May 20 Brunswick Landing to Vernon River Anchorage

May 20 Brunswick to Vernon River Anchorage

Off the dock at 7:45. Super easy with no current and no wind.  Not exactly sure where we'll stop for the night but pretty sure it would be an anchorage.  Not having a very specific final destination always creates a bit more stress at the helm. It's a long stretch of the ICW here without marinas, fuel stops, or mechanics. We also have weather concerns and weekend boaters to avoid.  Forecast for Saturday and Sunday is calling for rain, thunderstorms and strong winds so we want to get settled in somewhere secure for the next 3 nights. We've anchored this general area before but passed Tea Kettle Creek at noon which was too early to stop. Got to Big Tom Creek around 3.  It was narrower than we remembered so the swinging room in a storm with alternating currents just didn't seem prudent with our longer boat.  It also had no wind protection being openly surrounded by marshland and the ever-present green flies and no see ums.

Typical Georgia marshlands at high tide

Time is passing into afternoon and I'm feeling a bit more angst. We pushed on through Hell Gate to at least get that over while on a rising tide. So now we're thinking at this point we could probably make a Savannah marina  with a late arrival and stay there the weekend.  We call all the usual suspects. Isle of Hope, Thunderbolt, Safe Harbor.   Nada...Nada....Nada....  No room at any of them.  Seems we keep striking out  with our transient slips.   So we take a hard look at the charts and read reviews  on the available anchorages.   Decide Vernon River right before the cutoff for Skidaway Island  looks like a decent option.  Wider than the creeks we passed so plenty of swing room.   As we approach  we see several boats already at anchor so that's a good sign. And there's still plenty of room so we start heading in. It's bumpy.  Strong southerly wind is meeting the opposing outgoing current and  really mixing things up.  Just doesn't seem like it would be comfortable for 3 days of stormy weather.  Getting more stressed as it's been a long day already and we're ready to drop anchor  - just not right here.  But there's limited anchorages further north  and we sure don't want to turn around. Checking the charts again and it shows another anchorage  on the river a bit further upstream and around the bend.  We head in. Amazing difference with  solid protection on the north side by land, trees and houses.  To the south broken terrain with marshes and wooded islands.  River current is running east/west .  We drop the anchor  in a spot marked 9' on the charts. There's a 6 ' tide here so we lay out 75' of chain, get a good set on the anchor, hook up the bridle and call it an exhausting day.

Shrimp boat "Daddy's Boy" passes through the anchorage headed home

Peaceful night looking north

We're really glad we found this anchorage.  Worth the extra time to come around that bend.  Would be an ideal hideout  if looking to get protection from a northerly.  It stayed overcast the entire weekend with winds 10-15 and gusting over 20.  The changing tides would swing us side to side but the constant winds  never let us  make a full revolution  as shown on the anchor alarm plot.  Just a nice smiley face as we swung back and forth. 

Chart plotter showing our "smiley" swing pattern - maybe more of a "frowny"?

A strong storm finally did come through during the middle of Sunday night.  And it was a doozy.  Unbelievable wind gusts, rain,  and lightning bolts flying all over. Always a fun time in the pitch black of night where you can't tell what's going on outside.  The only points of reference being the  lights shining from the houses on shore moving  across our windows as the boat swings about wildly with each gust. As the only boat here we were nervous about a potential lightning  strike but a big tower  on land gave us hope it would get hit instead.  The storm was over within an hour or so but  sure  messed up our sleep for the night.  One upside was the boat got a needed rinse  to remove some accumulated salt spray.  

Journey for May 20