Monday, May 2, 2011 Daytona Beach, Seabreeze Bridge
Anchored under a heavily-used city bridge can hardly be described as “peaceful” but the boat traffic died down in the late afternoon (after having to put up with all the go-fast boats returning from the beach on our way north into Daytona on a Sunday) and other than the fact that every vehicle in Daytona uses the bridge and has loud exhaust noises, the night was peaceful!
We departed at 0825 and had a most unusual day – the tidal current followed us the entire day. Through Palm Coast and Matanzas Inlet and into St. Augustine (where the tide was at low slack, then a flood tide following us the entire 15 miles north of St. Augustine to Pine Island where we anchored for the night. It isn’t very often that we can average over 7.5 MPH for an entire day! There were only two other boats in the anchorage when we arrived, and two more came after we anchored – plenty of room for all.
The day was warm and sunny, with a little breeze to keep the temperature moderated.
Day: 8 hours 35 minutes – 64.5 statute miles
Trip: 21 hours 00 minutes – 152.8 statute miles
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 Pine Island
The anchor was up and we were underway at 0715, crossed the St. Johns River at 1150, thru Fernandina Beach and into the St. Mary’s River, past the submarine base at King’s Bay, Georgia, and anchored at Little Cumberland Island with winds gusting to 20 MPH at 1720. We had hoped to see a few wild ponies, but they chose not to show up that evening. The evening was a little rocky due to the wind out of the northwest, but the anchor held through the night.
The wind was blowing at 20 MPH from the NW when we awoke, and we had to cross the long expanse of St. Andrew’s Sound. We couldn’t tell from the NOAA forcast what conditions would be like on the sound, so we waited until several other boats passed and asked them for a report of the conditions – not so bad was the report; so we shipped anchor and were underway about 0945. We crossed St. Andrew’s Sound without a problem – actually relatively benign given the wind. Then we crossed St. Simons Sound, and arrived at the Little Mud River at near dead low tide and dragged our keel through the mud without getting “stuck,” and anchored for the night in 13 feet of water in Crescent River (8 foot tide). We let out 150 feet of anchor chain which weighs one pound a foot, so along with the anchor we had a lot of weight on the bottom to keep us in position in 20 feet of water at high tide and winds blowing 15-20 out of the north.
Day: 8 hours 00 minutes – 53.8 statute miles
Trip: 39 hours 05 minutes underway – 279.2 statute miles
Thursday, May 5, 2011 Crescent River
We were underway at 0710 this morning. The anchor held us in almost the exact same position throughout the night despite the changing tidal current and wind. Must have been all the weight of the chain. By the time we reach Sapello Sound the wind had picked up considerably, and as we reached the point near the ocean where the InterCoastal Waterway (ICW) turns north, we had wind of 18-20 mph from the north with a flood tide opposing the river current – seas were very confused and as the water got shallow the waves increased to the point where we took some spray over the bow that reached the windows of the bimini (the window “smiles” were down because of the wind). Not a bad ride, but we were glad when we got a few miles north of the sound into a river where the water was fairly calm.
At 1245 we turned upstream into the Ogeechee River and followed the recently placed red and green floating markers to Ft. McAllister Marina about 6 miles upstream from the ICW where we are staying for the night in order to see Judy’s daughter, her husband, and two children. Nice, quiet place with a good restaurant, not too far from Lori and Joe’s house and just a short distance from where their oldest daughter will be playing baseball tonight (we’re all attending the game)!
Day: 6H45M – 46.1SM
Trip: 45H50M – 325.3SM