Duplin Anchorage

We enjoyed our short visit on Jekyll Island, taking advantage of their great bike paths that are NOT on the road and go around the entire island. But it was time to keep moving, keep getting north.

While installing the new water filter system Russ ran into (yet another) plumbing issue and needed a particular fitting. Jekyll Island has no hardware stores. After a quick google search we found one on the next island up. 

So, we broke the day into 2 parts. First, a small trip to an anchorage just outside St. Simons. Russ dropped the dinghy, loaded up his bike, went to shore, and did some shopping. He returned about a hour later, victorious, hoisted the dinghy and off we went. That could not have been more perfect.

If you zoom you'll see a red and green channel
marker. You know this will be a tight left turn 
 because the red will be on our left.

There was only one hitch in our giddyup, however. Tides.

We are a very shallow draft boat. And we are very cautious about certain section of the Intracoastal that run insanely shallow. This was definitely one.

At the very moment of low tide we made the turn up the Little Muddy River (the sharp left on the map near the time stamp). And bumped bottom. Bumped a couple of times after that, too. We proceeded very slowly, our motto being "The slower you go the less damage you do!" The charts showed bright colors, indicating danger and depths around 4 feet. We draft 3.6. 

This was our AquaMaps view through the Little Muddy River.
The bright red line was a Coast Guard depth chart, so it's the only 
"known". You want to stay on that, despite the fact that red means
there's NO WATER!!!

This is a known issue about Georgia. In fact, there are a number of boaters who skip it altogether, leaving the ICW for the Atlantic around Brunswick and coming back inside around Savannah. Why stress, and once you've done the ICW why do the icky part again?

We're just not that smart. Maybe next time.