Georgia Is Just Wild; Monday 4/28

Whew, what I day! This was BY FAR the hardest/most adventurous/dangerous/trying day yet.

It started out bad before it even began (does that make sense). I mentioned camping on the beach sucks bc of the exposure, well if I have any choice, I won't do it again. It was very windy all night and it made it very hard to sleep with my little tent trying to blow away. People have been asking me what I've lessons I've learned so far and I tell them that I haven't really taken the time yet to analyze all my reflections BUT there is one thing that I have concluded, and I'm totally firm on it: April is windy! I think I've had one calm day all month. The stiff wind continued all day, fortunatly at least from the South. It just makes everything a little more difficult and frustrating. Like trying to take down a tent, or read a chart book, or put in contacts, or make a phone call, or pretty much anything.

I left the beach at Blackbeard early and let the wind move me very quickly across Sapelo Sound. It was very choppy and so I had my skirt on bc it was a cool overcast day and the last thing I wanted was to be wet all day. Well...the wind was carrying me so fast and my boat wanted to track left the whole time bc of it I ended up missing the ICW at the entrance of Johnson Creek. It was my fault but I have to say that the waterway in GA is really not marked very well. There could be more channel markers. Its especially tough for me bc my view is from 2.5 feet above the water surface and I'm not carrying binoculars so it can be very ticky to discern land contours off in the distance. Shell banks can blend together and a cut though the marsh can be complelty invisible until I'm right up on it. So I get to this marker which is missing the yellow triangle and I realize that I went to far so I have to pop my skirt to look at my chart and of course get immediatly soaked. I then have to paddle about a mile back INTO the wind and waves to get where I need to be. What a start to the day. It wasn't even 11 am by the time I got into Johnson Creek and into calm water and I already wanted to quit for the day. I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep and I was sore and now wet. So I paddled slowly up to Walburg Creek and headed down that, leaving the ICW again, bc it looked like it would take me past some dry ground on the west edge of St. Catherines. I'm glad I did and got up close to it bc what a crazy island. As far as I can tell its pretty much undeveloped. I did pass one dock that appears to be part of a still-being-built high end resort, I could see a few nice stone houses through the trees but thats it. North of that was like jungle. I thought I had seen all of GA's wildlife in one day yesterday but boy was I wrong. I paddled past groups of whitetail deer, a couple wild boars (pigs??, I don't know what you call them), and more alligators.

Today's alligator sightings where much scarier then yesterdays. Two were up on the bank together and came upon them as I was paddling right next to shore - close enough that I could have reached out and touched it with my paddle. Well I think this is a case of them being just as afraid of me as I of them, and they must feel safer in the water bc as soon as they saw me they made a beeline for the water. The problem was that is where I was! They came racing directly at me full speed with their little legs, hit the ledge dissapear into the water. And of course I'm paddling the other way as fast as I can. At first I was a little shocked by seeing all these gators in the marsh but when I thought about it if they're out there (which obviously they are) who else has a better chance of seeing them then someone spending 10 hours a day in their environment moving in silence (when i'm not singing to my ipod) at 4 mph?

