Last night was spent in a nice quiet anchorage, only two other boats nearby. The current was strong, but I am getting more comfortable with that. There was really nothing around us, so even if we did drag anchor, there was nothing that would be a problem. We didn't, and there wasn't any problems. I actually got a pretty good nights sleep. It is amazing how big the tidal changes are here.
Tonight we are in Delegal Creek Marina on Skidaway Island near Savannah Ga. The tides here are eight feet. So when the tide changes, a lot of water needs to go somewhere fast. The result it a fast current in or out. So again, part of the day was spent fighting the tidal currents, but also part was spent riding the tide. We either lost a couple of knots fighting the tide, or gained a couple riding it. Today was supposed to be a shorter day with only a fifty mile leg planned. I expected to arrive at our destination early in the afternoon, however, we didn't actually get here until after 4:00 p.m. As it turns out, our projected arrival time coincided almost perfectly with low tide. It is a full moon, so the high tides are higher than normal, and the lows are lower than normal. The projected low tide was due to be negative relative to the normal datum, so it was a low, low, low tide today. When I called to reserve a slip for tonight, the dockmaster told me to wait until at least two hours after the low, to come into the creek. There is a hump at the entrance and the low tide makes it very shallow to get through. So we cut speed and just coasted along for a couple of hours toward our destination killing time. There is also a cut we had to go through called Hell Gate. It has that name for a reason. Another place you don't want to go through at low, low tide. Well, we got to Hell gate right around 2:00 p.m. just as the tide was changing. I didn't want to try Hell Gate at dead low, so we idled back and forth in the sound for about an hour and a half. We watched a larger boat go through Hell Gate so we thought it was safe. As we idled through, I watched the depth go down, down, and down some more. At 2.8 ft. I thought we had had it. It came back up to 3.5, then to 5 and bounced around a bit and we were through. Damn! I'm sure I now have nicely polished props. That place lives up to it's name, and is Hell to get through. In talking with the dockmaster he told me many of the larger boats have prop guards, so they just go and as long as the boat floats, they just push their way through. Next was the entrance to the creek and getting over the hump at the entrance. Well hell, after Hell Gate, 5 ft was a breeze. I sure would not want to do either at dead low. No way! We pulled in and docked, got hooked up and went to take showers and do a load of laundry. After being on the boat for nine days, the bed sheets and bath towels needed to be freshened up a bit. After the laundry was done, we took the loaner golf cart 4 1/2 miles to the little shopping village in the community and had a great dinner. By the time we got back to the boat, it was almost 9:30 p.m. So what was supposed to be a short easy day is just like the rest, busy and long.
The scenery here hasn't really changed much, still looking at mile after mile of salt marsh. Pretty boring stuff, so there really wasn't anything to take any pictures of today. Hopefully that will change tomorrow.
Statistics for today - 60 mile total (of which several was just us riding back and forth waiting for the tide), 7hrs. 43mins. moving, 12mins. stopped, 7hrs. 56 mins. total. Total distance traveled, 682 miles
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