Thunderbird Marina in Savannah - at a dock

On the way to Savannah - a dredge, what all ICW'ers love to see!

By reaching Kilkinney Marina last night, we were well placed to transit Hell Gate at a good tide, 6 ft in fact. That put all concerns aside as we could have made it across mud flats if they were present at low tide! We knew that Hell Gate wasn't that low.

Interesting sailboat, I wonder how much sailing they do?

I don't think we'll ever have another year of traveling like this one. Every day has been perfect and today was no different with temps in the 70's, light winds and no rain. Tuesday is a day of rain so we'll stay here another day and start out Wednesday in the direction of Charleston. I found an offer from Enterprise for a weekend rate of $10/day so now we have a car reserved there for a total of $32.00 counting tax for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, returning it Monday morning - not bad.

Typical yacht at Thunderbolt

Thunderboat Marina is home to really big boats. They have the biggest hanger I've ever seen, I guess for painting and refinishing large ships. However, they also cater to transients with the plus of giving out Krispy Kreme donuts in the morning, delivered to your boat! That alone is enough reason for us to stop, especially for Ann. They have an air conditioned laundry room that's never crowded which is another big plus.

We hope to meet up with Jack and Kay Cothren on Tuesday, they live in Savannah during the winter months and in the summer come back north to the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club.

Kilkenny - at a dock

The Kilkenny Marina dockhouse - complete with chairs

Today the challenge was Mud River. It is famous for being very shallow but today it was even shallower. For purposes of communicating with other boaters, all depths are given in Mean Low Water (MLW) which allows other boaters to access the nearest tide station and then add the height of the tide to your input and then see if they can get through. At the Mud River (aptly named), the lowest depth I saw today was only 3.7 MLW. So if you happen to come through at low tide, there's only 3.7 ft of water in the channel! That's the least amount of depth we've seen in the Mud River since we've been doing the ICW the last four years. That's typical of the attention the ICW getts from Georgia and South Carolina. The boaters are just "passing through" and we're not considered an important source of income, apparently. At some point, the ICW will become impassable even at high tide! At any rate, we came through Mud River with a 4.5 ft tide so we had enough water depth for our 4' 9" draft sailboat.

A view down main street - note the long horizontal limbs, typical of live oaks

We had intended anchoring out at Wahoo Creek but the tides were such that we would have reached the anchorage by 1:30 so we decided to push on to Kilkenny Marina. It's strategically located just 10 miles south of Hell Gate, another notorious shallow spot on the ICW. By taking a dock here we're situated to reach Hell Gate with a healthy 6 ft high tide. We could even float over spots that were dry at low tide!

No southern yard is complete without a swing on a live oak

Kilkinney Marina is in Georgia and is typical rustic Georgia. It's surrounded by huge live oak trees and friendly people. We took on diesel and are all set for the Thunderbird Marina on Monday for two days.

One face dock next to the Kilkenny Creek

Jekyll Island - at anchor

The bridge at Jekyll Island - all the shallow water is past that bridge!

We went by the farmers' market in the morning to get some fresh vegetables but couldn't get Vidalia onions, they are later this year and won't be available according to the guy at the farmers' market until two weeks from now. So we settled for fresh strawberries grown in Florida, fresh bread and a variety of other vegetables.

Back to the boat we were off by 9:30 and headed north. Today is not a problem for skinny water, it's the next two days that are the challenge. The infamous Mud River comes up tomorrow and then it's the southern version of Hell Gate (same name as the one on the way to Long Island), it's shallow! Our plan is to take them all at high tide or at least as near to high tide as we can manage.

Hoolie's relief, it's a calm anchorage

We know the owner of Active Captain and he's taking the outside route! We want to take the more exciting inside route that will keep you alert and your blood pressure high... You can see if we get stuck on the Spot display from my blog.

We're at the Jekyll Island anchorage tonight and plan on reaching the Wahoo River anchorage by Sunday afternoon, late. Then it's on to Savannah for Monday night. We're headed north! 

Fernandina - We dine out at Le Clos

Le Cos, an excellent French restaurant in Fernandina Beach

In looking over the restaurant ratings on TripAdvisor, the top rated one was Le Clos with a French cuisine It was patterned after a typical French restaurant with just a few tables and an attentive staff. We thought we would celebrate our last day in Fernandina, the food by the way was excellent.

We are now entering an area of the ICW where the water is really thin. Both Georgia and South Carolina claim they have no funds for dredging and have no plans to do so in the future. So we boaters are left with areas you can't get through at low tide. Luckily, there are 7 ft tides around here so there is still a way though if you only attempt the passages at high tide. However, that severely limits your options but that's the way it is. So we planned our trip north today and are trying to time the difficult stretches at near high tide, not always easy to do but it's the only choice we have.

