Thonderbolt to Walburg Creek Anchorge

Day 51, Thursday, November 17, 2016
 
You can monitor my trip at the link: Second Winds Progress Live

The dock masters office at Savannah Bend Marina

Today was an atypical day on the water.  We traveled 37 miles on totally flat glassy waters.  We needed to wait around Savannah Bend Marina until after 8:00 in order to get ice and for me to pay for electricity.  When we checked in, I told the dock master that I didn’t need electricity but upon returning from Savannah, I realized that it was going to be a cold night and having the electric heater would be nice. So, I drug out my huge 30 amp cord and plugged in.

We also had a fairly strong current flowing through the slips so our departure was a bit dicey.  I was able to back out of the slip and on out into the open water

How some other folks live.

without damaging either the boat or the dock.

This is a beautiful stretch of water.  We traveled through salt marsh fields and tree lined canals.  As we have seen all the way down the ICW, the shores are lined with these huge houses.  We are amazed by the number and the size of these places.

One of many.

One trouble spot that we had been warned about was called Hell Gate.  It was reported to have high current and shallow waters.  It turned out to be an absolute piece of cake.  The waters were calm and flat with a depth of no less than 8 feet.  We hit it at exactly the right time.

Our initial destination was a wide open salt marsh anchorage named Kilkenny Creek but when we got there at around1:00, we decided to continue on another 5 miles to the Walburg Creek

Sweet Pea cruising on flat waters

Anchorage.  This is a lovely site with a marsh to the west and Catherine’s Island to the east.  The island is off limits because of a New York Zoological Society research property chartered with the breeding of endangered animals.

As we were crossing St. Catherine’s Sound on the way in to the anchorage, I noticed a number of large sailboats heading in our direction.  It turned out that a number of boats from our group had decided to forgo the twisty Georgia portion of

Sweet Pea anchored in current near Catherine's Island

the Waterway by leaving it at the Savannah River, traveling out into the open ocean, and coming back to rejoin it at St Catherine’s Sound.  Sam and I assumed that we would be the only ones from our bunch in the anchorage but it turned out that there were about 8 or 9 of our friends joining us.

Shortly after we dropped anchor, I got into Damn Dink Too and motored over to the big catamaran, Let It Be.  Frank and Mary Grace had invited me to dinner a while back and I had offered to bake a cake.  As I was getting ready to go to that dinner I realized that I had no icing so I promised to bake one at a later date. At their boat, I offered that Dwight and I could join them after dinner and prepare a cake.  The accepted my offer and we set a time.

Sunset over the salt marsh

I grilled a couple of sweet Italian sausages and some vegetables that Dwight had sliced up and he prepared some cheesy grits. At about 7:00, we crawled into the dinghy with my bag of cake stuff and headed to a delightful evening with our friends.  Frank’s mom, Jackie had joined them and the 5 of us spent the evening telling stories.  It was fun.

The return trip to Second Wind was in total darkness but earlier, as we were leaving, I had made a mental note of the light pattern on our boat and although the tidal current had shifted direction, I had no difficulty getting back.

It was well after cruisers midnight so sleep came easily.