I say "we" because I had crew. Norman Kruse (last name 2 syllables) from the D.C. area offered to go with me, an offer which I ultimately accepted.
Here's an accounting by days.
Travel Day
Thursday, April 25, was pegged as start day/travel day. Norman's train was not due into Savannah until 9:30 p.m. so that gave me the morning to load the boat and tow vehicle, have a nice lunch with my wife and still make the 350 mile trip in plenty of time. The last thing I did was run by the church and get all of the frozen drinks that I had put in our church's 3 freezers. This included frozen 2 liter sodas, Powerades, orange juice, milk, and water. I took no ice and everything stayed cold/cool the entire trip in two coolers. We only added ice once. They took up space but we moved them from cockpit to cabin during the nights and days respectively.
Here I am with Anago hitched and ready to go:
I left at 2:00 and was at the train station by 8:30. The train was about an hour late so I had time to rest, relax and enjoy the beautiful spring evening. Once I had Norman on board we made the 100 mile trek down to St. Mary's where I had a room reserved. The Days Inn attendant must have been asleep because we couldn't get him to the desk to unlock the front door. We wound up going next door and getting a room. Once they confirmed I had not checked into the motel, Expedia readily refunded my money when I called them after returning home. We got to bed a little after 1:00 a.m.
Day 1
Launch day would turn out to be very frustrating. We awoke around 6:00, got ready and went outside to transfer some things from the tow vehicle to the boat (coolers and such). The front that was forecasted to move through around lunch time was already through so we proceeded unhindered by weather.
I had waited to buy ethanol-free gas until we got to St. Mary's. I had researched and found a station near the motel. Upon searching, the station was no more, so we wound up towing a boat up and down a busy multi-lane highway looking for gas. Finally, I asked a couple of guys at a convenience store who pointed me down the road a few miles to the local place that sold "marine" gas.
The next couple of hours would only add to the frustration. We had trouble getting the external tank hose to pump gas. We ended up going back to town to try to find a new one. No luck. We fiddled with it some more in the parking lot and finally got it to pumping. Norman thinks it wasn't clipped onto the tank securely.???? I'm not sure but at last it was moving gas.
Back to the ramp. The ramp turned out to be quite shallow so we had to pull out the trailer extension. I still had trouble launching the boat and had to do numerous hard stops to coax her off.
Once in the water, we rigged the boat. I set out the boom with the main rolled and tied to it. My usual order of attaching the boom is to first attach the topping lift, then the main sheet to keep it from swinging, then attach the boom to the mast and finally bend on the main. When I went to attach the main sheet, the fiddle block was missing (or so it appeared). After a second trip to town and a visit to my TSC store I fashioned a home-made fiddle block. As I went to attach my ingenious contraption to the boom, I realized that the boom was turned around backwards! The fiddle block was on the other end. (the main was still rolled up around it). Talk about embarrassed. Well, that "problem" was solved. Much ado about nothing.
With the boat finally rigged, it was time to start the motor and shove off. The motor started fine. Now some history. My shakedown cruise 2 weeks before departure never happened because my motor wouldn't start at the ramp. I assumed I had flooded it because it started right up after I had eaten supper and gotten back home. I started the motor every day after that to insure that it was ready to go. Always started right up.
Back to the ramp. With the motor idling, I made a quick trip to the port-a-jon. While up there the motor quit. It wouldn't restart. BUMMER! We pulled and yanked a while but without success. As chance would have it, there was a young man at the launch dock with us who had been tinkering with his outboard for quite a while. I walked over to him and asked him if he had any starting fluid. He did and was quick to loan it to me. After a shot of that into the carb, presto, the motor started right up.
I thought for a moment, we should have some of this with us for the trip. So a third trip back to town was in order. Got to O'Reilly's and guess what. No wallet! I had put it into my waterproof box when I first started the motor thinking we were getting ready to leave. Ohhhhhh, frustration.
I made the decision to not make a fourth trip back to town. We would be at the mercy of a fickle motor and the wind. We launched about 3:00 with the motor purring.
We wound our way about a mile and a half around the North River (so called on NOAA chart 11489) through the salt water marsh grasses and out into the St. Mary's River. The wind was pretty brisk out of the west following the front that had passed earlier that morning, so we continued motoring. It was 3 miles to Cumberland Sound where we turned north toward all that lay before us including our final goal of Savannah about 132 water miles away.
