We left St. Catherines and headed toward Savannah. The day did not go as planned in many ways, and we ended up traveling about sixty five miles; this is a lot more miles than we normally travel.
Departing our anchorage was easy enough. We weren’t in a hurry and after taking Frank to shore first it was almost 10am before we actually left. We followed the ICW back past Kilkenny Creek and continued north. The current was flowing against us for a while, so our speed was between five to six knots. We were soon coming to Hell Gate- a shallow area of the ICW that you want to transit on a rising tide, but never at low tide. We were not at low tide, so going through shouldn’t be a problem… It was not a problem going through, but when we came out the other side in Green Island Sound, the markers were confusing. I could see on the chart there was a shallow are to our north, with deeper water on either side. A little before the shallow area, I saw the chart had depths at ten to twelve feet. We needed to cross the sound and pick up the ICW on the other side. I turned the boat toward the other side and continued on, thinking we were past the hard part. As i was looking down at the chart the boat came to a dead halt. WTF!? It came to such a fast stop it threw me forward toward the steering wheel. I can only imagine what Lauren felt! The good news was I didn’t hear any scratching sounds or solid objects hitting us- it seemed we literally ran right on to a mud or sand shoal. I immediately throttled down and shifted in reverse. I was hoping we could back off of this and at first nothing was happening. Lauren came out from downstairs and said “What was that!? Are we aground?!” I responded affirmatively and told her I was trying to back us off. Eventually I saw we were making some progress, so I continued to throttle in reverse. We finally came un-stuck and I looked at the charts and decided I would head south, around the ‘ten foot’ areas and stay in the sixteen to twenty foot range. I was a little shaken up over this, but we kept on going. We followed the ICW and passes a coule of anchorages we had discussed, but they were not in the city of Savannah. I thought we were going to Savannah, so I continued on. We came to a cut by Elba Island that would take us to Savannah, but as I looked at the chart I was seeing really shallow water. I was afraid now after our grounding ealrier, so I took the ‘long way’, bypassing the cut and adding an hour to our trip. Now we were in the Savannah River, heading toward downtown. We got to the downtown area and sure enough the public docks were all closed and roped off with police tape. There was nowhere to dock, and the anchorage that we thought was there too was not to be found. There were no other boats anchored anywhere around, the current was strong and we were in a major shipping channel. Lauren called a local marina to inquire about anchoring somewhere and they told her not to do it, for all of the above reasons. Shit. Lauren asked about the anchorages we had discussed and I explained they were several miles back and I thought we had decided to skip them to get here. I was wrong- I skipped them and now we have nowhere to go. Shit, again. We looked at the charts and saw there was a free day dock at mile marker 570.5- that is about fourteen miles away and we are losing day light. We could still make it there if we go now, so I turned the boat around and throttled on. We were now headed back down the Savannah River to where we could pick up the ICW again and continue on the fourteen miles.
We finally made it to the free dock. There were a couple of people fishing on the pier but I pulled right up and we tied off. Lauren hopped off and took Frank for a much needed walk. There were signs stating ‘no overnight docking’ but we’ve done this before. Besides the dock and the island seemed pretty deserted except for the couple of people fishing, We did talk about going across from the dock and dropping anchor, but it was getting late and we decided to roll the dice. We had dinner and looked at our next stop. Hilton Head Island is next, and there are more storms and high winds in the immediate forecast. We went on Dockwa- an app that allows you to book slips at marinas- and made a reservation at Skull Creek Marina, Hilton Head. We want to leave early in the morning so we do not push our luck at this free dock…