We are in Isle of Hope Georgia near Savannah. We have been blessed with 5 days of south winds. Amazingly it has not been particularly warm but the winds have pushed us along nicely and we have been sailing or motor sailing most of the time.
Monday night we spent at the Palm Coast Marina. The community of Palm Coast is a little like Fairfield Harbour with some nice waterfront homes and apparently some problems - the marina is a little long in the tooth, there is a huge and largely defunct shopping center and we saw signs proclaiming that the golf course was reopening soon.
Tuesday we sailed right by St Augustine since we had visited on our way south and anchored in a creek a little north of the city. Wednesday was a little uneventful as we motor sailed almost up to Ferinando Beach Fla and anchored in the same quiet creek we visited on our way down.
Wednesday was an exciting day! We started bright and early crossing the Cumberland Sound inlet and heading north on the sound past the big naval submarine base. As we crossed the lower sound we noticed a submarine headed in and being attended by two large tender boats. Well the submarine along with a full complement of Coast Guard escort boats and the tenders caught up with us as we approached the base and the Coast Guard asked us to actually navigate outside the channel as the sub passed. I wasn't all that comfortable being on the wrong side of the nuns but we never saw less than 25 ft of water. At that point the sub was not going that much faster than us and took for ever to pass. As we continued north toward the Georgia/Florida line, we approached the dreaded St Andrew Sound which can put up a nasty rolling sea when the wind and tide are opposed. Fortunately for us the winds were south east and the tide was ebbing. So we had some mild rollers as we sailed out toward the inlet at an amazing speed of 9 Knots. Turning back to head into the Jekyll Creek we were opposed to the current and had a stiff tail wind. So it was a big following sea, the boat was surfing off waves and making all of about 4 knots of speed over the bottom. We made a 3o minute pit stop at the Jekyll Island marina for fuel, water, garbage drop, and a pumpout. We then spent a quiet night in Federico Creek which is an off shoot to the ICW.
Thursday and Friday morning brought more sound crossing with the same current and wind situations as we found in St. Andrew sound. However the effects were less dramatic. Today we pulled into a nice marina at Isle of Hope to wait out some severe weather and will use their courtesy car this afternoon to visit Walmart and other stores in the area
No comments:
Post a Comment