Cruising in the Fog

We left for our new cruising adventure on January 5. John was eager to take advantage of some good weather to get us down the road before it became cold again. The first few days were incredibly clear and mild for January. With Mother Nature going absolutely haywire everywhere else in the world, I really began to think that we were in the only tiny sliver of the universe where she was taking a break.

We cruised about 50 miles the first day to a beautiful anchorage on the waterway known as Sam’s Point. It was a relatively uneventful trip except for the fact that about three hours into it, I went down into the salon and noticed that the bilge light was on. That’s not necessarily unusual. It comes on automatically whenever water accumulates in the bottom of the boat. But, it stayed on for what I considered to be abnormally long, so I thought I’d better check it. The bilge locker is located under the salon floor and when I lifted up the compartment cover, it appeared that smoke was coming from the bilge. I called up to John that he needed to come below.

The good news was that the hot water connection had popped apart, so the smoke was actually steam coming up from the bilge as the hot water sprayed freely. The bad news was that we had lost almost all of our 120 gallons of fresh water. There’s a moral here. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CHECKLIST! We have three water tanks. Under the galley sink are three levers that correspond to the tanks. Only when the lever is opened can the water run through the hot water heater. Unfortunately, I had not checked the levers before we left or I would have seen that all three levers were open. So, when the hot water connection broke, the water flowed from every tank. Had this happened to us in certain places like the Caribbean, it would have really been critical. As it was, we had plenty of bottled water to get us to a place where we could refill the tanks.

We anchored out the first three nights of the trip – at Sam’s Point, Herb Creek (just south of Savannah), and the Wahoo River (between Savannah and St. Simons). All three were so serene and calm that we had absolutely no noise at night. Usually, you can count on at least a gentle lapping of water against the stern. But, there was none except for the occasional wake of a passing boat.
There were only two things that we had to contend with, fog and noseeums. The mild weather accounted for both, I’m sure. As you know, there is a definite distinction between these two challenges. Noseeums are highly predictable. They irritatingly come out as soon as the sun starts to set and try to ruin your enjoyment of one of the most beautiful times of the day. Fog, on the other hand, is totally unpredictable. Both its arrival and departure are unannounced with no particular affectation for a certain time of day.

As we passed the Moon River south of Savannah, a fog wrapped around us so quickly and completely, it was exactly like a blanket. We had experienced fog on Long Island Sound, at Cuttyhunk and in Maine, but none as suffocating as this. What made it even more disconcerting was that we were on the waterway trying to navigate a channel with twists and turns. As a matter of practice, John had on the radar and chartplotter, but it took him a few minutes to get oriented.

I dispatched myself to the bow thinking that there might be some advantage to having somebody on the lookout there. The fog was so thick, though, that all I accomplished was getting soaking wet while my glasses clouded up as if I were in a steam room. By the time, I got back to the cockpit, John was navigating totally by instruments. We probably motored this way for a good hour or two before the fog lifted. By the time we arrived at our night’s anchorage at Wahoo River, the weather was back to the unseasonably warm and mild conditions.

But, when we woke up the next morning, the fog had set in again. If possible, it was even thicker than the day before. In anticipation of this likelihood, John had spent some time the night before plotting a course with his C-Map program on the computer. He routed us out the Sapelo Sound to the ocean and down the coast to St. Simons Sound. Then, he copied the route to a chip that he could insert in the chart plotter up on deck. With the chart plotter monitoring our course and the radar detecting what was around us, we made our way out of the sound and into open water. We also listened for chatter on the radio and John would periodically announce on Channel 13 “Securite, Securite, this is the sailing vessel Up Jinks heading out of Sapelo Sound at a bearing of ………….. For all concerned traffic.”

If you’ve never been on the water surrounded by fog, it’s a strange lesson in living in the moment. What you see is literally “what you’ve got” to work with. You lose the ability to do the one thing that your senses are designed to accomplish – anticipate. For us, it was much easier being out in the open water than it had been on the waterway the day before. But, even so, you never really know for sure what you passed or what passed you.

The fog lifted while we were out in the ocean and we made a safe passage into St. Simons Sound, down Jekyll Creek to the Jekyll Harbor Marina.

Sometimes, when you’re not fighting the fog, really neat things can happen to you on the waterway. Just below Savannah, but before Thunderbolt, as we were approaching the Georgia Memorial Bridge, a group of kayakers were plowing their way North up the waterway. One of them peeled off from the group, paddled all the way across the river and caught up to our stern on the port side. He proceeded to stay up with us for almost a mile. He was so close that we could talk to him. What he was doing was riding our wake. Let me offer a little perspective. We were in our 25,000 pound sailboat going at least seven knots (around eight miles per hour) and this kayaker was keeping up with us by paddling! I had two specific reactions. The first was utter amazement that anybody could be strong enough to do this. The second was an overwhelming sensation of being totally out of shape. I can only imagine what Up Jinks was feeling!!