There were markers everywhere: day markers, buoys, range markers. Kings Bay Submarine Base is off the Cumberland Sound. A little confusing but we made our way north.
After a few minutes we hoisted our reefed main and sailed/motor-sailed the rest of the way to our first night’s anchorage.
Here we are sailing under reefed main and passing Kings Bay:
With the late start we weren't going to make my goal of 30 miles a day. We pulled into the Brickhill River and anchored within site of the Plum Orchard mansion. Several other boats were anchored beyond the mansion. Norman suggested we throw out my 2 eleven pound danforths off the bow and anchor in a "V" pattern or what some call a modified Bahamian mooring. With the wind shifting north in the night and a changing current it seemed like a reasonable plan.
Now it was supper time. I pulled out the old trusty camp stove (maybe I should say rusty) and got ready to fry some fish. The single burner stove would not light! Not the slightest hiss of propane getting through. All that good food and a stove that won't light! Oh, no. Supper was turkey sandwiches and chips.
We readied for bed and installed my hastily made companionway screens for ventilation and bug protection. I think both of us slept pretty well that night.
We had made about 14 miles on day one.
Day 2
When we awoke at sun up, we were still in the same place we were when we went to sleep. That was reassuring.
We ate a quick breakfast of Raisin Bran Crunch, weighed anchor and set out for the regions beyond.
Our first goal was to get to Jekyll Island. We thought we might be able to come up with a solution for our stove woes. It was a beautiful morning (in fact, the weather was just about perfect the whole trip). We motored all the way across St. Andrews Sound. The wind was on our nose and the sound was a bit bumpy. The air was chilly and we were taking on some spray so we donned our jackets.
Here we are passing the north end of Cumberland Island and the southern end of Jekyll Island:
Here's the Jekyll Island Marina as we approached:
We had a little trouble getting to the fuel dock but we made it. They have 2 hours complimentary docking so we topped off our fuel tank, and went and had a nice lunch at their restaurant.
I asked about camping stoves and one of the employees offered me a ride to the general store. We set off in a golf cart and I found some sterno that we'd have to make do.
After buying a 10 pound bag of ice we set off. We motored through Jekyll Creek then hoisted a full main and jib once in St. Simons Sound.
The following picture is my getup for most of the trip. I even wore gloves most of the time. However, I think launch day hurt me. I wound up with sunburned hands. They are still swollen and even the joints hurt. I have an appointment next week to remove a nasty skin cancer from my face. Fashion doesn't matter here. Safety and health do!
Looking west across St. Simons Sound you can see the suspension bridge south of Brunswick:
Here we are sailing wing and wing:
Poling out the jib might have been nice but the ICW changes directions so often it didn't make a lot of sense.
Here we are doing 5.8 mph. We often did 6+. My Etrex said we had a max speed of 9.1.
Once across St. Simons, we sailed to the west of Lanier Island (the east side has a low bridge) and into the Mackay River. We saw lots of the following (grasses and dolphins):
We sailed to just short of Buttermilk Sound and anchored abeam of day mark "227".
I choose to anchor with the bulwagga. We had plenty of room to swing and the night promised to be mild.
Here's our sunset:
Unfortunately, we sailed so long every day that we did not have a lot of time or energy left when the day was done to enjoy some things as we probably should have. But our thinking was that while the winds were fair and the sky clear we'd better sail.
We opened a can of sterno and prepared supper. Boiled cod with rice seasoned with creole. It was pretty tasty.
We had made 38 miles.
We turned in early putting the plexiglass hatch boards in. The screens were nice but it did get a little cool the night before.
It turned out to be a restless night for me. I got up around midnight to check on things. The flashing green marker seemed a long way away. I wondered if we had drifted. I checked our water depth and we were in 4' of water. Oh, no! I had made it a goal to not ground on this trip. The area we anchored had a lot of shallow water but I thought we were going to be ok. I set out an empty bleach bottle on a short rode to give me a reference point through the night. I checked on it several times and it looked like we were staying put. I only slept about 3 hours that night.
