Sunday, November 17th

Well our best laid plans have been foiled again!  Our 7am departure is going to be delayed once again because of fog. Hopefully it will lift sooner than yesterday.  It seems like we're just not suppose to get out of the state of Georgia!  Between all of the twists and turns of the ICW, the weather, the tide,  and the trouble spots, we aren't making much progress.

Our two concerns for today are the Little Mud River and the Jekyll Creek.  Both have been reported to have serious shoaling problems and it's all about the tide. Even leaving the North River anchorage an hour late, we still passed through the Little Mud River at high water....and all went well.  However, I think it's impossible to make it to Jekyll Creek during the favorable tides.....and we didn't. 

We rafted north of the Lanier Bridge to wait the incoming tide....again.  Colette put a call in to SeaTow about this passage.  They advised her to stay put and not attempt Jekyll Creek until 4:30.  Yikes, that doesn't give us much daylight and it's darker than normal because of cloudy skies.   Plus the guy said there is a fog bank around that area but he thought it was at the inlet opening to the Atlantic and he didn't think it would bother us....hope he's right!

We left our anchorage at 3:15 to travel the 6.4 miles to the mouth of the creek.  This puts us 2+ hours after low tide.   Both boats motored very slowly, searching for the deepest water.  We had to strain our eyes to see the mud flats on both the east and west banks.  It seemed to take forever to travel the 3.7 miles but we made it without either boat bumping bottom. There were areas where we didn't have much water under our keel. So it was a good thing we waited the 3 hours.....it's either wait in deep water or get grounded and sit on the bottom until the water rises! 

We had reservations at the Jekyll Harbor Marina.  It's an easy in and out because all transients are docked on the face dock, right along the ICW.  As soon as we motored under the Jekyll Island Bridge, we had to make a sharp turn to port.  Our lines were secured by 5:00 after traveling 33 miles.  I just checked and it's only 30 more miles until we reach the border of Florida.  We might make it tomorrow or we just might stay and do some sightseeing!

 Sunset from Jekyll Is.