June 9 Big Tom Creek

June 9

Great night on the hook.  Nice anchorage with plenty of room and a light breeze so we simply swung with the tide as it came in and went out.  Cranked up the generator before bed and  got things nice and cold so we could fall asleep easily.  That kept the temps and humidity inside reasonable all night.  Woke up to sunny skies and hot humid temps.  Already in the 80’s before 7AM and climbing fast. Another day with heat index above 100 degrees.  We got lucky yesterday in that storms were on the horizon but never hit us.   Looks like ideal conditions for some late afternoon storms today so our plan is to move another 35 miles and get anchored by 1PM.

Nice start to the day

Open waters on Sapelo Sound

Other than these big biting flies bothering us again today the trip was very pleasant.  Some people hate this section of the ICW with its miles and miles of winding water through the marshlands, but I rather like it.  Nothing but nature all around. Very peaceful and tranquil.  It was another day where we seemed to have the ICW entirely to ourselves.  The only traffic today was a single powerboat heading south.  Martha took the helm as I raised the anchor and she never gave it up until the anchor was dropped in the new anchorage and the engine was cut off.   She’s taken the helm plenty of times before but never for an entire day run.  She admitted it was pretty tiring doing it for that long, but she did a great job.   That left me standing with a fly swatter in hand terminating any that dared enter the flybridge. I really should have kept count on the death toll – it would have been very impressive.

Marshlands as far as you can see

Making room for the only boat we saw all day

Our route today was continuing around the back side of Sapelo Island, crossing the open waters of Sapela Sound, tucking in behind St. Catherines Island and then crossing St. Catherines Sound and finally running halfway up Ossabow Island to our anchorage at Big Tom Creek.  It’s a little narrower than yesterdays anchorage but still plenty of swing room after putting out an appropriate amount of rode. Light winds and an incoming tide made crossing the open waters of the sounds  a non-issue.

Dolphins  greeting us on the bow

As expected, storms did make their way to us.  Starting about 4PM we got hit with rain, winds, thunder and lightning.  Quite impressive watching it move across the marsh towards us.  Got to admit I’m always a little nervous during a lightning storm when we’re the tallest thing around.  Much prefer having some sailboats with their tall masts around me in that situation.   Things should settle down for the night and we’ll be off to meet up with friends at Isle of Hope tomorrow.

Storms a comin'

Storms passing through

Wind whipped flag

Clouds breaking up in time for the sunset

Eerie look as darkness fell

Things are starting to feel really weird.  After 15 months of traveling we’re just a few days away from crossing our wake.  Lot’s of mixed feelings going on.  

Journey for June 9

June 8 New Teakettle Creek

June 8

Back on the water today after spending the weekend in Brunswick. Decent downtown trying hard to revitalize.  Overall, they’re making decent progress.  Some nice restaurants, shops, etc.  High end rum distillery downtown (too pricey for me, plus I’m not a big rum drinker) and getting ready to open a craft brewery.   Their first “First Friday” after Covid -19 was this weekend.  Sort of a short event – just 4pm-8pm.  But a couple live bands playing, and street blocked off to allow restaurants to set up additional tables outside - appropriately spaced of course.  The primary reason for stopping here for the weekend was 2-fold.  1 – the weather forecast was lousy with rain every day. 2- we wanted to get a rental car and use this as a base for moving Martha’s car from Jacksonville up to   St. John’s Yacht Harbor in Charleston.   Getting the rental car was a bit of a chore as Enterprise is not “picking you up” as advertised during the pandemic.  So we had to ride the loaner bikes from Brunswick Landing Marina to get there. It’s nice that they offer these loaner bikes - but honestly, they look like they bought them for $5 from Goodwill and slapped a new coat of paint on them.  Nobody’s gonna steal these baby’s!! Thankfully, Enterprise gave us a Nissan Rouge mini SUV and with the back seats folded the bikes fit in to take back to the marina.   Also good news after visiting St. John’s Yacht Harbor is they say they will either have a spot or make a spot for us when we arrive.  YEAH!!! 

Leaving Brunswick in our wake

We left fairly early today to catch some favorable currents.  Incoming tide was against us as we left Brunswick at 7:45 but our primary objective was catching the Little Mud River at high tide. Our friends Russ and Jax on “InQuest” had warned us that they came through on a low tide and with their 3.5’ draft had touched bottom a few times.  So we were determined to catch this stretch during the flood tide around 11:30. Leaving Brunswick we passed by the Golden Star car carrier that ran aground last year after having an engine room fire while leaving the harbor.  Pilot purposely ran it aground rather than potentially blocking the main channel.  It’s sitting on it’s side and in the process of being cut into sections and barged off for disposal.   All the cars destroyed on it.  Thankfully, no environmental damage and all fuel has been removed.  