We always enjoy the sunsets

On Saturday we plan to first pay a visit to the local farmers' market for fresh vegetables and then haul anchor and head for the Jekyll Island anchorage which will put us in position for a Sunday passage through Jekyll at high tide - a very shallow area. From there north it's more of the same, pass at high tide through the shallows, such is the ICW these days - or else go outside. So far with our 4' 9" draft, we can manage by using the tides. If they don't do something about dredging, the ICW will be impassable even at high tide!

Fernandina - We explore downtown and Ann gets a haircut

Ann with her stylist

One must stop in Fernandina is at the hair salon for Ann to get a haircut. She knows one of the stylists there and had the same one this year by reservation. First we dinked to shore and I ran for 1/2 hour while Ann walked at a fast pace with Hoolie - so we all got exercise.

strange flowering tree by the hair salon

Back to the boat for breakfast and then Ann had her appointment with her stylist. In conversation with her, Ann learned that her shears cost $400 and that the stylist wasn't satisfied with them. The better (!!) quality shears cost $800 apiece and that's what she really wanted. It's hard for me to imagine paying $800 for a pair of scissors (probably not the right name, there's a whole different level of quality for styling shears). At any rate, Ann was very pleased with her cut and we'll be back again next year for another styling.Hopefully, her stylist can get a pair of shears she'll be happy with, for example. 

Ann's dinner creation, yummy

The weather here has just be fantastic with temps in the 70's, almost no wind and dry, low humidity days. With that we've decided to stay another day and my all-time-date (Ann) has decided to take me out to dinner Friday night, great. Meanwhile, she prepared another wonderful meal, Sweet Pepper Salmon and we're presently watching the sun slowly dipping to the horizon, hard to beat the view.

Fernandina - at anchor

And we wait for the railroad bridge to open, and wait, and wait...

We left Sadler Point Marina in good cheer, knowing that the Main Street Bridge wouldn't open until 9:00 am. No problem we thought and started off in time to make the opening. Then we heard over the VHF that the railroad bridge said they would not be opening until noon! It was now about 8:30 am we had a 3 and 1/2 hour wait! Fortunately, there was a free dock by the theater district that we tied up to for the duration. Eventually, the railroad bridge opened after a cluster of orange clad workers buzzed around one end appearing very busy.

This thing doesn't even look like it's in the water - a huge car ship - Panama must have a ton of these things (how do they afford them??)

A flotilla of boats came through (it was the only opening that day) and we finally headed east to the ICW. Along the way we had to stop again to allow an huge ship to turn and start down the river to the ocean, more delays! Luckily, the tide was still rising when we reached the shallow spots which were numerous on the ICW to Fernandina, some of the worse spots on the entire trip.

Finally, a sunset. 

Upon arriving at Fernandina we discovered that they had no moorings available so we just anchored and, in fact, we'll probably be doing that in the future. It's free and you can still use the dinghy dock. Ann has an appointment to get her air cut here, she knows the stylist from last year and then we may stay another night or move on, depends on weather.

Sadler Point Marina in Jacksonville - Last day

This is NOT your usual used book store - they have 2 million books!! Many first editions and rare titles, right by the marina

Today was tax day. I thought I would start out today's blog with something exciting... Being on a boat, one has to do things remotely. All the tax forms from banks, investments, etc. can be downloaded from the internet so you have access to everything you need to do your taxes. I use TurboTax, mainly from habit (all my old records are in their format) and it goes fairly smoothly. If you use one of the major investment companies, you can even have all the investment information entered automatically (downloaded). With that and my internet connection via the hotspot on the iPhone, I completed my taxes in 1/2 day, sending in the forms via e-filing, no stamps required. 

The used bookstore pictured above is famous in the area. It has over 2 million books for sale, many rare titles you can't find anywhere else. I found book number one of the Tarzan series that I had always wanted to read. However, browsing the stacks inside is just staggering, just about overwhelming! It's too big, countless rows of stacks.

It's also a do-it-yourself yard as these owners are doing, you pay for the space

Invigorated after that success (although I owed a bunch of money, oh well...) we made another trip to Publix for all the things we forgot to get yesterday. The rains had stopped by noon and the day turned out better than predicted. I talked to the yard manager here at Sadler Point Marina and he said the area was about three weeks later than normal in weather temperatures for this time of the year. Fortunately, that still puts the average temperatures in the mid 70's so I'll take that. In the middle of all this, Ann found the time to prepare one of her usual outstanding dinners, Poulet au Porto with sugar peas and long grain wild rice. Wonderful to have a good cook onboard!

"No Hoolie, you can't go this time..."

We'll start out Wednesday morning for Fernandina and a mooring for a couple of days and wait for good weather to round the buoy out in the inlet by Jekyll Island, a notorious shallow spot. Speaking of which, there are shallows that are a real challenge just south of Fernandina. It's very hard to even find 5 ft at low tide and we'll have our hands full trying to negotiate that hazard! It's the start of shallow waters on the way to Georgia and South Carolina, neither of which has any money for dredging the ICW. At least Florida has an independent fund although they don't seem to use it for Fernandina.