Saturda,y Nov 27th and Sunday, Nov. 28th - On to St. Marys, Ga

On Saturday Nov. 27th we pulled the anchor at 8:10 AM at our anchor site in a creek just off the ICW near mile marker MM651. That means that the location was 651 miles from Norfolk, Va., the start point of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.  That also means that we had broken the 300 mile mark and had traveled 307 miles by water from our home port of Little River, SC. at MM345.  This anchorage was in the middle of nowhere yet near St. Simons Island.  As we travelled south we encountered almost no boats heading north and very few heading south, most of which were sailboats under power.  It was a beautiful but chilly day and we left the front curtains zipped closed all day except for when we needed a perfectly clear view with the binoculars to find and read the numbers on some channel marker.  Our destination was St. Marys, GA., the home of new friends Jane and Mark who offered a dock to us for that night.  Roger, Wayne and Michael stayed with them at their river home on the initial trip north from Florida to SC. after we bought Cool Change. 

Along the way we saw porpoises and we even caught sight of some wild horses on Cumberland Island.  In our travel we motored to the ocean inlet of St. Simons Sound and at  Jekyll Sound inlet we actually went into the Atlantic and rounded the first offshore sea buoy before turning sharply back west into the sound.  The ICW does this at 6 or 7 inlets to avoid the silting across the breadth of these sounds.  We seem to do a lot of the waterway every direction but south!

We stopped at Golden Isles Marina on St Simons Sound, MM675, to get fuel, pump out our holding tanks, and to fill our water tank back to the 70 gallon level.  This fill up gave us our first truly accurate information on fuel usage (see below).  There was a restaurant at the marina and we ate lunch and got our land legs back for a while.  We continued to wind our way down the ICW and through Jekyll Sound on our way to St. Marys.

We never made it to Jane and Mark's home in St. Marys.  We ran aground on a sand bar about a mile short of their place with a swift outgoing tide threatening to leave us stranded and darkness falling.  Not wanting to be laying on our side when the tide came back in six hours later, we powered off the bar and subsequently developed a vibration in the drive system (denoting propeller damage).  Once free we decided not to risk another grounding and headed back on Crooked River toward the ICW to anchor for the night where the river is 20 feet deep.  We again ran aground in water that we had just passed through on our way to the first grounding.  It was supposed to be 15 feet plus deep according to our chart.  We backed off this second bar, moved over 50 feet in the channel and proceeded to deep water and anchored for the night knowing that we probably did damage to our props. : (  Sunday morning dawned a cold 40 degrees and gusty.  We pulled anchor about 7:30 and proceeded out of Crooked River without incident.  We passed the submarine base at Kings Bay and travelled into Cumberland Sound right up to Fort Clinch, the north most part of Florida.  The day was turning to a mild day from the chilly start.  We called ahead to Amelia Island Yacht Basin, MM720, to arrange repairs on Monday and that is where we are right now.  Tomorrow the service center will lift our boat out of the water and repair whatever was damaged.  Hopefully only the props are damaged as we have a spare set aboard.  In the meantime we have visited Fernandina's old town shops and washed our laundry and ourselves thoroughly (boat showers do leave something to be desired) and walked extensively on land for the first time in days.  Monday we've planned an excursion to our all time favorite grocery store - Publix.  Yippee!!!

Statistics:
At MM675 we took on 172 gallons of fuel at Golden Isles Marina
Total Miles from Little River, SC = 330 miles
MPG = 1.99 including generator run time
Engine hours at start:  1076 port   1079 starboard
Engine hours st MM675:  1116 port    1119 starboard
Total trip run time:  40 hours
GPH = 4.3
Boat weight:  30,000 lbs. +
Length: 42 feet overall
Width:  13 ft - 4 in
Clearance
Height:  17 ft - 5 in
Power: 2 each 330 Cummins turbo diesels
Generator:  9KW Kohler diesel

Where is that buoy?  I don't want to go out any further into the ocean!  This is supposed to be a river.

Birds feeding on whatever comes up behind our boat whenever we are moving.  They fly along with us constantly.

The brown speck is a wild horse on Cumberland Island

Fort Clinch 

The submarine degaussing (static charge) facility at Kings Bay.