Car carrier "Golden Star"  hard aground on it's side

Passed by this unnamed island in the marshes  with these cattle grazing.

We decided rather than pushing for a long travel day to just stop at New Teakettle Creek and anchor.  It was a 38 mile run. We dropped anchor in the marshes and have the whole place to ourselves.  Extremely peaceful. In fact, the only other boat we saw all day was a sailboat going south.  

Our only companions for the day - this sailboat going south

Expansive views east and west would be ideal for sunrise and sunsets but we’re stuck in cloud cover and can see rain storms and hear thunder rumbling in the distance . Luckily, no real rain on us so far.  I’ll note that this isn’t the ideal time to be heading north through GA.   “Feels like” temperatures were over 100 degrees thanks to temps and humidity.  A year ago we were in upstate NY and enjoying their seasonal 70’s!!  Also, we had to make a game of seeing who could kill the most big green flys swarming the flybridge.  At least they’re slow and easily killed.  Also, made us think a pilothouse on the next  boat  might not be so bad.

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Marsh views from our anchorage

Clouds break  up on the horizon as the sun sets

Journey for June 8

June 5 Brunswick Landing Marina

June 5

Super short cruise around the back side of Jekyll Island and up the Brunswick River  to Brunswick Landing Marina.   We'll stay here for the weekend.  Picking  up a rental car and will move Martha's car from Jacksonville up to Beaufort and stage it up there. 

Jekyll Island Club from the water

Marshlands around the island

Brunswick seems to have a nice older downtown  that is being redeveloped  with  shops and restaurants.  Even drove by a new brewery  - just not sure it's open yet.   Today is "First Friday" and  it's their first one since  opening things up after  Covid-19.  I guess we'll go walk around a bit and see how it is.  We are in desperate need of reprovisioning so will need to find somewhere  to eat out tonight.  Weather has been overcast all day but at least no rain.  Temperature is OK and I'm even catching a nice little breeze back here on the sundeck while writing.

Under the bridge and Brunswick is up the first creek  on the right

Shrimpers lined up at the docks -  hoping  that means good fresh local seafood

Journey for June 5

June 4 Jekyll Island

June 4

The weather prognosticators are showing almost identical forecasts every day for the next 2 weeks.  Rain, showers, isolated thunderstorms, etc. All starting today.  No real surprise then that about the time we were getting up we started hearing the pitter patter of rain. After spending a few days at anchor we were ready  to get moving and even though we considered just staying put for another day we ultimately  saw weather radar showing a break around 9:30.  We had planned on leaving at 9 AM as the high tide started retreating.  It would give us some travel time going against the tide and some going with it but most importantly it placed us at our destination of Jekyll Island pretty close to slack current.  There’s about an 8’ tidal swing here so lots of water pushes through these creeks and rivers and all that moving water can make docking problematic for us.  For the balance of our trip to Charleston we’ll be paying extra close attention to the tides and planning our travel times around them.  Several sections of the ICW through GA and SC are known trouble spots at low tide for a boat like ours with a deeper draft. We need to be sure and hit them on a rising tide.

Rainy day start looking out the flybridge

Despite raising anchor in the rain wearing foul weather gear the weather mostly broke not too long after starting and we enjoyed the rest of our trip under cloudy and calm conditions.  Following along the back side of Cumberland Island there is a cutoff for the Kings Bay Navy Base.   Home to the navy’s Trident II nuclear submarine fleet.   Pretty evident as you approach it by the constant parade of small navy intercept boats. Never bothered us – just kept an eye on us and made sure we kept on moving.

Navy patrolling at Kings Bay

We made great time coming around the northern end of Cumberland (even saw a few horses walking the beach) and out into the St Andrews Sound.  The current literally dragging us along at 9+ knots.  Then a quick turn back in after getting past the entry shoals and speeds dropped to under 5 knots as we plodded along heading against the current.

Horses on Cumberland Island Beach

Cumberland Island Lighthouse

Jekyll Island is a nice little stop.  The marina is a bit small but very accommodating.  Nice showers, pool, hot tub, free loaner bikes, even a loaner golf cart for a quick run to the shopping area.  Restaurant on the waterfront just steps away overlooking the marina.  The Jekyll Island Club was a private gilded age winter hunting club for the Morgans, Pulitzers, Rockefellers, Goodyears, etc. who built “cottages” on their private island.  Many of their houses are still standing and part of the historic district.