Day 3
When daylight broke (notice the dew on the water container), I went topside and surveyed our situation. Here's what had happened. The flashing marker I was seeing was not the marker we had anchored by. That one was not a lighted one. Guess I should have checked the charts to confirm but the thought never crossed my mind. In reality, we had not moved. The bull had held us just fine.
After a breakfast of bagels and crumbly cream cheese (my wife had frozen it), a short "church" service (after all it was Sunday), we weighed anchor. I knew the bottom could be muck but the black stuff that came up was awful. After making a complete mess of myself and the foredeck, the anchor and gear were stowed. What I learned in the process was that a few dips of chain and anchor in the water and most of the stuff will come off. Could have done that a bit better.
My 4hp Yamaha started right up and off we went, northward ho. We motored through Buttermilk Sound and into the Altamaha River. The river had lots of islands so we had to be careful to follow the markers.
We saw lots of the marshy grasslands and the occasional "island" of trees in the midst like this:
or this:
Numerous boats passed us all along the way. All going north. Don't think we passed any ourselves.
Once we made the big turn in the Altamaha River to steer clear of a long shoal, we headed into Little Mud River, a fairly narrow stretch. Here's where we saw the gators. It was low tide and they were sunning on the mud banks. Guess we saw about 10. Tried to get close to one but he went into the water.
Best I can do:
A few more scenes:
By late-morning we were into Doboy Sound. We decided that while we were in some bigger water, we'd let Anago drift while we ate some lunch. We drifted at a pretty good pace on the rising tide. By the time we finished, the wind was filling in so we decided to sail. Before this day would be done, we would sail about 35 miles.
The wind was perfect through Old Teakettle Creek. As we sailed into Creighton Narrows, I noticed that there was a sharp turn SE straight into the wind. I told Norman that I wasn't sure we could tack through the bend and that I wanted to start the outboard in case we needed help. It wouldn't start which meant we were on our own. But, hey, we be sailors - right? The wind was brisk and we were making good speed. We made the turn, headed dead into the wind. With about 5 tacks we made it! Time for high fives.
Now we were on our own to sail across the biggest waters of the trip, Sapelo Sound and St. Catherines Sound. I would say the winds were pretty steady from the SE at 10-15 with some gusts to maybe 20. It was a close reach 6 miles down Sapelo to the turn. We had full main and jib up. The boat did great. The one issue was a lot of weather helm. The water was bumpy enough that I wasn't too keen on going forward to reef the main, so I stuck it out. I was actually afraid the tiller might break. After the fact, we realized that the rudder was also slipping and rotating back. Not good. After an hour or so we made it. Next came St. Catherines. Same situation. Again, we made it.
After crossing each sound I had some confusion finding the rivers on the far sides. Markers were further apart and harder to spot. I had to rely on my compass and the few waypoints I had entered on my GPS. Things sure don't look the same on the water as they do on a chart, especially the proportion of things. Thankfully we were successful in both crossings.
A few miles up Bear River we began to look for Kilkenny Creek which was one of the anchorages that I thought we might use. It was wide and deep. The chart showed an area that was supposed to be 15-17' but we never found it. Our motor still would not start and the sun was setting, so we had to anchor in about 30' of water. I threw out the bulwagga with 34' of chain and 100’ of rode. We decided we wanted more down there, so we slid an 18 pound mushroom anchor down the rode and added more rode and chain. Not sure of the total but that gave us some peace of mind. The wind was supposed to be light again, so really the current was all we had to contend with.
By the time we were done, the sun was setting.
We heated some formerly frozen Voila and called it a night.
We had made about 53 miles on day 3. I slept pretty well.
Day 4
Norman woke me up at 6:00 a.m. He said it was slack tide with calm winds. We needed to get the anchor up. Any pull on it from wind or current might make it impossible to get up. We jumped to the foredeck and started pulling. It was heavy. He went to the mast and I handed him the rode. He made 2 or 3 turns around the winch and started grinding. The rode was feeding over a notch in the bow pulpit. It was working pretty well. We got to some chain and pulled a little more. Eventually I pulled the rest up by hand. It came up pretty clean and we were free.
But no motor. Still wouldn't start. Were we going to have to sail the rest of the way in?