On another occasion, after we left Jekyll Island and were entering the Cumberland Dividings, we ran into a school of dolphins. That’s not so unusual in and of itself, but this particular school acted like they were rehearsing for an audition with Sea World. One of them kept jumping completely out of the water while the others would swirl in naturally choreographed circles underneath. Over and over again, they would repeat the pattern. It was quite amazing.

As much fun as it is to be on the boat cruising and anchoring out, it’s always great to have access to land. This is particularly true when the land has fairways, bunkers and greens on it. When we stopped at Jekyll Harbor Marina, John intended it to be an overnight where we could get gas and some provisions. But, I had read the description in the cruising guide and it said “the friendly staff will be helpful in making golf and tennis arrangements.” So, before John could even buy us a block of ice, I had made a tee time the next morning at Indian Mound Golf Course on Jekyll Island.

Jekyll Island is very interesting. Although there are many private residences scattered over it, most of it is owned and maintained by the state of Georgia. There is a conference center along the beach and two beautiful golf courses meandering through the marshes and dunes of the island. We had a great time being off the boat for an afternoon and we got plenty of exercise swinging the golf club so many times!!

We left Jekyll on January 10 and ended up at another great anchorage on the Fort George River just north of Jacksonville. The Kingsley Plantation runs along the southern bank of the river. It is a part of the Timucuan Preserve in the state of Florida and is open to the public. The state provides a nice dinghy dock for cruisers who anchor out in the river, so we motored over and spent the late afternoon wandering the plantation.

The following morning, we pulled up the anchor and motored south across the St. John’s River and down the waterway paralleling Atlantic, Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra Beaches. This is all very familiar territory for us as John grew up in Jacksonville. His dad, Cottrell, lived the last few years of his life at Vicar’s Landing in Sawgrass at Ponte Vedra. As we motored under the Beach Boulevard Bridge, we raised our Diet Cokes to the Lighthouse Restaurant on the port side where we used to take Cot to get prime rib. Then we hoisted them up again as we crossed under the J. Turner Butler Bridge that connects to A1A at Ponte Vedra. We drove this stretch of highway many a time going from Cot’s house on Salamanca out to John’s sister’s house in Sawgrass. It was interesting looking at these familiar sights from an opposite perspective – up at the bridge rather than down to the water. For about a ten-mile stretch, we were consumed with nostalgia as we motored past fish camps and restaurants we frequented with Cot over the years.

Our destination that day was St. Augustine. We came through the Head of Lions Bridge about 4:00 PM and anchored just south of the city docks in an area available to boats. One of the nice things about St. Augustine (and there are many) is that you can pay a $7.00 fee at the city dock and use their facilities. Since the weather continued to be mild, it was a perfect combination to anchor out, then dinghy over to have access to the marina and the historic area of the city. We spent the afternoon walking the streets of our nation’s oldest city founded by Ponce de Leon some four hundred years ago. The area around Flagler College was bustling with students returning from their Christmas break. We ate paella at the A1A Brewery and Restaurant overlooking the waterway and the Head of Lions Bridge.

On the way back to the dinghy, we stopped to play a game of Putt-Putt, something I haven’t done since I started playing golf. Alas, I’m as bad at Putt-Putt as I am at the real thing. The holes that really burned me were the ones with an uphill slant and the cup at the top of the hill. Not noted for a crisp follow-through on my stroke, I would putt and the ball would roll up the hill then come straight back down to my feet. Again, I would putt, willing myself to hit it harder. The ball would roll up the hill a little higher, then come straight back down to my feet. So, on the third try, I hauled off and hit it hard. The ball made it up the hill, passed the hole, hit the backboard, then came rolling back down to my feet – again. Oh, well. If I had a day job, I would certainly keep it!

The next morning, we awoke to the first “shorts” day of the trip. Even on the water, the air remained warm enough for shorts and teeshirts. We dinghied over and had breakfast at Mary’s Bay View Grill along with a restaurant full of senior citizens on a bus tour. Let me clarify what I mean since I am basically a senior citizen. These were senior citizens much more senior than I. Probably in their late 70’s and early 80’s. Their interaction was amusing and probably a good indicator of things to come for us. Both couples at the table next to us ordered cornflakes with bananas. There was a mix up with the waitress about the milk, resulting in one of the men having to “borrow” some from the other. Even though everybody had plenty of milk, the waitress still had to hear about it which resulted in another glass of milk being brought to the table. So now, there was too much milk at the table which the waitress had to hear about. Nothing phased her, though. She was probably 70 herself.

One thing that I did notice about the octogenarian gentleman sitting closest to us was how he was dressed. He had on a flowered shirt, khaki shorts, Birkenstock sandals, and a toe ring! How cute is that?

We pulled up the anchor around 9:00 and made a long day of it to the Seven Seas Marina just south of Daytona Beach. The weather forecasts indicated that the nastiness coming across the country from the west was getting ready to catch up with us. So, we determined that we would try to make it to Titusville the next day and see where we went from there.