Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Kilkenny Creek to Jekyll Creek - 2017

--Blogpost written by Bob


Kilkenny Creek to North River




It was 38 degrees last night while at anchor!  The very first thing I did in the morning was start our propane fireplace.


Our propane fireplace was our only source of heat with the cold
morning temperature of 38 degrees.  I didn't run it during
the night while we slept because of safety concerns.


I started the engine as the orange glow of the sun appeared in the east.  Then I checked the tides--high tide occurs at a little after 10 AM today.  We got underway at 7:30 AM so that most of our short day's run would be at mid-tide or higher.


It was another cold and windy day.  Most of the day was spent traveling on the Bear River, St. Catherine's Sound, North Newport River, Sapello Sound, and Sapello River.  We passed through another difficult area today--Creighton Narrows.  We passed through it about mid-tide and we went aground briefly as I cut a bend a little too short.  We were able to back off and easily get into deeper water.  The channel markers are terrible in this area; many are missing.  After getting through the difficult area we encountered a tug pushing a barge, fortunately we had plenty of channel width at the time.


We encountered this tug pushing a barge just after we got through a
difficult area on the ICW.  We had plenty of room
at this point, fortunately.


We got to our North River anchorage at about 2:30 PM.  It was really nice to get the anchor down and relax in the warming cockpit.  This river is in the middle of a Georgia salt marsh.  There are no signs of civilization in any direction.


This photo was taken looking into the marsh surrounding our
anchorage in Kilkenny Creek.  There were no signs
of civilization in any direction.


We had another cold evening--it got down to about 40 degrees!  We had 2 extra blankets (and a Maine Coon cat) on the v-berth where we sleep.  We traveled 37 statute miles today.



North River to Jekyll Creek




We had a difficult area at the very start of today's journey, the Little Mud River, followed by another difficult area, the Buttermilk Sound and northern reaches of the Mackey River--combined for a total of 12 miles.  We left our anchorage in the North River at 8:30 AM so that we began the difficult areas a little before high tide (and on a rising tide).


The F.J. Torras Causeway Bridge was visible over the marsh a long
way before we went under it.  This bridge connects
St. Simon's Island to Brunswick.


This old ship was coming out the ship's channel from Brunswick
as we were motoring toward our anchorage for the evening.


We anchored in the Brunswick River right outside the entrance to Jekyll Creek in about 20 feet of water.  We anchored at 1 PM--we have to wait for high tide tomorrow morning.  I was concerned about the exposure in the rather open anchorage but the weather forecast for the night was very favorable.  We can easily see the entrance to Jekyll Creek from our anchorage.  This is the last day of January and it should be our last night in Georgia (for this trip).  Maintenance of the ICW is terrible in Georgia and South Carolina.

We traveled another 37 miles today in beautiful, warm (72 degrees!) sunny weather.  Tomorrow, we should reach Fernandina Beach in Florida!



This is the view we had from our anchorage at sunset.
The bridge on the horizon is the Sidney Lanier
Bridge which spans the Brunswick River 

at New Brunswick GA. This 
bridge opened in 2003.

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2 comments:

  1. Good to see you on the way again, we are on a mooring in Stuart.
    Interesting note: we've come across Hans and Peggy on Aqua Vitae three times now, he still gets mail from Anchorage Marina. Last see heading west across the o waterway to ft myers.

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    1. We expect to be passing by Stuart on or about 2/11, 2/12, or 2/13 on our way to Lake Worth Inlet. We will be crossing the gulf stream to the Bahamas from Lake Worth Inlet. Want to join us for the crossing?

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