Day 2 of our Coco Beach Trip. We cross the Savanah River into Georgia.
Day Two was from St John’s Yacht Harbor (near Charleston, SC) to Thunderbolt Georgia. The trip was about 100 nm. After a fairly quite nite (the wave were slapping the hull), we got up around 6:00 AM and were underway at 8:10. Overnight the winds died down, but after sunrise, they came back.
Most of the trip to the Savanah river at the South Carolina, Georgia border was uneventful. It was clear, cold, and windy. We crossed several open areas where the wind was howling and pushed the boat around but overall a smooth trip. They were doing controlled burns at the Parris Island Marine Base in Beaufort, SC which gave us something to watch as we crossed Port Royal Sound.
As we approached the Savanah river crossing, we reached “Fields Cut”. Tides right now with the full moon are 8.5 feet! We reached the cut at just about low tide. The chart said that there was around 2 ft of water (we need 3.5 ft!). We decided to roll the dice and give it a go…. VERY SLOWLY! We got about 1000 ft into the cut and felt the boat touch bottom. The depth finder read -2.2 ft! Fortunately, the current was strong enough that we just waited for a few minutes and were pushed into the deeper water. No damage (physical damage, we won’t discuss emotional 
)
After Fields Cut it was relatively smooth sailing to Thunderbolt Georgia our next stop. The moon is full so tides are extra high and extra low, we took it slowly from Field Cut to Thunderbolt as the water was about 2 ft below normal low tide and we had some areas where the depth was reading 2 ft below the keel of the boat.
Thunderbolt is nice, we took on 181 gallons of diesel and moved to our dock for the night. Another windy strong current marina but we made it in on the first attempt without any drama (thanks Geoff!).
We rinsed the salt off the boat from all the spray from the day, then went to dinner at “Tubbys”. Nice place, with an outside deck and music by Keith and Ross. Even though it’s only 61 degrees, the midges are out in Georgia! Glad it was cold enough to be covered.
When we got back from dinner, we took some photos of a 130ft sailing yacht docked at Thunderbolt and watched the moon rise.
Tomorrow we are going through an area called “Hell Gate”, a very dicey stretch of water where boats run aground very often. We are timing our passing to go through just before high tide (thanks again Geoff!)
Today’s stats were 95.1 nm, 13.8 knots average speed, 6.45 hours underway.
Thanks for visiting! –Tom & Brenda
