After a busy week of working, we finally leave Florida! On Friday, we motored out the St. John’s River to anchor at Sister’s Creek for the night after a quick stop for fuel. The anchorage is close to the inlet, decreasing the travel time to get to sea by 3 hours. At 7 am Saturday morning, we pulled out of Sister’s Creek as we watched the sun come up over the horizon.
The weatherman called for 10-15 knot winds with 2-4-foot seas. As we approached the end of the inlet, we had plenty of wind and set our sails on a beam reach. That lasted all of about an hour until the wind turned around to the south and dropped to 8-10 knots. We brought in the mainsail as it was only serving to block the wind to the genoa and banging around in the waves. On a broad reach we were making about 4-5 knots. Unfortunately, we were also dealing with 6-8-foot seas. I believe the weatherman is the only person in the world that can be wrong over 50% of the time and still have a job!
As the afternoon progressed, we started hearing thunder and watched a storm grow over the coast. It was really interesting to be able to watch it develop. We were still sailing under sunny skies with just a few clouds gathering overhead. We turned on the radar to watch the storm’s progress. We sailed along the side of it as it moved south and we continued northbound. We encountered just a bit of rain as we approached the channel and headed in to shore.
Coming in St. Simon’s Sound, we saw the large transport ship, MV Golden Ray, lying aground in the channel. This ship left Brunswick in September 2019 and capsized at the mouth of the channel. It was carrying over seven thousand automobiles onboard when it started listing and taking on water. All 23 crew were rescued but the cleanup is an ongoing process. The ship itself was carrying 300,000 gallons of fuel, plus all the oil, fuel, antifreeze and other chemicals in the cars onboard that have polluted the local waters and marshlands. The ship was written off due to the large amount of damage and the salvage efforts continue.
We finally arrived at our anchorage around 7 pm, between Lanier Island and St. Simon’s Island. Designated as a special anchoring area, we were frustrated to find the entire space off the channel peppered with crab traps. With a four-foot tide swing, we needed to put out almost 100 feet of anchor rode. Add our 50-foot boat length and we needed 150 feet of swing room. I don’t think there is 100 feet between any of the crab traps anywhere along here! After going in circles for what felt like forever, we finally settled on a spot we felt was least risky and got the anchor down…thankfully on the first attempt.
The night was quiet and peaceful. We were rewarded with a spectacular sunset as the clouds moved away and watched the dolphins playing in the anchorage. We have some rather large, pesky flies around but they don’t appear to bite. Tomorrow we head into Brunswick to see if we can finally resolve our issues with the dingy.
