Walburg Creek to Frederica River to Cumberland Island

Well, never a dull moment.  The dolphins are still with us and the weather has been great!  We are switching to shorts, T-shirts and sandals and not running the heater as often.  Just enough to maybe take the edge off at night and first thing in the morning.  The afternoons have been warm and sunny.  Even the locals are commenting on the wonderful weather they've had.  Which is exactly what Farmer's Almanac said would happen this winter.  We left Walburg Creek and ventured further off the magenta line and tried our hand at "avoiding the charted shoals".  We made it through that and then went from river to creek to sound and back again.  We went through 4 sounds yesterday, Sapelo, Doboy, Altamaha and Buttermilk.  The water was maybe 20 ft deep.  We are, however, beginning to see deeper water.  Yesterday we did hit 60 ft for a brief moment.

Then we went off the magenta line again into Frederica River to anchor at the Frederica National Park.  We were able to dinghy to the dinghy dock and visit the park.  Frederica is a town that was settled in the early 1700's and then General Ogelthorpe and his regiment came and built a fort around the town to protect it from the Spanish coming from St. Augustine (who never showed).  It was really interesting to read the stories of the people who lived there and how they built the fort.

Molly played frisbee again until she dropped and found her new place on the swimstep

We had another wonderful night at anchor.  Calm and quiet.

Then we got brave again and continued down the Frederica River and exited it at the south end to meet the ICW.  We knew the water was thin there so we waited for the tide to come up a bit before venturing over the shoal. The tides peak in GA at 9 ft on our trip south.  From here the tides will be less. We made it through that one and then went through Jekyll Creek.  That was another story.  We spent the entire time in Jekyll Creek watching the depth sounder and I think at one point we skimmed the bottom slightly.  The guidebook said GA doesn't have any money for dredging but we've seen two dredgers. Just not in Jekyll Creek.  Anyway, made it through unscathed and hit our closest point to the ocean today in St. Andrews Sound.  We went right to the edge and then turned in towards Cumberland Island, which is the southernmost barrier island in GA.  We are now at Cumberland Island, the island with the wild horses, anchored in the Brickhill River at the Cumberland Island National Sea Shore Park, near the dinghy dock (makes it much easier to get Molly to shore).  I did find one of the wild horses, but could only get his butt.  He was busy munching on something.

Tomorrow by this time we should be in Florida.  Hoping to get to St. Augustine but that's a long day and it depends on who many NO WAKE zones we meet.  We're at Mile 703 of the ICW and that doesn't count the 140 or so miles we went from Annapolis to Mile 0 at Norfolk.  Mile 988 is where we turn to take the Okeechobee Waterway.  So about 285 more miles along the eastern seaboard!