Cheryl's Notes:

Got up bright and early to move up to Fernandina Municipal Marina for diesel. We got in and out in under a half hour. We were hoping that the tides would work with us today, as we have three sounds to cross today. Of course if the tide is with you on one side of the sound, it will be against you on the other. We crossed Cumberland Sound to head into Georgia, then we crossed Jekyll Sound and St. Simons Sound. We were warned that Georgia has some really skinny water, but we didn't know how bad until we left paint from the bottom of our keel in Jekyll Creek. It is unbelievable! You travel through this narrow strip of water and the shoreline is just five to ten feet from the sides of your boat. It is hard for us who sailed on Lake Superior to even visualize what difference it makes when you have an 8 foot tide change. You also have to be really good at math if you anchor at high tide. Twelve feet sounds like plenty of water until you realize that it will be more like four feet at low tide.

We caught a rising tide from St. Simons Sound and up to our anchorage for the night. We stopped in Wally's Leg (mm 666) with about five other boats. Again, the wind blew all afternoon, right through our anchoring process and then died down for a peaceful night sleep. Another long day and 51.5 nautical miles under our belt. There are two more "skinny" cuts to make it through right past here. We will leave in time for high tide first thing in the morning.

On a personal note: Happy Birthday, Mom! We can't wait to get home and see you.


John's Notes:

Whenever the water starts to get skinny, Cheryl says "here, you steer." I heard that a few times today. Make one mistake and you are going to wait for up to six hours till the tide changes or you place a call to Tow Boat U.S. Lucky for us, we have had to neither.