The outgoing tide carried us out of Kilkenny Creek and back into Bear River, but we were going the wrong way. We had been pulled along a couple miles hoping the wind would fill in, and we were drifting close to shore. I threw out an anchor and it crabbed the bottom. Now it was just a waiting game. Would the wind fill in and take us home?
Here's our shoreline:
The wind began to blow - E, SE, S, E, moving around gently. We decided it was enough to try to sail off the lee shore. To my discredit I had to take the time to bend on the jib. Norman hauled the anchor and we gave it a try. The wind seemed to shift eastward, and we weren't able to get the bow pointed away from the shoreline. We were blown onto the shore. We were soft aground! Ugh!
We had 2 more hours of a falling tide so we sat. I began to wonder about that starting fluid. If only I had some. But then the thought came to me to just pour some gas into the carb. We dumped a few drops in and she sputtered! Another water bottle cap full and she fired up!! We were back in business. We put her in reverse and revved her up. Then back and forth, wiggling the boat this was and that. She finally broke free!
I told Norman we weren't going to sail today. As long as the motor was running we were going to keep her going. We flew into the Florida Passage and on out into the Ogeechee River. It was about time to do the infamous Hell Gate. I gave Norman the helm and the honor of doing the Gate.
Here we are passing the buoy marking the entrance from the south:
We made it through without incident. We motored up the Vernon River and made a right turn into the Burnside River. This is when we began to see civilization once again. Along with some fabulous homes, there was some beautiful scenery.
Then we saw this:
I'm glad that wasn't me getting towed in!
We stopped at Isle of Hope Marina for a break. I turned the motor off. I needed to call Thunderbolt to make sure they had a slip for me. After a few minutes we had things line up and proceeded to slip the dock lines. Guess what? Motor wouldn't start. Off with the motor cover, off with the carburetor cover, in with a cap full of gas, and then she started. What a puzzle.?
Ten miles to go. This is when I made my 2 navigational errors. I had taken my eyes off the chart. The finish seemed simple enough. The Skidaway River takes a slight right turn and dumps into the Wilmington River where we go left to Thunderbolt. Without watching the markers I made a sweeping right turn into the Wilmington River. When there was no way to go left (of course, when you're on the water you often can't see a turn until you're right on top of it), I realized something was wrong. I went to the nearest marker and, sure enough, I'd gone around the bend too far. Simple fix. Cost me about 2 miles.
The second error was missing the marina. I knew it was just past a bridge. I went under the US80 bridge and looked to my right. I saw a sign that said in big letters Sea Ray something or other. So I kept going, just having a good ol' time. I came to the next bridge which is just a couple miles further. It was an old bascule bridge. I scramble for my radio (which I've only used once before in my entire life) and hailed the bridge operator, "Bridge operator, this is s/v Anago. We've just pasted marker #whatever and are approaching your bridge. Requesting permission to pass." "Hello, Capt'n. Please switch over to channel 9." How do I change this thing to channel 9? Man, I'm pushing every button I can find. Somehow I get to 9. We pass under the bridge.
Then no marina. I get out my phone and open my google map app. I've passed it. Gotta hail the bridge guy again. He was cooperative but you could tell he wasn't too happy.
There it was. The Sea Ray something or other building had a small sign that said Savannah Bend Marina. I had passed right by it.
Here's an image from google maps:
We tied up behind the fuel dock right on time - sundown. The no-see-ums attacked us with a vengeance, worse than any other time on the journey. We hastily closed up the boat and caught a ride across the bridge to Tubby's Restaurant for a celebration dinner.
By the time we returned to the boat, it was bedtime. Lights out.
With the 2 missteps we'd sailed (or actually motored) about 42 miles.
Final 2 days
Tuesday morning we got up and had our first shower in a few days. We won't count the days.
Here's the view of the marina from the clubhouse porch:
We caught a cab to Enterprise Rent-a-car and headed back to St. Mary's to pick up the tow vehicle and trailer. By the time we returned to Savannah, returned the rental and had lunch, it was 4:00. I motored the boat (motor started right up) over to the public boat ramp and we proceeded to retrieve Anago. The ramp was very shallow just like St. Marys. I backed the trailer in. No way was I going to get that boat on that trailer. A young man on the dock was driving a Jeep. He offered to try with his vehicle. With a hitch that was higher than mine, it put the rear of the trailer deeper in the water. We let out the winch strap about 5', backed her down and brought her in. She winched right up snug as could be. Better than ever before!
