Challenges of the Georgia ICW: Tides & Currents

It’s been an unforgettable week – 196 miles from Amelia Island, Florida to Beaufort, South Carolina! Featuring our 1st encounter with a barge, 1st encounter with a cruise ship, the windlass refused to go up with 100 feet of chain on the bottom anchored in New Teakettle Creek and rendezvousing with friends Kenny & Sherry on Blue Moon.  Making our way to Beaufort, SC means we’ve been in 3 states – Florida, Georgia & South Carolina – this week!

It’s also been a HUGE learning curve for us “experienced” cruisers.  6-10 feet tide swings.  Cruising here is absolutely beautiful but with scary names like “Hell Gate” containing very shallow water and wicked turn your boat sideways cross currents, it’s also challenging.

To add to our confusion, changing bottom contours influenced by storms make sure to keep any ICW cruiser on their toes.  So just because one spot was a “known” trouble spot last year doesn’t mean it’s still trouble this year (for us, since Optimystique draws 4′, trouble is defined as 4′ or less of water at low tide).

Luckily SAIL Magazine is publishing an ongoing “Secrets of the AICW” series as northbounders experience the AICW this spring – updated to within a few weeks of when Optimystique will pass the same waters.  Photos of the author’s actual chartplotter track through showing the markers and discussing what he did to avoid the shallow spots.  HUGE kudos for SAIL Magazine & Tom Hale!  Links:  Secrets of the ICW Facebook page; or SAILfeed Sail the ICW.

Planning ahead for shallow water spots is critical.  You need to know that when you reach a trouble spot, the tide will allow you to go through safely.  Often boats anchor just before a known trouble spot to wait for tides to increase.  We use AyeTides and Tides – two different apps.  We also use the tide & current bars on Navionics Plus on our chartplotter and AquaMaps on the IPad.  Overkill, I know, but it’s nice to have different info to compare.

After leaving Amelia Island, we kept eyes peeled the entire coastline of Cumberland Island National Seashore, but only spotted one distant wild horse.  But we did see eagles and gazillions of dolphins.

Past Cumberland Island, we decided to stop at Brunswick Landing Marina … as opposed to St Simon’s Island … after having to wait for tides to get in or out of marinas & sitting in the mud at Jacksonville, a deep water marina with no current was very appealing.  The industrial scenery up the river to get there wasn’t bad.  Plus FREE beer & wine at the thrice weekly happy hour gathering (including the Monday night we were there) and FREE laundry … and one of the best cruising communities of boaters we’ve encountered for awhile, made the soggy too rainy stop a good choice.

Next stop, anchoring at New Teakettle Creek, GA.  The ICW in Georgia winds through salt grass marshes for miles and miles. It’s amazing to look across miles of salt grass and see tops of boats that you saw pass you a couple hours earlier.  We spent a very relaxing night at anchor, but in the AM, boat gremlins struck and the windlass absolutely refused to pull up the 100 feet of anchor chain on the bottom… David diagnosed corrosion and jiggled the wires enough to get the anchor up to head to Savannah.

47 miles later, we were safely through the dreaded Hell Gate (not so bad unless you count going sideways down a narrow channel as harrowing…) and tentatively found the channel into Delegal Creek Marina outside of Savannah where Kenny & Sherry on Blue Moon had stopped.  We’d been trying to catch Blue Moon since we left Punta Gorda, so it was about time & we might have had a bit too good of a celebration.

Oh and Optimystique & Blue Moon were one spot apart on the same dock!  WooHOO!!!

Another 1st … our 1st time to try Lyft or Uber.  Because Delegal Marina is quiet and wonderful, it’s also a bit away from Savannah… so we Lyft’d in for $24 to immerse ourselves in history and culture… Wonderful day!

Sorry to leave Savannah, but need to keep moving since it’s Saturday and Sunday the forecast is for 100% thunderstorms all day long.  Not a fan of thunderstorms and traveling in a boat… so we moved up to Beaufort, South Carolina … our 3rd state.

No photos from here yet, just arrived at 4 PM — a LONG 64 mile day — tied for our longest day yet.  Got tied up, washed the massive coating of salt off the boat, checked in, got pumped out with the pump out boat, walked up for pizza for dinner with friends John & Marilyn on Blue Goose  and Kenny & Sherry on Blue Moon.  We’ll be here for a day or two before we decide where we go next.

196 miles… 3 states … and learning more than we every wanted to know about tides & currents.  Great great week!  Cheers!  Jan