Boating with Sunset Delight: 2024: October Brunswick GA

27 October 2024

Depart: Port Royal Marina, Port Royal, SC 7:40

Arrive: Walburg Creek anchorage South of Savannah, GA 3:10

Distance: ~ 65 nm

The sun was jump coming up as we left the dock at the marina in Port Royal, SC and made our way to the inlet to take us out into the ocean.

Looking back at the marina where we stayed

The blue dot on the Google Map below shows us coming out of Port Royal and heading for the ocean.

The marked channel for the inlet is a long one. We headed east on this channel for 2 hours before we could make the turn to head south on the ocean. Even with the long trek out, Clark said it would be faster than going on the inside where we would encounter low tide.

Clark set today's target as St. Catherine's Inlet in Georgia. For boat insurance reasons, we have to slow down and wait to continue on to Florida. Our insurance does not cover us if we are south of a certain latitude which equates to being south of Cumberland Island. So we did the hurry up part, and now we wait.

The trip on the ocean was about 5 hours or so. The picture below shows our view for those five hours. The water was very calm.

When Clark took his shower at the marina last night, music was playing. The station announced itself to be "Low Country Oldies" on 106.5. We listened to that station for the 2-hour ride out the inlet and then as far south as we could get signal. Then we used the wireless speaker and my cell phone to tune in at lowcountryoldies.com to continue listening. It felt like I knew the words to almost every song, and it brought back lots of memories of college days as well as BLAH parties held with people I knew from working at Bell Labs.

St. Catherine's Inlet, where we exited the ocean, no longer has buoys marking a channel. Vessels are on their own. The US Coast Guard sometimes does this because the shoaling shifts too frequently to maintain the buoys.

Before we made the trip in to the anchorage, Clark decided, since we were beyond the 3-mile line, that we should empty the holding tank. I took the helm to watch for hazards and station keep as necessary while he went below to open valves and turn the key that locks the pump. As he went to work, I had my fingers crossed and said a silent prayer that the pump would work.

Sadly, Clark came back shaking his head - no go. He even used the vacuum cleaner to force air into the line to see if he could eliminate the clog, but that too was a fail. He went from being so happy to have an opportunity to empty the tank to so saddened by the fact that we still have an issue to address. Until we can fix this, we now have to seek out pump-out stations.

As we navigated the inlet, Clark had me watching the depth finder like a hawk, but we never saw less than about 13 feet under the keel. Since our keel is 4 feet deep, that means we had 17 feet or more of water at all times. Even though the buoys have been removed, the charts we use still showed where they used to be. Clark used that information and his great navigation skills to follow the deeper water all the way into the anchorage. It was only mildly exciting compared to some of our "adventures".

After traveling the inlet, we finally got to see something besides water. I wanted to yell, "Land Ho!" Today, being a Sunday, we saw a small boat and 2 jet skis beached as we approached Walburg Creek to drop anchor.

Jet skis on beach at St. Catherine's Inlet

The two pictures below show the starboard and port views where we dropped anchor.

Walburg Creek marshland

House with fixed dock across from marshes

28 October 2024

Depart: Walburg Creek anchorage in GA 9:15

Arrive: Lanier Island anchorage / St. Simons Island near Brunswick, GA 3:45

Distance: ~ 55 nm

When I went to bed last night, I asked Clark about setting the alarm clock. He still had not decided on the route we would take and what time we should get started. We agreed to not set an alarm and get going whenever we were ready.

After sleeping in and eating a leisurely breakfast, we discussed once more today's route. After a discussion on level of urgency regarding a pump-out station, the travel decision came down to a couple of coin tosses as there was no obvious winner.

Toss 1: stay here an extra night or move?

Toss 2: inside on ICW or ocean? Ocean predicted to have 4' waves from the NE with 7 sec period

Generally, Clark makes the travel decisions and I go along for the ride. My only comments regarding our choices were 1) it's well protected here and 2) there's nothing to look at here. So, Clark made the choice I thought he would - move and travel south on the ocean.

Our exciting view from our stern this morning
at the Walburg Creek anchorage

As we made our way along the inlet into the ocean, I felt like I was in a "bouncy house". It was just bouncy enough to make walking a challenge. Certainly no where near as interesting as the bucking bronco ride from a couple of days ago.

We had dreary, overcast skies for our entire ocean voyage. Once again we had little of interest to look at. Although 4' waves had been predicted, Clark and I agreed they were probably no more than 3' in height.

Green Marker at beginning of the inlet

Sun desperately, and unsuccessfully,
trying to break through the cloud cover

When we attended the Annapolis boat show, Clark talked to a representative of a company called "Argo". Clark took one of their depth data collector devices to install on our boat to transmit data to them on depths we encountered on our travels. Given St. Catherine's no longer has buoys, Clark thought the data collected here would be useful to them. Unfortunately, when Clark checked, he found that no data had been collected yesterday as we made our way in via St. Catherine's inlet. Before we left today, he made sure it would be working and transmitting data for our outbound trip.

We had another lonely day on the ocean. I brought up the wireless speaker. For a while we listened to "Low Country Oldies" and for about 3 hours of the trip, we listened to Michelle Obama narrate her book "The Light We Carry". We have 6 more hours of listening time on the book that we saved for another day.

Because we will need to make use of their services, Clark decided we should drop anchor near Morning Star marina. He said we could stay here for two nights, get a pumpout, and then move on.

Here's a Google Map display of the area.

It was a little rocky coming in the St. Simon's inlet. Once it calmed down, I took the opportunity to grab some pictures.

Signs of civilization on the shoreline!

As we came in the inlet, the flag was waving in one direction. Then after we passed, it was waving in the opposite direction. I found this somewhat puzzling.

Once again we saw the sun valiantly trying to overcome the clouds.

It finally did break through and when we dropped anchor, I had to switch to sunglasses. In the full enclosure on the boat with all panels zipped shut, we were comfortably warm. When I stepped out to take pictures, I found it surprisingly chilly. I knew I would need to "bundle up" to work my anchor job.

We dropped anchor with three sailboats nearby on one side of us and the marina on the other. I can see the "No Wake" sign for the marina from the boat, but we are anchored before that sign. I hope no yahoos buzz by!