It took a couple hours to get everything situated. Here she is ready for the trip home.
We got a room near the train station, had supper and clocked out.
Wednesday morning I took Norman back to the train station and I drove home.
On the way I had been watching my trailer fender. I didn't want to do a Charles Brennan. Sure enough, one of the bolts had broken the surrounding fender metal. The brackets underneath were good so I was able to do a temporary fix:
Overall, even with a few glitches, we had a swell trip. All told I did about 1200 miles with 150 of them on the water. A few things could have gone really wrong but didn't. I am left with a great sense of satisfaction and achievement.
Day 1
Launch day would turn out to be very frustrating. We awoke around 6:00, got ready and went outside to transfer some things from the tow vehicle to the boat (coolers and such). The front that was forecasted to move through around lunch time was already through so we proceeded unhindered by weather.
I had waited to buy ethanol-free gas until we got to St. Mary's. I had researched and found a station near the motel. Upon searching, the station was no more, so we wound up towing a boat up and down a busy multi-lane highway looking for gas. Finally, I asked a couple of guys at a convenience store who pointed me down the road a few miles to the local place that sold "marine" gas.
The next couple of hours would only add to the frustration. We had trouble getting the external tank hose to pump gas. We ended up going back to town to try to find a new one. No luck. We fiddled with it some more in the parking lot and finally got it to pumping. Norman thinks it wasn't clipped onto the tank securely.???? I'm not sure but at last it was moving gas.
Back to the ramp. The ramp turned out to be quite shallow so we had to pull out the trailer extension. I still had trouble launching the boat and had to do numerous hard stops to coax her off.
With the boat finally rigged, it was time to start the motor and shove off. The motor started fine. Now some history. My shakedown cruise 2 weeks before departure never happened because my motor wouldn't start at the ramp. I assumed I had flooded it because it started right up after I had eaten supper and gotten back home. I started the motor every day after that to insure that it was ready to go. Always started right up.
Back to the ramp. With the motor idling, I made a quick trip to the port-a-jon. While up there the motor quit. It wouldn't restart. BUMMER! We pulled and yanked a while but without success. As chance would have it, there was a young man at the launch dock with us who had been tinkering with his outboard for quite a while. I walked over to him and asked him if he had any starting fluid. He did and was quick to loan it to me. After a shot of that into the carb, presto, the motor started right up.
I thought for a moment, we should have some of this with us for the trip. So a third trip back to town was in order. Got to O'Reilly's and guess what. No wallet! I had put it into my waterproof box when I first started the motor thinking we were getting ready to leave. Ohhhhhh, frustration.
I made the decision to not make a fourth trip back to town. We would be at the mercy of a fickle motor and the wind. We launched about 3:00 with the motor purring.
We wound our way about a mile and a half around the North River (so called on NOAA chart 11489) through the salt water marsh grasses and out into the St. Mary's River. The wind was pretty brisk out of the west following the front that had passed earlier that morning, so we continued motoring. It was 3 miles to Cumberland Sound where we turned north toward all that lay before us including our final goal of Savannah about 132 water miles away.
There were markers everywhere: day markers, buoys, range markers. Kings Bay Submarine Base is off the Cumberland Sound. A little confusing but we made our way north.
After a few minutes we hoisted our reefed main and sailed/motor-sailed the rest of the way to our first night’s anchorage.
Here we are sailing under reefed main and passing Kings Bay:
With the late start we weren't going to make my goal of 30 miles a day. We pulled into the Brickhill River and anchored within site of the Plum Orchard mansion. Several other boats were anchored beyond the mansion. Norman suggested we throw out my 2 eleven pound danforths off the bow and anchor in a "V" pattern or what some call a modified Bahamian mooring. With the wind shifting north in the night and a changing current it seemed like a reasonable plan.
Now it was supper time. I pulled out the old trusty camp stove (maybe I should say rusty) and got ready to fry some fish. The single burner stove would not light! Not the slightest hiss of propane getting through. All that good food and a stove that won't light! Oh, no. Supper was turkey sandwiches and chips.
