Day 10: The Not-So-Fun Stuff

Darien River, GA to a creek somewhere near Cumberland Island,. GA to Delaroche Creek, GA

John attempted to repair our water pump last night but it’s still not working. Two different marine supply stores on our route today did not have what we need, but for now we’re ok.  We have bottled water, a few gallons of distilled water, and water in our cooler.  Dishes are stacking up, but we can ignore them, as difficult as it is.  We have hand sanitizer and wet wipes to help us with our hygiene needs, too.

We had a quick stop at Brunswick Marina to grab fuel.  Our hope was the West Marine in Brunswick would have a pump but we weren’t lucky.

We did get to see a suction hopper dredger near Jekyll Island.  Yep, I looked up the type of ship and proudly am flying that nerd flag. That’s water cascading over the side.

“A rising tide lifts all ships”

We navigate using our Garmin devices, an app on my phone, and two great spiral-bound guides (one with anchorages and one for marinas).  Although the guides use mile markers in their descriptions, mile markers don’t physically exist on the ICW.  Boaters use a series of green and red markers to navigate. 

Tonight we had some unclear directions (“…. Leave intracoastal headed south below marker red 40…”) and missed a few possible anchorages. We finally turned down a creek during low tide and were stuck as we waited for the tide to rise so we could float off.  This was nerve-wracking as we had to wait to get out of that creek tonight and head to a better spot. The moon has not risen yet but there is some ambient light from a nearby Fernandina Beach to give us a bit of assistance.

Updated: we moved about four miles and found better anchorage.  Hopefully this is the last night navigation we ever have to do.