Heading to my Happy Place

Brunswick Landing Marina to Plum Orchard anchorage (Cumberland Island), GA (anchored)

June 22, 2025

Plum Orchard anchorage is my happy place: it’s peaceful, beautiful and has loads of really cool critters.  It’s not very far from Brunswick (unless you take the long way).  Guess which way we took?

There’s a stretch of water near Jekyll Island that’s pretty tight during low tide.  That’s when we transited it – super low with jusssttt enough water to keep us moving.

The mud banks were completely exposed and at times it looked as if there was only mud

Roseate spoonbills love swishing their beaks through the muddy water to grab whatever food they can.

It was so low, crab pots were totally out of the water for birds to use as a perch.

Once we got into the sound, John suggested we sail in the ocean and reenter the ICW at St. Mary’s Inlet. 

The wind and current could have been a bit more in our favor but it was still gorgeous. 

We caught a perfect tide on our reentry, though, and we’re able to cruise in on a speeding current

Just inside that inlet is Fort Clinch, which is in a good location to defend Fernanda Beach and Jacksonville.

That incoming tide was definitely in our favor as there can be some shoaling at the entry to this anchorage.  There are 8` tides here which means the shoals are under at least that much water at high tide.

There’s a tree filled with roseate spoonbills just off our bow and it’s perfect here.  I can see the feral horses grazing under the trees and we watched a few small gators swim across the river. 

Even better?  I get to be here with the love of my life.

It’s dark to the east so we could see a million stars.

It was dark enough to watch a Falcon 9 fly by after its launch from Cape Canaveral.

We wound up doing close to 46 nautical miles.  Tomorrow we’ll dinghy over and walk a bit.