Day 11 – N 31° 40.934’ W 81° 09.423’ Walburg Creek, GA

Finally, after nearly a week of bad weather, including thunderstorms for 2 days and high winds for 3 days, we got a day that promised to be good.  Forecast winds were to be NW at 15 to 20 mph with gusts to 25 mph and the seas were to be 2 to 3 feet.  The day was to be sunny, but chilly, starting out at 35°F with a high of 56°F.  So we bundled up and left the marina at St. Simons Island at 08:05 and set our course for the sea channel.  We thought that we could make it to Ossabaw Sound before sundown and anchor there, but a backup plan was to find an anchorage in St. Catherine’s Sound (about 10 miles shorter trip than Ossabaw).  We set one sail as soon as we cleared the docks, but waited setting the main sail until we reached the end of the sea channel.  This was because the wind would be directly behind us as we went down the 5 mile sea channel, and with the waves there was a strong risk of gybing, which could be very dangerous in such strong winds.  Even though we were fighting an incoming current in the sea channel, with the one sail set we were able to average about 6 knots during that transit.  We were off to a great start!

Leaving St. Simons Island, GA

Upon reaching the end of the sea channel, we set the main sail, and bore off to find our course to Ossabaw.   In a few minutes time, it became clear that the wind was not NW as promised, but NNW, which meant that we would not be able to steer a direct course to Ossabaw.  We decided to steer as close to the wind as we could and hope the wind would go back to NW as forecast.  After an hour or so the wind had changed, but in the opposite direction to what we hoped for, and our course was getting farther and farther out to sea.  By noon, it was clear that “Tall Tales NOAA” had once again earned its nickname, and we were by now 5 miles farther out to sea than we wanted to be.  Peter decided to tack in order to return to our original track, and maybe take advantage of the rapidly worsening wind direction (what hurts on one tack, helps on the other one).  Sure enough, in the one hour it took us to return to our original track the wind had gone through N and NE and was now E, and we were able to hold a course toward our original objective.  But because we had lost an hour by going so far out to sea, we were obliged to take our backup anchorage in St. Catherine’s Sound.  Lyn put out a fishing line but no luck with that.

Wild pig on St. Catherine's Island, GA

Our cruising information told us of an interesting anchorage located just inside St. Catherine’s Sound, in Walburg Creek.  Creeks in the Georgia barrier islands are salt water and the tide ebbs and flows through them, but they usually are deep because the tidal flows scour their bottoms out 4 times per day.  As we were entering Walburg Creek, we noticed some activity on the shoreline of St. Catherine’s Island.  It turned out to be several wild pigs feeding in the grasses above the shoreline.  We found the anchorage to be very peaceful and pleasant and slept comfortably through the night after a gourmet meal of chili over a bed of rice, topped off with carrot cake.

We tried to phone TowboatUS to let them know that we had anchored safely for the night, but the island is so remote that we had no cell phone reception.  We tried to raise TowboatUS on the VHF radio, but could only get SeaTow.  They were kind enough to relay the information to TowboatUS.