We readied for bed and installed my hastily made companionway screens for ventilation and bug protection. I think both of us slept pretty well that night.
We had made about 14 miles on day one.
Day 2
When we awoke at sun up, we were still in the same place we were when we went to sleep. That was reassuring.
Our first goal was to get to Jekyll Island. We thought we might be able to come up with a solution for our stove woes. It was a beautiful morning (in fact, the weather was just about perfect the whole trip). We motored all the way across St. Andrews Sound. The wind was on our nose and the sound was a bit bumpy. The air was chilly and we were taking on some spray so we donned our jackets.
Here we are passing the north end of Cumberland Island and the southern end of Jekyll Island:
The following picture is my getup for most of the trip. I even wore gloves most of the time. However, I think launch day hurt me. I wound up with sunburned hands. They are still swollen and even the joints hurt. I have an appointment next week to remove a nasty skin cancer from my face. Fashion doesn't matter here. Safety and health do!
Here we are doing 5.8 mph. We often did 6+. My Etrex said we had a max speed of 9.1.
I choose to anchor with the bulwagga. We had plenty of room to swing and the night promised to be mild.
Here's our sunset:
We opened a can of sterno and prepared supper. Boiled cod with rice seasoned with creole. It was pretty tasty.
We turned in early putting the plexiglass hatch boards in. The screens were nice but it did get a little cool the night before.
It turned out to be a restless night for me. I got up around midnight to check on things. The flashing green marker seemed a long way away. I wondered if we had drifted. I checked our water depth and we were in 4' of water. Oh, no! I had made it a goal to not ground on this trip. The area we anchored had a lot of shallow water but I thought we were going to be ok. I set out an empty bleach bottle on a short rode to give me a reference point through the night. I checked on it several times and it looked like we were staying put. I only slept about 3 hours that night.
Day 3
After a breakfast of bagels and crumbly cream cheese (my wife had frozen it), a short "church" service (after all it was Sunday), we weighed anchor. I knew the bottom could be muck but the black stuff that came up was awful. After making a complete mess of myself and the foredeck, the anchor and gear were stowed. What I learned in the process was that a few dips of chain and anchor in the water and most of the stuff will come off. Could have done that a bit better.
My 4hp Yamaha started right up and off we went, northward ho. We motored through Buttermilk Sound and into the Altamaha River. The river had lots of islands so we had to be careful to follow the markers.
We saw lots of the marshy grasslands and the occasional "island" of trees in the midst like this:
Best I can do:
The wind was perfect through Old Teakettle Creek. As we sailed into Creighton Narrows, I noticed that there was a sharp turn SE straight into the wind. I told Norman that I wasn't sure we could tack through the bend and that I wanted to start the outboard in case we needed help. It wouldn't start which meant we were on our own. But, hey, we be sailors - right? The wind was brisk and we were making good speed. We made the turn, headed dead into the wind. With about 5 tacks we made it! Time for high fives.
Now we were on our own to sail across the biggest waters of the trip, Sapelo Sound and St. Catherines Sound. I would say the winds were pretty steady from the SE at 10-15 with some gusts to maybe 20. It was a close reach 6 miles down Sapelo to the turn. We had full main and jib up. The boat did great. The one issue was a lot of weather helm. The water was bumpy enough that I wasn't too keen on going forward to reef the main, so I stuck it out. I was actually afraid the tiller might break. After the fact, we realized that the rudder was also slipping and rotating back. Not good. After an hour or so we made it. Next came St. Catherines. Same situation. Again, we made it.
After crossing each sound I had some confusion finding the rivers on the far sides. Markers were further apart and harder to spot. I had to rely on my compass and the few waypoints I had entered on my GPS. Things sure don't look the same on the water as they do on a chart, especially the proportion of things. Thankfully we were successful in both crossings.
A few miles up Bear River we began to look for Kilkenny Creek which was one of the anchorages that I thought we might use. It was wide and deep. The chart showed an area that was supposed to be 15-17' but we never found it. Our motor still would not start and the sun was setting, so we had to anchor in about 30' of water. I threw out the bulwagga with 34' of chain and 100’ of rode. We decided we wanted more down there, so we slid an 18 pound mushroom anchor down the rode and added more rode and chain. Not sure of the total but that gave us some peace of mind. The wind was supposed to be light again, so really the current was all we had to contend with.
