Under cloudy skies, we left Fernandina Beach at 8:45 AM on Tuesday. Before continuing, I’ve got to tell you about Arte’s Pizzeria on Third Street, one block left of the “main drag”. It is a five minute walk from the marina and has the best pizza we have eaten since leaving Naples, where we lived for two years. Buy their pizza, a Caesar Salad and wash it all down with Italian Birra Perroni … a fantastic meal!!
Back to boating … disgusted with the non-maintenance of Georgia’s ICW, I convinced Kathy that we should go “outside”. Kathy remembered the adverse seas we had in the Keys and wasn’t too keen about running in the Atlantic Ocean. But, I convinced her to “try”. Running out St. Mary’s River Channel from Fernandina, we turned to 021 degrees magnetic at Red10, for St. Catherine’s Sound, 59.3 miles away. Smooth seas and an easy four hour passage made her a believer … especially when she learned that we cut four hours and 40 miles off the torturous Georgia ICW.
It is almost criminal that Georgia’s ICW has not been dredged or maintained since 2002. Its infamous shallow spots: Jekyll Island (M/M 687), Little Mud River (M/M 653), Hell Gate (really nasty at M/M601), Fields Cut (M/M576), Rams Horn Creek (M/M570)are complimented by dozens of other challenging shallow spots just across Florida's northern birder.
Best advice is to transit Georgia ONLY at mid to high tide. Since I dislike the decrepit and filthy Kilkenney Marina, we anchored in Big Tom Creek (opposite side of the ICW) for the night (M/M614) after leaving the Atlantic Ocean. We dropped anchor at 2:30PM, because the tide was falling and we couldn’t transit from Hell Gate to Ramshorn Creek with enough water under us.
Anchoring with Georgia’s 8 foot tide rise is challenging. The ebb and flow currents are more than three knots so you need a good set, scope and swinging room. Big Tom Creek is 150 feet wide, so we set our bow pulpit plow anchor and also used our Fortress as a stern anchor to minimize swinging. With the genset humming, heat and A/C electricity flowed. After dinner, we watched the first TV season of MASH on a DVD.
How did the Duffy perform in the ocean? PERFECTLY!! We loved our Mainship Pilot34, but this boat far surpasses it in every way. You know what they say … the third boat is perfect. That’s also the title of my latest magazine article!
After retrieving both anchors, we were underway at 9:30 on Wednesday. We purposely delayed our departure to ride the incoming high tide past Georgia's ICW trouble spots and, for once, had plenty of water beneath us.
Under sunny skies and a 70 degree temperature, we arrived at the Downtown Marina of Beaufort before 3:00PM. The fierce outgoing current made docking tricky as I backed down inside the 150' face pier, but we tied up without incident and fueled at our mooring. With the 7% tax, we paid $3.76/gallon. This morning, they raised the price to $4.60!! A 20% jump overnight - unbelieveable!!
This will be a two-night stop. Today, we'll borrow the marina's courtesy car for grocery shopping and then will walk around this marvelous little town. Might go back to panini, where we had superb shrimp dinners last night.
Ebb Tide II underway
