Week 48: April 30 – May 6 – Around the Great Loop on the Answer

Week 48: Jacksonville, Fl to St. Simon’s Island, GA

Thursday Walmart delivered my food order. They delivered most of the items I purchased for provisioning for the next few weeks but as usual, a few essentials were missing. Peter went to Publix before we left to fill in certain items.

Peter posted on the AGLCA Forum that we would be heading north on May 4th and asked if anyone else would be traveling then so we could travel with another boat. He received a response from New Hope, a 34′ PDQ who was traveling home to Virginia. They were currently at Fort Pierce so we agreed to meet in a few days once they got underway. They can travel faster so we planned to meet in Savannah. It will be nice to have a buddy boat once again.

Our “looper take-out” dinner this week was from Ale Pie House. We were told that it had the best pizza around so we all decided that this would be a good plan. Sea C Rider had rented a vehicle since they would be heading back to Illinois until next season and volunteered to pick up all our orders. What we heard was correct. The pizza was great and we had enough for Peter to have left-overs for lunch.

Friday was windy so we planned our weekly dinktails for Saturday. We spent Friday prepping the boat to leave – organize cabinets, fill water tanks, etc. Our last dinghy ride included Destination, Katie Beth, Odyssey, Sabbatical, and Sea C Rider. We did another cruise down the Ortega River since it is a longer ride and a few of the dinghys had not been there yet.

We finally left on Monday to begin the journey home up the east coast. We departed Ortega Landing and headed to Fernandina Harbor Marina. The marina has very long side tie docks. There were a number of very large boats on the outer dock and lots of fishing boats – personal and charter – on the inside. A very long dock to take Kodey for a walk.

Things were starting to open up in Florida. The restaurants were still doing take-out and a few were beginning to offer outside seating. Fernandina is a quaint old town but nothing really available to explore.

The next day we traveled another 42 miles to Morningstar Marina at St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. We are finally out of Florida. We ran into a bit of difficulty with low tide. The channel to the marina is marked and we received instructions from the dock hand to follow closely with green markers on our port side. Since the tide was low and there was shoaling, we should have been more in the center of channel so we grounded. Georgia is known for their 9 foot tides. The dock hand told us to call Sea Tow. We did, they came, but they use inflatable boats that do not have the engine power to break us free. We waited a few hours for the tide to come up and then went to the marina. No damage but not fun. When we arrived, the dock hand apologized for not providing better instructions.

The next day involved longer travel since there really is no place to stop. We initially made reservations at Sunbury Crab Co. but after checking the charts, we realized that it was seven miles off the ICW and we would need to travel back the next morning. This would add considerable wasted time since we only travel at 8pmh on good water. It made more sense to go a little further to a “rustic” marina on Kilkenny Creek….similar to Bobby’s Fish Camp…. that was less than two miles off the ICW. We encountered strong currents and some nasty flies only to have the marina not answer their radio or phone (no voicemail for messages). After multiple tries, we decided we would just go in and tie up if we couldn’t reach them. As we approached the marina, the dockmaster answered the phone. He stated that since we weren’t there by 3pm, he left but then heard the radio and came back. Why he didn’t answer is beyond us. This is one of the most frustrating things when going to a marina you are unfamiliar with – not having anyone respond via radio or phone. The description of “rustic” is very kind. Not a place we would recommend but it did save us some time.

We leave in the morning to travel to Savannah and meet New Hope at the Isle of Hope.