Day 218
We left Jekyll Harbor Marina at 7:15 am on Friday morning, 04/16/21. The skies were gray and overcast, the temps were chilly, and the Noseeums were HORRENDOUS! Steve sprayed himself with bug spray before going outside, but I didn’t, and paid the price dearly. My poor scalp must’ve gotten a zillion bites on it that morning. UGH! As we cruised along, we noted that Georgia seagulls seem to like our boat more than Florida seagulls. We had an entourage of seagulls this entire day! We decided it must have something to do with the shallow waters we were cruising through, which Legacy’s two propellers kept perpetually stirred up, resulting in lots of fish at the water’s surface. A perfect smorgasbord for water foul! The cut connecting Jekyll Sound with the East River is extremely shallow, due to frequent shoaling. Many Loopers elect to run outside in the Atlantic to avoid it, but we were feeling frisky and decided to just go for it. Depths got down to less than 2 feet beneath our keel (7 feet deep overall) in several spots, but we lucked-out and did not run aground. The East River is another really wide one in places. We’ve cruised so many rivers that look more like lakes on this trip!
When we passed the north end of Jekyll Island, crossed a narrow inlet, then began cruising west of the south end of St. Simon’s Island, we saw a large, strange-looking object off in the distance in St. Simon’s Island Sound. As we got closer, Steve realized we were seeing the wreck of the Golden Ray, a half-sunken cargo freighter owned by Hyundai that had capsized in the sound almost two years earlier. The ship had been carrying 4,300 newly-manufactured automobiles from Asia to the US, when suspected over-loading and top-heaviness caused it to capsize. It has taken this long (mostly due to COVID delays, of course) for salvage crews to remove the ship and it’s cargo from St. Simon’s Island Sound. In fact, the ship is having to be cut up into individual pieces that are being removed from the water one at a time. What a mess!
At St. Simon’s Island Sound, staying on the AICW, the East River becomes the Mackay River for many miles past Wymberley-On-The-Marsh, Sea Island, Little St. Simon’s Island, and the tiny Lanier Island. I had thought, earlier in this blog, that we’d come too far north to continue seeing palm trees, but I was wrong. We were still seeing them, but were beginning to think these were planted by humans, rather than in the wild. Palmetto palms are still thick and wild. The weather was COLD! Once again, we were dressed in our long pants and long sleeves. The clouds were so thick the sun could not come out. It just teased us intermittently the entire day. We passed marshes, marshes, and more marshes! We did see some farms and houses every now and again, but they are far off the sides of the river, once the marsh turns into solid ground and woods.
We passed the Fort Frederica National Monument, and the Mackay River changed to the Altamaha River. In fact, we were cruising through the Altamaha Wildlife Management Area. Soon we passed the Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge and up into Doboy Sound, at Sapelo Island, where the Sapelo Island Wildlife Management Area awaited us. Eventually, we realized the Mackay River had changed to the Crescent River, and that’s where we started to see dolphins all around our boat and riding our wake. Always the best sight! They only stayed for a short time, though, and we decided they were teasing us just like the sun was.
We traveled up Blackbeard Creek, west of Sapelo Island, and entered into the very large Sapelo Sound, between Sapelo Island and St. Catherine’s Island, north of Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge. For quite some time, we’d been heading east in Sapelo Sound, but eventually turned 90 degrees to port and began heading northward on up Blackbeard Creek, which meant the waves off the Atlantic Ocean were hitting our starboard beam and rolling us considerably. Thank goodness for stabilizers!
After following Blackbeard Creek for the entire length of St. Catherine’s Island, the wind and waves began picking up around 1:30 pm, and we were beginning to see white caps, which almost always means uncomfortable cruising. We were both ready to reach our destination! And, just like that, we reached Sunbury Crab Company’s docks at 2:30 pm. We tied to their outside wall on Blackbeard Creek. The weather was still gray and gloomy and, along with those dastardly biting bugs, made for a depressing afternoon, but we got settled in, nonetheless.
That late afternoon, we braved the bugs to walk briskly up the dock to the famous Sunbury Crab Company for dinner. The Noseeums here were the worst we’d seen yet – even worse than the Little Shark River in the Everglades! We opted to eat inside, for very obvious reasons, and ate an enjoyable dinner while being served by a fun and personable waiter. After dinner we ran for our lives back down the docks, to the safety of inside Legacy’s salon. No after-dinner drinks up in the flybridge that night!
Position: N 31° 46.308, W 81° 16.652
Distance traveled: 73 SM
Total distance traveled: 3097 SM
Total marina nights: 195
Total nights at anchor: 22
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27