Those Georgia Tides

 TRAVEL DAY 21 - St. Simons Island to St. Catherine's Island

March 24, 2023

6.9 Hours/54.4 Miles

    Coastal Georgia has some incredible tide swings. Anywhere form 7' to 9' is what we have seen so far! This makes for a challenge when anchoring. Pulling into an anchorage with 11' of water at high tide could easily leave you on the bottom at low tide. 

Creek upon creek

    We traveled through a whole lot of nothing. Although the views were broad and extraordinarily breathtaking, we felt like we were lost in the middle of nowhere. We wove our way from river to river in a back and forth fashion. If it weren't for a reliable GPS and a well marked channel, we would surely be lost. 

How in the heck did these cows get here?

    The ICW is unique to other waterways in that the green markers are always toward the ocean and the red markers the shore. It is this way on both coasts of Florida and the eastcoast of the US. We followed the Magenta line on the Simrad always looking to the markers and making sure they had the tell tale reflective triangle or square on the daymarker denoting we were still following the ICW.

Day markers
  
    There were times when it looked like we were coming to the end of the river, then suddenly a sharp bend would reveal more miles of water.  

Yup, more nothing

   We passed some really neat looking fish camps along the way, sprinkled all along islands with just enough dry land to set a cottage or house.

One of the many fish camps

"Gettin' down with Cooter Brown"

    We decided that almost 7 hours of cruising was enough so we turned up the Newport River well before the inlet and dropped the anchor. In 15' of water and at mid tide we were sure we would have 10 or so feet at low tide. There was not a lot of wind protection from the south/southwest breeze but the wind was predicted to be mild so we felt secure. We were the only boat in the anchorage and it made for a beautifully quiet night. A great dinner, a couple card games and 1 hour of Netflix (thank you Starlink).

Everything tastes better on the boat
    
Never gets old

    Practically every night provides a beautiful sunset and every morning a great sunrise. It never seems to get old.

St. Simon's to St. Catherine's Island Anchorage



Comments

  1. Rachel EnsingMarch 26, 2023 at 10:21 AM

    Looks like you're really finding your groove- looks like a delicious dinner! Also- you forgot to tell everyone reading that is not a normal sea-faring person what the red and green signs mean- Red, Right, Return- the red is on the right when you are heading back inland to help people know whether they're going the right way- right??

    ReplyDelete
  2. Captain ron kitchenMarch 26, 2023 at 3:53 PM

    Sunrises, sunsets and Cooter brown, never get old.

    ReplyDelete

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