Georgia
09 November 2012
Sunny and Cool
After leaving Savannah we have been working our way south on the ICW. A friend of ours, Jim Gardner who has done this trip many times, warned us that Georgia may get a little boring. The ICW in this area is made of many interconnected rivers and with that comes endless bends and turns. You need to travel over 15 miles to go 10 miles as the crow flies. I didn't think we would be longing for the straight stretches of the Dismal Swamp. To avoid any more rivers and turns we decided to head out into the ocean for an outside passage as they call it. The picture of the chart plotter shows our path from Savannah to Sapelo Sound where we went out into the Atlantic. One problem with going outside, besides any weather concerns, is that you have to go out over 5 miles to avoid the shoals before you can turn south. Then you have to come in another 5 miles to a find a marina or anchorage for the night. Another problem is that many inlets and sounds are very prone to shoaling and can be navigated with local knowledge only. We chose 2 inlets that we were quite certain were safe. We were also able to go out and in at high tide to lessen any risk. The end result is we made it to the boarder of Florida in one long day, sunrise to sunset, and saved 2 days travel on the ICW. It was also nice to put all the sails up and just run on autopilot all day. Nice and relaxing and we felt like a sailboat again.