So, here we are once more in St. Simon’s Island, where we
spent 5 days on the northbound leg of this cruise trapped by stormy
weather. I’m happy to report that we are
not trapped by stormy weather. Instead
it is the tides that have stalled us here.
It is a bit of a long story, so I’ll start at the beginning.
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| 8-foot tides in Georgia - low tide |
After leaving Thunderbolt Marina in Savannah as planned, we
motored along the ICW at our usual average speed of a little over 5 knots. Hell’s Gate proved to be no challenge at near
high tide (the tides are nearly 8 feet here in Georgia, as you can see in Lyn’s
photo), and we planned this part of our trip to coincide with the rising tide
in Hell’s Gate. We were making good
speed until we entered Sapelo Sound at around 15:00, and then everything
changed. Our radio, which normally beeps
and provides weather alerts as soon as they are issued by the Weather Service,
did not warn us of the front and associated high winds that we encountered at
Sapelo Sound. (We later discovered that
we had inadvertently disabled the alert feature.)
 |
| Low tide - normally poles like this emerge from the water |
As soon as we came around the bend in the last river leading
into Sapelo Sound, the wind suddenly started increasing and we were getting
over 35 knots of wind, directly in front of us.
Sapelo Sound is about 5 miles long, and when strong winds travel across
a long fetch of water like that, they build up large, steep waves very
quickly. So as we started to cross
Sapelo Sound, we began crashing into these 4 to 5 foot waves, plus the
resistance of such high winds, and we soon found ourselves slowed down to
around 1 knot maximum speed and unable to control the direction of the
boat. We quickly decided to find an
alternative place to anchor. It was
certain that we would be unable to cross Sapelo Sound in such wind conditions.
While we were in Port Royal, we had discussed our return
plans with Bill Mote, and he had suggested Thunderbolt Marina, and after that
an anchorage in a small river called Wahoo River. At that time I told him that I preferred the
one in Doboy Sound, because it was 3 to 4 hours closer to Jekyll Island, and I
wanted to catch the end of the rising tide as we passed through Jekyll
Creek. Lyn had noticed as we approached
Sapelo Sound that we were passing Wahoo River, where Bill had recommended the
anchorage. So, as we encountered the
stormy conditions of Sapelo Sound and decided to turn around, Lyn said that we
were at Wahoo River, so why not seek shelter there? The adage, “any port in a storm” comes to
mind. But in fact we found excellent
shelter from this vicious storm there, plus great holding for our anchor. We stood an anchor watch for several hours of
the remaining daylight, and Kite’s position was unwaveringly the same. By dusk, the front had passed and the winds
abated to 10 to 15 knots with gust to about 20 knots. We felt safe going to bed, the anchor having
been tested in much stronger winds earlier.
We decided against running the noisy generator so that we
would be awakened by the sound of any strengthening of the winds during the
night. We didn’t get a lot of sleep that
night because it was a little warm – around 80°F – and we were apprehensive about the
strong wind returning. We had decided to
get up at 06:00 so that we could be leaving before 06:30, about 2 hours before
low tide in Wahoo River, which Peter had noted on the way in would leave us
about 6 feet of water depth to pass through as we exited. We also realized that with the extra 20 miles
to Jekyll Island, we would not be able to make it before high tide, and we
would not risk passing through Jekyll Creek after high tide. So we decided that we would have to settle
for St. Simon’s Island, about 5 miles north of Jekyll Creek, and then choose
our time to leave based on the tides.
Meanwhile, we have an appointment in Jacksonville on Monday afternoon,
so we’ve decided to stay here in St. Simon’s Island until Tuesday, renting a
car for the day on Monday to make our appointment in Jacksonville and return to
Kite later in the day. Then we’ll leave
on Tuesday, weather permitting, so that we enter Jekyll Creek at 2 hours before
high tide, which looks to be 15:30. We’ll leave here at 14:30 and plan to stay
at Jekyll Harbor Marina , on the south end of Jekyll Creek, and then continue
our return to Jacksonville on Wednesday.
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