St Simons Says

We are anchored near a familiar spot in St. Simons Sound, across from Brunswick, Georgia (map). Well, actually I am starting my post while we are underway southbound in the Atlantic, off the coast of Wolf Island, but I won't finish the post until we drop the hook, so I can add the photos from our transit of the inlet, where lies the wreck of the Golden Ray.

Things got progressively calmer on passage after my last post, and we picked up a bit of a push that lasted all the way to Port Royal Sound. We had the outgoing tide against us traveling up the sound, and we loafed along at reduced rpm, which put us at the entrance to Skull Creek just as the current there reversed. Now with a fair tide, we made it all the way to our usual anchorage in the May River (map), near where it empties into Calibogue Sound.

The Golden Ray on her side, missing only her bow at the far end. Hard to comprehend scale in a photo like this. The yellow gantries of the WB-10,000 at left are 240' tall.

We had a very quiet, comfortable, and pleasant night. The entire sound was a stark contrast to our last stop, over Memorial Day weekend, when the beaches were full and small boat traffic was everywhere. It was quiet enough that we could easily have spent a few days in Hilton Head, except that getting ashore anyplace with comfortable outside dining is quite a trek.

I'd been messaging back and forth with our good friend John, who has been single-handing his boat from Charleston back to Savannah, and this day we noted we'd very nearly caught up to him, as he was just a half day ahead of us at the Hinckley yard, where he would be having some work done. We agreed to try to get together in a safe and distanced setting as we passed by.

John is very nearly the last soul with whom we spent any time unmasked and un-distanced, way back in March when our boats were docked side by side at Brown's Marina in Bimini, at what was to be the start of a Bahamas cruising season for both of us. It's been longer than that since we last saw his wife Laura Lee, and we've been very much looking forward to reuniting.

We've put the holiday decor up early this year. This diminutive ceramic tree is in our stateroom.

A quick check of the weather revealed that we'd have pleasant temperatures for an outdoor meetup on Friday, but by Saturday the temperature would plummet, and so rather than wait until we came a bit close to them in Vector, they would instead drive back up to Thunderbolt and we'd meet them there at dinner time. And so it was that we weighed anchor after mid-tide rising and headed down a notoriously shallow stretch of the ICW toward Georgia.

With an eight foot tide swing, all things are possible at high tide, and we made it across all the shoals without incident. We shot out into the Savannah River ideally timed between ship transits, dodged around a dredge, and passed through the Sam Varnedoe drawbridge -- which, back when we started, was our first drawbridge ever -- for what we hope will be the last time (the replacement high bridge is nearly complete). The waters from Hilton Head through Thunderbolt were our training grounds when we first moved aboard, and it is all so very familiar.

Sunset over Kilkenny Creek.

Collectively we ruminated about where we could safely meet for dinner; John stopped by old standby Tubby's Tank House, but they would not take a reservation and could not promise an outside table. Instead we agreed that John and Laura Lee would pick up take-out from Erica's Lowcountry restaurant right there in Thunderbolt, and we'd get together on the spacious aft deck of Division Belle. Tendering to their boat freed us up to go anchor, and we passed through Thunderbolt and dropped the hook in a familiar spot in the Herb River (map).

Anchoring anywhere in Georgia nowadays is complicated by the state's byzantine and onerous no-anchoring rules, which require consulting a special map website to know if any given spot is allowed. Fortunately, this spot is permitted, and we had the hook down early enough to have a pleasant afternoon aboard. This was the first day in a long time where it was warm enough for me to cut my hair on the swim step, a task that was seriously overdue.

While the temperature was quite pleasant right up through dinner time, what we had not counted on was rain, which arrived even before we left Vector, even though it had not been forecast to start until 11pm. We both donned our motorcycle rain gear for the ten minute tender ride over, and we stripped out of it once under cover of their aft deck.

Dinner on the porch at Marker 107, in a poorly-lit selfie.

The aft deck seating area was far too wet to be usable, and the rain continued to fall. We ended up sitting across the table at opposite ends of the saloon, with all the windows open. Apart from the giant moth that flew into their boat, that worked out well. We had a fantastic evening, catching up over a couple bottles of wine and some excellent southern BBQ. It was the dinner that the four of us were expecting to have perhaps back in April or so at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club or thereabouts.

