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Georgia..not so peach-y

GA ICW

..and to your left- a very shoaled in spot to avoid

Blame it on the weather, or not. Can’t say we thought too much of the lower 2/3 of Georgia.  Except for one semi-decent day spent on St Simon’s, we had lousy, rainy, T-storm weather from Monday when we left Fernandina, through Thursday, we had lousy weather. Friday, while sunny, was windy and chilly- by 11am the temp was still barely 60. Well, hey we’ve gotten used to 75 plus and I’ll bet you our blood has thinned!
The ICW winds its way through Georgia by means of rivers, creeks and a few cuts created special to ensure rapt attention is paid by captain and crew. We saw very few boats in Georgia; most monohulls chose to do an outside run because so many sections of the ICW are too shallow at or near low tide for them to pass. We paid close attention- I think the name is DAD- depth attention disorder and deep draft boat or not, one can’t help but be cautious. Ten hour days pass quickly this way; always something to do.  The one nice thing about GA is a lack of bridges; a few 65′ and two opening ones in the entire state along the ICW. No complaints with that.
If you look at “Click to See Full Map” over toward the right, then click the Google Map,(valid on our old blog) you can zoom in and out and see just how the ICW (and our path) winds back and forth, mostly close to the shoreline.  The marshes are pretty and stretch for miles it seems. Boats in the distance look as though they are floating on the grass tops.
Friday, (Day 174) April 1, and hopeful for no jokes; the wind is misbehaving enough unfortunately. Enjoyed a shorter and much nicer travel day, passing by Moon River- yes THE Moon River and did not have such a bad case of DAD.

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Things happen for a reason

I tend to believe that stuff happens for a reason.  This latest event has totally clinched it for me. We left Fernandina and the radar showed mostly clear. Hadn’t gone more than 2 miles when we dropped the hook just off the channel and waited out a small T-Storm cell. I am the chicken; when it comes to not being able to see well, forget it.  Our home deserves our utmost care and by golly I want to keep it. Ten minutes later we were on our way. Never did this procedure before; lucky for us, nearly all our travel has been in good or reasonably decent weather.
Eyes on the radar as well as the Weather Channel on my iPhone, we watched as the storm gods tossed more blobs our way. Didn’t get more than five more miles and you could see the wall of rain, hear the thunder while lightning flashed in the distance. Guess what? Scooted off the channel and dropped the anchor again.
We had just decided (that’d be me) that the coast was clear. We looked over to the ICW and coming our way and, “moving at a good pace” commented Russ, was a catamaran. As it got closer, I did my usual check it out and saw the person at the helm was looking at us! We raised the anchor and thought it good that we’d follow them- I feel safer seeing another boat when the weather is crap.
Right about then, the VHF sprang to life with “catamaran west side of Cumberland Sound, this is Celise/Spirit”. Holy crap, they were calling us and it was our friends from Boot Key Harbor –  you know, the ones with the cat bigger than ours! We knew they’d be headed up a couple weeks after we left and a few days earlier we had tried to guess when and where. Their mast is extra tall and requires passing under the non-opening bridges at low tide, if they can at all.   If we hadn’t delayed our day’s journey we would have missed them entirely.

ICW in Georgia looks like tree roots

Shortly after we joined up- they turned off to stop for the day near Cumberland Island and we continued farther. As things turned out, we had to cut our day short and our night’s rest was the north end of the same river they were in to the south.  We made plans to meet up at Thunderbolt Marina in Savannah; it’s their final destination. Haul the boat and fly back west to Washington and next winter the other owner has it. We’d chosen Thunderbolt marina, not knowing, how fortuitous.