Wally's Leg to Redbird Creek Anchorage

Traveling through Georgia on the ICW is traveling through miles and miles and miles of sea grass marshes with the occasional cluster of trees off in the distance.  The waterway is a tangle of narrow rivers, wide inlets and usually three or more bodies of water crossing over one another.  This means the currents can be crazy and if you add in the tides and the wind, the driver must remain constantly alert for changes in speed and shoaling.  Tides in this area can be as much as 8 feet up and down.  A boat some miles ahead of us could go through a very shallow channel, and by the time we get there the water might be 9 feet deep.  Sometimes you have to stop and wait, or time your daily travel to coincide the high tide with the shallow channel.  Lots to think about.

  

iPad with part of today's route

In the criss-crossing channels it is easy to lose track of your GPS trail (a thin magenta line on the screen marks the ICW) or the proper markers.  ICW markers have a small yellow square on them, but every river has red triangles and green squares to show the width of the channel.  Channel markers also show us where to turn into another body of water, or where the water is too shallow to risk. 

We came upon a beautiful catamaran today that had apparently headed straight across St. Catherine’s sound, to the red marker on a nearby river, and missed the turn onto the ICW.  He had run hard aground and a US Tow Boat was there to help.  But even a towboat can’t take you off a totally visible sand shoal, and the catamaran was destined to sit and wait for the next high tide to float him away.  Fortunately a catamaran has two hulls, so he was sitting straight upright.  A regular sailboat would have been tipped over at a 45-degree angle and even a trawler like ours would be tipped 20 degrees or more.   We never laugh at the misfortunes of other boats – it could be us tomorrow.

Sometimes you watch the show, other times you are the show

However, it is a pretty and peaceful trip for the most part. There are many water birds along the shores, and dolphin playing ahead of the boat many times a day.  It was sunny all day, but this afternoon the wind did pick up and it was a cool ride.  Tonight we are anchored at Redbird Creek, with nothing but sea grass as far as the eye can see – except for the one bald eagle in a distant tree. 

The tide range here is 8.3 feet, +8.1 to -0.2

Lots of marsh grass and trees