Jekyll Island Club

Cottage now restored with 10 guestrooms

Cottage waiting to be restored

We’re tied up on the outside of a long dock running parallel to shore.  Directly across the dock from us is a sailboat named “True Love”.  We thought it only fitting.  “As You Wish” is named after a quote from the film Princess Bride.  One of our favorite scenes in the movie is when Billy Crystal as the medicine man  “Miracle Max”  brings Wesley back from the dead (well, mostly  dead – not the same as completely dead). Max uses a bellows to fill Wesley’s lungs with air then asks him what he has that’s worth living for.  As he pushes down on his lungs Wesley expels the words of his noble cause - “true love”.  

Despite that 80% chance of rain all day, we only got one short afternoon shower and then   the clouds broke up and we even got a little sunshine late in the day.  Held out to give us a good sunset too!

Journey for June 4

June 2 Cumberland Island

June 2

Up early for a very short run across the Florida border over to Cumberland Island GA.  Wanted to depart Fernandina Municipal Marina on a relatively slack tide to make sure we had no issues getting off the dock and spun around to get out.  It all worked out perfectly.   Just an hour travel time and then we dropped anchor across from the National Park dock.  We’ll stay here at anchor 2 nights so made sure the anchor was set  extra good and put out a little extra scope as we’ll swing around  with the current which can be significant given the 6-7’ tidal swing.  With the anchor set we had a little breakfast. Then Martha took a nap and I finished a book.  Cumberland Island is a National Seashore Park only accessible by boat and the park service boat that brings tourists over from St. Mary’s still isn’t running due to Covid-19 concerns.  So we pretty much have the island to ourselves and a few other boaters anchored here. 

These birds entertained us nightly standing on the dock line and snatching bait fish.

Another cruise ship - this one stuck at the Fernandina docks

Shrimping still popular around here

Couple dolphin greet us as we enter the anchorage

After a light lunch we dropped the dinghy and headed over to the island.  Pretty interesting history.  Nathanial Greene, the revolutionary war hero, owned the island back in the day as a cotton plantation.  In the late 1800’s Thomas Carnegie -brother of Andrew and part owner of their steel empire, bought it and started building a winter residence.  He wound up dying in 1886 about the time their home was ready for occupancy.  His wife continued to live here and expanded the house, calling it Dungeness. Lived there until she died in 1915.  Island was eventually bought by the state as a seashore nature park in the 40’s.   House sat abandoned and in the late 50’s it burned leaving just some ruins.   You can still feel the scale and grandeur of it just walking around the property. 

As You Wish at anchor off Cumberland Island

Ruins of Dungeness - front side

Back side of the ruins - that's me in the foreground giving you a feel for the scale

Current inhabitants - a family of Osprey

Great nature trails around the island for exploring.  Centuries old Spanish moss draped oak trees give the feeling of being on a set from one of those Tarzan movies made in the 50’s.   A notable item on the island are the feral horses.  When the gilded age came to an end and the Carnegies started leaving it’s said they simply let the horses go to run free and they’ve survived as a herd of wild horses ever since.    Pretty much anywhere there’s a nice grassy area you’ll find a stallion, a few of his mares and a new colt.  They must know the island is theirs as they pay visitors no attention.  We passed within feet of several as we walked down some of the trails.  

Wild horses at the entrance gates to Dungeness

Feeding on the back lawn

Cute little fella

Got back to the boat late afternoon.  Martha took a quick swim.  Had a little dinner – reheated some stuff on the grill and then settled in waiting for dusk.  We weren’t expecting much of a sunset as there looked like heavy cloud cover on the horizon, but mother nature put on a nice display to end the day.  Back to the island tomorrow.  We’ll do a cross island trek and check out the ocean.  Supposed to be one of the prettiest 18 mile stretches of sand and sea around.

Day 2 

Gorgeous sunrise  set the tone for the day.  This island is almost magical.  Again, pretty much had the place to ourselves except for a few other boaters.  We dinghied back over and headed for the beach.   Again, it's a walk through old growth oaks covered in spanish moss all twisted by the  constant ocean winds.   Eighteen miles of beach with nary a sole besides us.   If this is what a true barrier island is supposed to look like it's a disgrace the way we've developed  all the others.  Row upon row of rolling dunes after exiting the woodlands with a wide and expansive beach.  No real wildlife today except for watching two ghost crabs  cleaning out sand from their tunnel.  Also saw the telltale markings in the sand where a seaturtle had recently come ashore and laid her eggs.   On the ride back to the boat we had 2 dolphins  surfacing by us although they never would let us get very close. It's been a relaxing and enjoyable anchorage and visit to the island.  Good way to get back in the swing of things after our  unexpected delay due to Covid-19. 

Sunrise even better than a sunset!

Trail to the beach

18 miles of beach all to ourselves.

Dolphins playing as we head back to the boat

At anchor

Journey for June 2