a couple of boats and a shady area in which to picnic while watching the boat traffic.

Today, we had low tide midday and we saw lots of skinny water. As we traveled through Nassau Sound, Clark carefully followed the Navionics Chart to know where he had good depths. 

Pictures of low tide in Florida ...

Two other boats were not so careful and wandered into areas where they should not have ventured. One of the two managed to get themselves out of the skinny water without incident.

The other one had already run aground earlier while not following the deeper water Clark chose. We wondered what he was using for charts or if he even had charts. Immediately after getting into deeper water, he passed us and gave us a hefty wake in the process.

He should have stayed behind us as, not long after, Clark saw the boat come to an stop in an area where he should not have been. The boat did not move for some time, but eventually the captain made a 90 degree turn and came across the water towards us. Clark said he should have gone out the way he came in instead of going over a shoal area, but he made it out of there. After running aground a second time, the boater decided to follow Clark and did not bother passing us again.

As we came into the marina at Fernandina Beach, we had a heavy wind blowing from the south. Clark decided to back down the fairway to the dock space assigned to us. After docking the dockhand said, “You made that look easy.”  Clark really did just slide the boat into the assigned space with ease. We were tied up and plugged into electric in about ten minutes total.

 We stopped here specifically to visit our friends DeAnna and Adam and their miniature schnauzer “Whatley”. Whatley became my buddy at Marlin Bay in Marathon. They no longer have their boat and were not in Marathon this past season.  

 While we were waiting to get together with them, Clark pulled out the hose and washed some salt off the hull and added some water to the tanks. As he was putting the hose away, the owners of the Katy Krogen Manatee, “Lily Pad”, docked in front of us stopped by to say hello. We chatted for quite a while.

 Late afternoon, Adam, DeAnna, and Whatley came to see us at the dock. Adam’s brother, Josh, was with them visiting here from Colorado. We chatted on the cockpit of "Sunset Delight" before heading off to dinner. DeAnna gave Clark some treats, and Whatley was anxious to get to them.

After a short walk into town, we enjoyed a delicious dinner together at Timoti’s Restaurant.

Menu at Timoti's Seafood

After dinner, walking back to the docks, Clark stopped to take a few pictures in town.

Florida's Oldest ar

Outside a Gift shop

"Bear Mobile"
Miles of Smiles

After dinner we parted ways.  I got in some snuggles with Whatley before we said goodbye.

I decided to do a load of wash and work on a blog update. Clark watched television and did some planning for our travel northwards. First thing tomorrow morning, we plan to stop at Port Consolidated to take on fuel. As we approached Fernandina Beach, we looked into doing it today. Clark called and learned that they had a queue of four boats with a very large one taking on 2000 gallons of fuel. The attendant recommended we wait and come in the morning.

Sunset from the dock at Fernandina Beach
Oasis Marina

23 April 2024

Depart: Fernandina Beach City Marina 8:45
Arrive: Walburg Creek anchorage, Georgia 7:00
Distance: 72 nm
Conditions: Waves 3 – 4’ predicted, chilly with a  12 knot wind from the N / NE

 We took full advantage of being at a marina. We left with an empty holding tank and full water tanks. The only thing we did not do was hit a grocery store since it was over two miles from the marina and we did not need anything desperately. 

Fernandina Beach City Marina docks

After leaving the marina, we stopped to fill up on fuel at Port Consolidated. The fuel price is the best around, and we do not have to pay Florida taxes due to leaving the state immediately after fueling. Paying the cash price, we saved even more. We found one boat there ahead of us and had a relatively short wait for our turn.  

Clark decided we could travel on the ocean today. Waves were predicted to be 3 to 4 footers. We finally left the fuel dock at 9:50 and headed out St. Mary’s inlet to hit the waves. Because of the curve of the Georgia coast, we found ourselves beyond the 3-mile line, but having taken care of the holding tank at dock, we did not have to think about whether we should or should not dump.

We traveled about 50 or so nautical miles on the ocean to St. Catherine’s Sound and our chosen anchorage at Walburg Creek. We managed to hang on to radio stations for the ride as well as a weak cell phone signal. I saw no other boats today on the ocean. 

The most interesting sights we saw along the way were the wildlife on the ocean.

We saw several clusters of birds floating on the ocean. Some were groups of pelicans; others were sea gulls. It seemed quite strange to see them all floating instead of flying.

Later, we saw probably hundreds of jellyfish floating by. After some research on the internet, I decided that they were of the "Cannonball Jellyfish" species. 

When we arrived at St. Catherine’s Inlet, we found that all the markers have been removed. Clark used the Navionics chart to guide us over the bar and away from shoaling areas. The only true concerns were at the outermost point of the inlet. Clark explained that any silt, etc picked up and carried out with an outgoing tide gets dumped here as the current slows.

 We had one sailboat as a neighbor for the night in this desolate, marshy anchorage. Even so, the sailboat was at the entrance to the creek, and Clark moved further along. We enjoyed a relaxing evening.

 

24 April 2024
Depart: Walburg Creek anchorage, Georgia 8:05
Arrive: Ocella Creek anchorage, South Carolina 6:00
Distance: 82 nm
Conditions: Following seas, sunny, cool breeze

 Sometimes our anchor alarm behaves like a small child. It wakes up and cries when it doesn't know where it is. Last night was one of those nights anchored in the remote and lonely marshes of Walberg Creek in Georgia. Usually, the alarm will settle down by itself. Not last night! Twice Clark had to get out of bed to pacify the anxious alarm.

 At midnight, he got it to calm down without too much difficulty, but at 4:00 a.m., he actually had to pick it up and pace the floor with it to get it to settle down.

When the alarm finally ceased its crying and had control of itself, i.e. found the GPS signal it required as a pacifier, Clark was able to put it back to bed. He made sure to set it in a more comfortable upright position this time to make it easier for it to keep hold of its pacifier (GPS position).

After that, the anchor alarm was happy for the rest of the night. We woke this morning like the tired parents of a cranky toddler!

 Once again, we traveled on the ocean to avoid the curvy, shallow waters of the ICW through Georgia. We were far enough offshore that we had limited views of Georgia as we moved along. Our only view of Savannah was the markers at the entrance to the inlet / Savannah River.

 A little beyond the Savannah inlet, we passed an unusual object. When vessels show up near us on AIS, Clark looks at the data to see what is out there. Today, he found an unusual display. Something traveling towards us at almost 7 knots was listed as "uncrewed".

NOAA Unmanned Vessel

That was the excitement for the day. We both had headaches from the interrupted sleep during the night. We took turns in the afternoon lying down on the bench on the upper helm to close our eyes for a while.

We arrived at Clark’s chosen inlet around 5:30 and watched our depths as we came in the inlet at the North Edisto River in South Carolina. Unlike yesterday, however, we did see markers to help guide us in. 

North Edisto River, South Carolina

Clark took some pictures as we came in the inlet.

By 6:00 we had the anchor down in Ocella Creek, which is in the marshlands south of Charleston.

Not much here but marshland

As we entered Ocella Creek, we unexpectedly found a couple of official "slow speed, no wake" markers next to what appeared to be private docks. I wondered if one of them was a fishermen's club of some sort as it had dock space for 4 boats docked and 1 on a lift.

We are alone in the anchorage. As we entered the anchorage, we could see large trawlers anchored off in the distance. Clark said they were not anchored in the same creek as us.

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