Last night I consulted our electronic charts and the Active Captain website to find a reasonable port for today's run. My intension was to let Bud look at the electronic charts and maybe Google Earth before we left, so we'd both have the same information and avoid an error like we made yesterday. It's a good thing I did, as I found that there are no inlets that we could reach in a day's sail that we could actually get the boat into. The notes I found said things like, "Strangers may make it over the bar on a rising tide and flat seas." Since we couldn't guarantee the tide and were expecting some waves, these didn't seem like a reasonable risk.

So it was back to the ditch (the ICW) and back to being a trawler again. As we were going along today I thought about the good and bad things in doing the ICW. On the minus side, obviously we weren't able to sail. We had to listen to the engine all day and burn fuel. The other big minus is there was no open water. We (Bud) spent all day hand steering and watching for the channel markers and the channel.

On the plus side, we didn't have to sail. We didn't have the work of setting, trimming and furling sails. We didn't have to worry about heeling and stowing things so they wouldn't slide around. We ran the engine so we had hot water and plenty of power. The other big plus is there was no open water. Fuzzy didn't need to take Dramamine. We didn't have to stow things so they wouldn't bounce around in the waves and there was something to watch besides water and clouds.

The other drawback of the ICW is navigating the bridges. I took this photo as Bud guided Earendil in the slot of the first open Bascule bridge we encountered. Happily there were only two bridges, and there are no more opening bridges between here and St Simon's Sound where we can get back out in the ocean (and maybe get a chance to visit fellow TYCer's Dick & Kathy Platt). By then I'm sure I'll be more than ready to sail again. Meanwhile, since it just about made it to 50 today and will be in the 30's again tonight I'm happy to be on the ICW.

We did manage to go another 50 nautical miles today. Kilkenny Marina, where we are tonight is just about the opposite of the Harbour Town Marina where we were last night. I put a picture of it in the album. It's very quaint and very Low Country Georgia and just a bit rough. At least it's cheaper. (And Fuzzy has now added Georgia to the list of states he's peed in, or on, or whatever.)