5/12/15
Thunderbolt GA, ICW
Position: 32 01.501N, 081 02.823W
Posted by Bill

Yesterday we left Fernandina Beach at the butt crack of dawn (again…sigh) and motored to the Duplin River in Georgia, position: 31 25.278N, 081 17.775W. If you read the blog last fall when we came through Georgia, you remember that the ICW funding was cut in South Carolina and Georgia and there are many parts of the waterway that are shoaled over and too shallow for us to transit at low tide. There are 4 primary areas that need to be traversed at mid-tide or higher. Yesterday we pulled a 69 statute mile day and went through 2 of them, Jekyll Creek and Little Mud River. The tides worked well for us, but the winds kicked our ass in the afternoon, especially transiting the open sounds that lead to the ocean. We saw winds to 30 knots.

Today made it through Hell Gate, another problem shoal area, and we did another grueling 66 statute mile trip to Thunderbolt, Georgia, taking a dock at Thunderbolt Marine. As soon as we left Florida we started to get swarmed by horse flies, and we killed hundreds of them in the course of 2 days. I have a sore arm from swatting (no joke) and had to take an Alieve to cut the pain. Tricia joined in on the kill the second day and she is much better than I am. Of course. We renamed Georgia as The Horsefly State. We expected it to take several more days to get through Georgia, but with any luck we will be in South Carolina tomorrow…a couple of days ahead of schedule. That is good because we need to be back in Southport NC by the 3rd week in May so that we can meet some of the kids and grand kids for a week at the beach. No way we can miss that!

Here are some pictures of what it is like transiting the Georgia ICW: