We only had 32 miles to go today so we were not in a hurry to get up. We left about 9:45AM. We were cruising right along with no issues until we reached a channel called HELLS GATE between two islands. We saw the channel markers but the water did not look right. As we nosed in we found that we were quickly running out of water depth! We went from 10 feet to 1.5 feet in a second! Chris turned the boat to try to find more water but no luck. We plowed mud for what seemed to be a long time and finally got out into deep water. Chris was sure we could plant corn in the rows left behind. Chris went down below to check and cleaned out the engine strainers. As suspected they were full of mud and gunk. And made a mess in the sink! It reminded me of the time when Stan was stuck in Paint Lick Cr. After our panic attack we had a good laugh. (Forgot to take pics.)
Next we checked the tide schedule. We were just before low tide this meant that we had to wait for 6-8 hours for the tide to come up or we could go out to the Atlantic to go around the island. We decided we would go out and around the island. With 20 knot winds, it was a rough ride. It took us one hour to make the trip and get back on the ICW. Once we go back on the ICW we did not have any other issues and landed at Thunderbolt Marina just outside Savannah, GA. Great marina with 7-8 foot tides, again. In the “walkway” pic below it is nearly flat, in 6 hours it is a full flight of stairs climb.
goparaiso.com 