Walking through Georgia

Yesterday morning we left Fernandina, Florida heading north through Georgia by way of the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway).  Except for the no-see-ums we had a rather uneventful day - not a bad thing at all.  When we came through Georgia last fall it was late enough in the season that bugs really weren't a problem.  Now with the warm temperatures and all the low marsh areas that we are travelling through the bugs are really a problem.  You can't be out for more than a couple of minutes without feeling like you are being eaten alive.

This morning we had to leave our anchorage relatively early before the tide went out enough to strand us.  Then we had to anchor for two hours around noon to wait for the tide to come up enough so we could transit the Little Mud River.  Supposedly this is the worst section of the ICW in terms of shallow water.  There was another boat anchored waiting for the tide to come in, and before we both left a third boat arrived to wait with us.  They both drew less water than we do so we followed them through.  By waiting we had plenty of water, and it is nice to have this shallow section of Waterway behind us.  We saw two alligators today - a first, and several dolphins.

Now for today's adventure.  One of the boats we followed through Little Mud anchored the same place we did and invited us over for drinks - tea, as they are British.  As were we talking a power boat came in and anchored what we all thought was too close to both our boats.   Later back on our boat when the tide started to switch the power boat ended up being less than 100 feet from our boat.  They realized they were too close and moved to another spot - last boat anchoring, first boat to move.  As we were watching them move we realized our anchor was behind our boat, and the other sailboat - which had anchored first - was suddenly also very close to us.  Since they had dropped their anchor first we figured we should move, even though they were spinning around in strange circles.  It took us a while to raise our anchor since the chain was going under and behind the boat.  You have to be careful that you don't wrap the chain around the rudder or keel, or worse, catch the chain on the propeller shaft.  About the time we were dropping anchor in our new spot we noticed that the sailboat was also pulling up their anchor and moving.  It turns out they had been dragging their anchor, and if we had waited a few more minutes we wouldn't have had to move.  We watched them try to re-anchor for about 10 minutes before they finally tried a new spot.  So three boats anchored, and then all re-anchored - though I think we really didn't need to.  At least all this happened before sundown.

As we motor against the tide a lot of the time our speed over the ground (SOG) is under 4 knots.  And when the tide is out often there are mud flats visible along either side of the Waterway.  Thus at times our pace is that of a brisk walk, though pulling your feet out of all the mud might slow you down a bit.

Swimming pigs at Staniel Cay.
The pigs associate the sound of boat motors with food and swim out to meet the boats.
They even try to climb into the boats - not great with an inflatable boat!

Not a good enough cell signal for any more pictures, sorry.