By the time we were done, the sun was setting.
We had made about 53 miles on day 3. I slept pretty well.
Day 4
Norman woke me up at 6:00 a.m. He said it was slack tide with calm winds. We needed to get the anchor up. Any pull on it from wind or current might make it impossible to get up. We jumped to the foredeck and started pulling. It was heavy. He went to the mast and I handed him the rode. He made 2 or 3 turns around the winch and started grinding. The rode was feeding over a notch in the bow pulpit. It was working pretty well. We got to some chain and pulled a little more. Eventually I pulled the rest up by hand. It came up pretty clean and we were free.
But no motor. Still wouldn't start. Were we going to have to sail the rest of the way in?
The outgoing tide carried us out of Kilkenny Creek and back into Bear River, but we were going the wrong way. We had been pulled along a couple miles hoping the wind would fill in, and we were drifting close to shore. I threw out an anchor and it crabbed the bottom. Now it was just a waiting game. Would the wind fill in and take us home?
Here's our shoreline:
We had 2 more hours of a falling tide so we sat. I began to wonder about that starting fluid. If only I had some. But then the thought came to me to just pour some gas into the carb. We dumped a few drops in and she sputtered! Another water bottle cap full and she fired up!! We were back in business. We put her in reverse and revved her up. Then back and forth, wiggling the boat this was and that. She finally broke free!
I told Norman we weren't going to sail today. As long as the motor was running we were going to keep her going. We flew into the Florida Passage and on out into the Ogeechee River. It was about time to do the infamous Hell Gate. I gave Norman the helm and the honor of doing the Gate.
Here we are passing the buoy marking the entrance from the south:
We stopped at Isle of Hope Marina for a break. I turned the motor off. I needed to call Thunderbolt to make sure they had a slip for me. After a few minutes we had things line up and proceeded to slip the dock lines. Guess what? Motor wouldn't start. Off with the motor cover, off with the carburetor cover, in with a cap full of gas, and then she started. What a puzzle.?
Ten miles to go. This is when I made my 2 navigational errors. I had taken my eyes off the chart. The finish seemed simple enough. The Skidaway River takes a slight right turn and dumps into the Wilmington River where we go left to Thunderbolt. Without watching the markers I made a sweeping right turn into the Wilmington River. When there was no way to go left (of course, when you're on the water you often can't see a turn until you're right on top of it), I realized something was wrong. I went to the nearest marker and, sure enough, I'd gone around the bend too far. Simple fix. Cost me about 2 miles.
The second error was missing the marina. I knew it was just past a bridge. I went under the US80 bridge and looked to my right. I saw a sign that said in big letters Sea Ray something or other. So I kept going, just having a good ol' time. I came to the next bridge which is just a couple miles further. It was an old bascule bridge. I scramble for my radio (which I've only used once before in my entire life) and hailed the bridge operator, "Bridge operator, this is s/v Anago. We've just pasted marker #whatever and are approaching your bridge. Requesting permission to pass." "Hello, Capt'n. Please switch over to channel 9." How do I change this thing to channel 9? Man, I'm pushing every button I can find. Somehow I get to 9. We pass under the bridge.
Then no marina. I get out my phone and open my google map app. I've passed it. Gotta hail the bridge guy again. He was cooperative but you could tell he wasn't too happy.
Here's an image from google maps:
With the 2 missteps we'd sailed (or actually motored) about 42 miles.
Final 2 days
Tuesday morning we got up and had our first shower in a few days. We won't count the days.
Here's the view of the marina from the clubhouse porch:
It took a couple hours to get everything situated. Here she is ready for the trip home.
Wednesday morning I took Norman back to the train station and I drove home.
On the way I had been watching my trailer fender. I didn't want to do a Charles Brennan. Sure enough, one of the bolts had broken the surrounding fender metal. The brackets underneath were good so I was able to do a temporary fix:
Overall, even with a few glitches, we had a swell trip. All told I did about 1200 miles with 150 of them on the water. A few things could have gone really wrong but didn't. I am left with a great sense of satisfaction and achievement.
And here's a tribute to my crew. Norm was a big help and we had a good time together.
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