Saturday, October 29, 2016

Crescent River - at anchor

At anchor in Crescent River
After the events of yesterday, we were looking for a more relaxing day. It started off nice with calm winds and full sunshine. The first test of the day was at Hell Gate which is very shallow at low tide. We had 7 ft of tide so I was not expecting any problems and besides, we found 5.1 MLW in the spring. On this pass through we did not see the same depths. The first turn going south was not a problem with a 5.3 MLW depth but I did increase the stand off from G89 from 80 ft to 120 ft to get the additional depth.

After that I thought all was golden but was surprised to see 3.7 MLW on the way south between R90 and G91 in the middle of the channel. A new shoal? I didn't have time to see if I could go around it. It was centered in the channel. So for me it's back to waiting for tide to navigate Hell Gate.

Enjoying a sunset form the cockpit is one of the great pleasures of cruising
We reached the turn off for the Wahoo Creek anchorage and decided to press onward to the Crescent River anchorage which we had never used before. It has even more room than the Wahoo anchorage and also has shore access for pets, at both low and high tide. I think we'll make this anchorage our regular stop from now on between Savannah and Jekyll Island. We are well positioned for Mud River and we'll have at least a 5 ft tide in going through.

We had a great visit tonight from the crew of Lani, a catamaran. It's great fun meeting people along the ICW, it's one of the great treasures of cruising. We hope to reach the Jekyll Island anchorage Sunday night. It's one of our favorites since it's well protected and has a public dinghy dock for Hoolie.

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