So.... (THIS IS WHERE THE DAY GETS INTERESTING) I stopped at the north end of the island - the above picture - to make some calls and a plan, stretch my legs and use the little boy's room. I heard back from some friends of friends who were very gracious to invite me to stay with them at their house on Skiddaway Island which I was siked about. The problem was that it was still 25 miles away by ICW, the tide would be against me, and it was already 3 oclock. I knew I couldn't make it before dark, if at all, unless I came up with another plan. I called the harbormaster at the marina where I could tie up and got his advice on the idea of jumping out into the ocean to cruise right up the east side of Ossabaw Isl to avoid the twists and turns of the waterway behind the island and cut off some considerable distance. I did still have that S wind anyhow. He wasn't complelty discouraging of the idea and when he checked the radar for me it looked like the big storm in the area was going to miss me to the west so I decided to give it a try. I made sure everything was secure on the deck, I attached my skirt and set off across St. Catherines Sound. Initially it wasn't so bad...there were good size waves but nothing to serious and as I made my way around the southern tip of Ossabaw I headed out past the breakers, a couple hundred yards off shore. Well, the waves continued to grow, and grow, as did the wind. My radio had said the wind was to forcast to decrease from 15-20 to 5-10 in the afternoon but that wasn't the case - the wind picked up plus I was in the ocean after all so theres zero exposure. I was out far enough that I didn't have to worry about the waves heading into shore, just the open-water waves created by the wind which were coming hard from the SE. At first it was quite fun, the waves were coming from just over my right shoulder bc I was on a N/NE course, and I was enjoying the thrill of the open water, the excitment of the waves and jamming out to my ipod. The waves just kept getting bigger though and I kept moving faster. At this point though there was no option besides stick to the plan to continue all the way up to Ossabaw Sound because the surf waves were way to big to try to land on the beach, especially without a helmet. I was taken tons of spray and waves over my bow and body and got complety soaked, plus it started to rain: the storm didn't miss me after all. And the waves got to the point where I started to get pretty nervous. I've never been involved, in any manner, with waves that big before. When I was in the trough I couldn't see anything else and the distance from the trough to the crests must have been 8-10 feet. I was starting to regret this decision but there was no other option then to keep going. After about an hour and a half I could see the end of Ossabaw and felt a little relief. The final 30 minutes though as I tried to enter the sound though was the trickiest. The waves lost all sense of pattern and started to come from my left, my right and from directly behind. (note: my charts only show the ICW and the small sourronding area on both sides so I couldnt see what the East side of Ossabaw was like. Today looking at the NOAA chart online WHICH YOU CAN SEE HERE, I noticed that there is a big sand bar coming off the NE tip of the island which was causing this) I had to conintually slow myself so I didn't take off surfing one of these monster waves. There were a couple close calls where I thought I was going over but I managed to stay upright. I fully recognize the potential catasrophy which could have escalated if I had capsized and not been able to succesfully roll being out so far off shore alone. FORTUNATLY it didn't happen. I finally made my way into the sound where the waves diminished a little bit and I was able to take a big sigh of relief and relax. I had traveled about 14 miles in just 2 hours and I thought at that point I was golden - naively I thought that I would just float right up to my intended target: Delegal Creek Marina. Well I got my bearings and realized I was South of Racoon Key which was about to become a barrier to my path in minutes bc of the outcoming tide which was stronger then I have ever felt it. At this point I was exhausted, soaked and mentally worn out. I was paddling with all the strength I had left and moving at a pace, according to my GPS, at .7 mph! So frustrating. To make matters worse Delegal Creek was right on the edge of two pages of my charts and I couldn't really get a good sense of where I needed to go. Instead of making a straight shot at the creek I ended up paddling in a million different directions at one point ending up all the way down at the cut between Wassaw and Pine Island. It was pretty brutal and the sun was dropping. Right at about 8 o'clock, 3 hours after leaving the ocean!, I made it to the entrance of Delegal Creek. As I was paddling into it the sunset was directly infront of me and the sky turned totally red and a pod of dolphin appeared all around me. It seemed like such a fitting end to such a tough day. Oh and then just a final twist of tragic-comdey the two markers in the creek were different then what they were identified as on my chart and so I thought that after everything I was in the wrong spot still! My chart must just be outdated. I have never been more exhausted and the only thing that kept me going was the thought of a hot shower and meal which the Smith's, Allison and Bob, provided after scooping me up at the marina. So I finished the day at mile 600, another 35 ICW miles that I was able to do in about 29. I would never have attempted to go so far without a place to stay so THANK YOU SMITHS!

So today was obviously I much needed day off and thats why this blog post is so long. Theres probably a lot more that I'm forgetting to mention but Ill add it later if I remember.

In retrospect the ocean venture might have not been the safest idea, it certainly was a gamble, but it paid off and I'm glad I did it. I won't again, that's for sure, but I'm glad I did. PLUS, now I'm only a day (two, tops) away from HHI!!!!

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Seth