The rain finally petered out just as it was time to head home, and we were mostly dry on the ride back. We were too bushed to hoist the tender, which was a mistake. It was still in the 60s when we got home, and instead we hoisted in the morning in the 40s, wearing our winter gear.

Sunrise this morning as we motored downriver into St Catherines Sound.

Knowing we'd have good outside weather today, yesterday we weighed anchor and headed down the ICW to St. Catherines Sound, the next good exit to the ocean. We turned off the ICW just before the sound into Kilkenny Creek, where we dropped the hook in the last legal anchorage before the sound (map). As it happens, that's just a stone's throw from the Marker 107 restaurant, right on the water.

They were happy to reserve us a table on their outside porch, which had good windbreaks but plenty of outside air flow, and an enormous propane heater. It was a comfortable experience and the food was excellent. We did have to bundle up for the short tender ride in each direction.

We both found this AIS display amusing this morning. The full names were Victory I and II, respectively.

We are in a part of the tide cycle where we knew it would be against us at both ends today, and so we were up before dawn to get started just before slack. That gave us a bit of a head start before we had to push against nearly two knots of current until the southward turn outside the St Catherines entrance buoys.

It was so calm in the ocean today that we could easily have gone overnight all the way to Jacksonville. That would save us a few miles and a couple of days, but we don't even know where we are headed now, so there's no rush to get there. So today we took the path of least resistance and made it a day hop.

Entering and exiting Brunswick Harbor I normally run well outside the greens, almost to shore. Unfortunately, that's where the wreck of the Golden Ray is lying, and there's barely room between the exclusion area and the shallows, so we opted to take the safe path and run the ship channel around the wreck. Of course, as luck would have it, the car carrier Morning Courier was making its way out to sea just as we were coming in, and since he had to swing wide to the reds, we had to swing wide outside the reds.

Entering Brunswick Harbor, about to pass Morning Courier close aboard, with her pilot boat close astern. Wreck of Golden Ray center frame, with the WB-10,000 next to her, and the Sidney Lanier bridge in the background.

Seeing this enormous RoRo passing in front of the wreck of the nearly identical Golden Ray, it occurred to me that the pilot I was speaking with on the radio might be the very pilot who had been taking Golden Ray out of port. We passed both ships without incident, pushing against two knots of current. Marine Traffic says Morning Courier is on its way to Baltimore, just as Golden Ray had been.

It was the long way around, but eventually we reached our usual spot near the Jekyll Island piers and dropped the hook, expecting an easy set in a well-known location. As soon as the anchor grabbed we started dragging, the strong current bouncing it along the bottom.  A little puzzled, I powered ahead and we pulled it back out of the water, to discover we had hooked an enormous rock.

Giant rock wedged in our anchor, with some gratuitous fishing line around it as well.

What ought to have been a sharp anchor at the end of our chain was now just a ball, which was not going to catch on anything, and it was wedged in the flukes pretty tightly. I could not leave the helm to deal with this so long as we were hovering in the shallows just upcurrent of a fishing pier, and so we powered across the channel to the middle ground with a giant rock dangling from our bow. One of the tugs working the wreck passed us and we could see her crew looking us over.

Once in the shallows of the middle ground we tried bouncing it against the bottom a couple of times, to no avail. Ultimately, Louise lassoed it with an old line, tied the line off on deck, and dropped the anchor out from under it, which took a couple of tries. And then there we were, with our anchor back on deck, and a rock hanging from a string off our bow.

Now free of the anchor and dangling from a choker.

The rock weighed at least as much as me if not more, and there was no way to release the line and let the rock fall. I reached out through a hawsepipe and cut it away using the serrated folding knife we keep on deck for line-cutting emergencies, after first donning gloves and safety glasses. I'm sorry to have fouled St. Simons Sound with about four feet of 5/8" nylon line, but it was the best I could do.

We drove back across the channel, picked this spot further upriver of the pier, and dropped the hook, thankful to be well-anchored. After a well-earned "anchor beer" we fixed the leftovers from Friday's dinner for our evening meal. Tonight there were fireworks over Jekyll Island, which was a nice cap to the evening.

We need some provisions, and I'd like to get some box wine before we cross into Florida, where it's more expensive and sold in smaller packages. I found a grocery a short bike ride from the free dock on St. Simons Island, and so tomorrow we'll motor just three miles or so across the sound to a different anchorage for a shorter dinghy ride. We should be in Florida in just a couple of days.