Gerogia Bypass
04 December 2011 | St. Augustine FL
Rick
The day after Thanksgiving we departed Beaufort at sunrise and motor-sailed past Hilton Head island. As we were heading past the island I did a quick calculation and determined that if we head offshore we could be in Florida by midnight or so. With the weather forecasted to be sunny with north winds 15 knots we decided to bypass the Georgia section of the ICW as it is by far the shallowest and most meandering section of the entire ICW. The trip was a little “bumpy” due to the shallow depths of the ocean off Georgia; even being five miles off shore the water was only 35-40 feet deep. And when we arrived at the inlet the current was quite impressive as we were only able to do 3 knots over ground with 4 knots of the out flowing river creating 8-10 foot standing rollers for a ¼ mile at the narrowest part of the inlet. As soon as we got inside we dropped our anchor in the calm water and hit the hay with the 121 mile trip taking 18 hours as opposed to spending 3 days on the Georgia section of the ICW.
The next day we motored to St. Augustine and took a mooring for three nights. The city is the oldest in America. We toured the Castillo de San Marcos which is the fort the Spanish constructed in the late 1600’s. The cannons at the fort were impressive with a range of over three miles. The above picture was of one of the daily firing of the "small" cannons.