Inside or Outside?

As soon as we stared planning this trip, people asked us “inside or outside?” In other words, were we planning to go down the ICW the whole way or would we jump offshore for part of the trip. The stretch most talked about was Georgia. Most people said some version of “I’m glad we did Georgia once, but never again.” Since we had never seen it or experienced it, we decided to stay inside.

 

Now we understand.

 

Leaving Savannah at the northern end of the state we first got to enjoy the wonder of Hell Gate, a notoriously shoal section of the ICW. With high tides at 6 am and 6 pm, we left Savannah at first light to get through Hell Gate with plenty of the 8 ft of tide still available. It worked as we saw at least 14 ft throughout. We stopped for the night in New Teakettle Creek, a gorgeous anchorage in the middle of the state. That set us up for plenty of water again the next morning at the Little Mud River, the other notorious spot we had been warned about.

But then came Jekyll Creek.

We didn’t even know to be worried about it, but we do now! When we entered the creek, a large Fleming trawler just ahead of us radioed back to warn us about a bunch of really bad shoaling spots. Then another trawler ahead of us hit and damaged something in their drive train. But even those warnings weren’t enough. If we knew then what we know now, we might have turned back and found an anchorage to wait for the next morning’s high tide.

 

As we worked our way slowly through the creek, we kept watching the numbers on the depth gauge. We need roughly 5.5 ft of water. When the gauge went to 5.6, then 5.5 we waited for the inevitable lurch telling us we had hit the mud. Nothing. Then the numbers kept dropping – all the way down to 4.1 ft. No lurch. The only thing we can figure is that the bottom is all soft silt and we were able to power through it. When we finally reached the end of the creek and found deeper water, we breathed a huge sigh of relief!

 

We decided to press on to St Mary’s to get anchored before a couple days of rain set in. So here we are meeting new friends and awaiting the annual Cruisers Thanksgiving potluck.

 

 

But if not….