Nov 12

Friday, Nov 12

We up anchor early today and head down the ICW behind Jekyl Island to get fuel and water.  After refueling and traveling on down, the ICW intersects the next inlet right on the ocean.  We decide that we have the time and only plan to travel about 15 miles further today, so decide we might as well go on the outside.

This ends up being one of the most challenging and exciting sails I have ever taken.  The winds are running 15 to 20 knots out of the North and there are heavy swell of 8 to 10 feet and their are lots of shallow water right around the channel going out.  The combination of these  gives Eureka (and crew) the ride of our lives.  We have breaking seas and rolling seas laying Eureka 40 + degrees on her side.  The boat handles all of this in stride.  The crew just hangs on.  This short video clip will give you some idea of the ride - however we couldn't take video when it got rough, we were just hanging on.

We run downwind with the rolling seas following us, giving the autopilot more of a challenge than it can handle most of the time so we are hand steering trying to keep the boat on a heading of 180 degrees.

We come in the St Marys inlet which is the dividing line between Georgia and Florida and get out of the action.  We travel several miles down the ICW and end up anchoring in the middle of nowhere just off the waterway.  As the picture shows, we are at least a mile out in what I guess you could call a swamp that has deep water channels running through it.  There doesn't seem to be anyone else within sight.  The evening should be quiet.

We're finding planning to be useless.  Every plan we make we change.  It looks like we "MIGHT" make Jacksonville or vicinity tomorrow.