The river traffic continues all night. Each time a freighter comes through we are woken by the sound of the engines pounding through the water – you can almost feel it rather than hear it – and then the boat rocks! A night of broken sleep it certainly is. The heavy rain doesn’t help.
When morning comes it is grey, gloomy and drizzly – a bit like England really. Having no desire to explore in the cold we decide to leave and by 7.45 am we are on our way.
We have two opening bridges to get through today and just one fixed bridge to worry about but we should make that one at a low enough tide.
Around mid morning we get to the Causton Bluff Bascule Bridge, a double one which opens for us as we approach. Three miles further on is the State of Georgia Memorial Bridge whose filthy tide boards seem to imply that it will be OK for us to pass as long as we can squeeze past the shrimp fishing fleet.
The weather starts to brighten and the sun comes out from behind the clouds. Once again it’s lovely in the sunshine but in the shade, bloody cold. We begin to pass some lovely houses and some that look like they have cost a lot of money but are still not lovely. One case in particular seems to be owned by people who definitely think that more is more – in this case, that the more square pillars, round pillars, dormers, chimneys and leaded windows you have, the more stylish and architecturally interesting your house looks. It is not so!
Just after lunch, Mike spots Skidaway Bridge in the distance. He peers at it then gets out the binoculars.
“It’s a fixed bridge” he shouts.
I look in the book. “No it isn’t” I reply, “the books says it opens on demand so it must an opening bridge of some sort”.
I read further down the paragraph. “Shit, it says a high rise replacement bridge is under construction and is due for completion in 2013.”
Mike looks again and sure enough, right in front of the said opening bridge is a brand spanking new fixed bridge, still under construction with cranes moving and men in hard hats. But the central span, the bit we have to go under, is in place so as far as boats are concerned, it’s finished! Except, of course, there are no bloody tide boards and the book doesn’t say how high the new one is going to be!
Absolutely bloody marvellous!
Mike calls the bridge operator who tells us that he ‘thinks’ it is higher than 65 feet. A sports fishing boat comes up behind us while we are still literally driving around in circles wondering what to do. It’s high tide and we don’t know the height. There are literally yards between the two bridges. If we approach the fixed bridge, the opening one will have to open on the off chance that we can get under because there is no room for us to idle and wait between the two. Decisions, decisions.
The motor boat offers to stay behind and tell us how much room he thinks we have as we approach but Mike tells him to just go ahead as he’s going to wait for the tide to go down. Then the bridge operator calls us and says he is almost certain it is more than 65 feet and that he is going to open the bridge for us anyway.
With that, the bridge opens and Mike decides to go for it. At high tide, with no idea. Neither of us breathes. As we approach, the bridge operator on the other side says we have a couple of feet above us and then we are out of the other side and able to breathe again.
Phew!
With no more bridges for over 80 miles (!) we can relax and enjoy the scenery, such as it is. It’s not really very variable – lots of marshes, occasional clumps of trees and very windy creeks and cuts.
Photos: Trees, birds and marshes – the ICW has them all
Winding through the marshes we decide to stay at the marina in Kilkenny Creek and at 3.30 pm we are tied up to a rather rickety floating dock and hooked up to the electricity (which all looks a bit rusty and dangerous but seems to work). We are the only yacht. The other boats are tiny fishing ones and one shrimp boat. The owner asks where we are from in Europe and on finding out we are English, asks if we know Christchurch in Dorset. We do. Mike’s cousin lives there. Small world.
We go for a walk to see if there is anything to look at and find that really, there isn’t. Oh there’s a restaurant but it’s only open for half the week (not this half though). The houses are a mixture of little clapboard ones and trailers. It is definitely rural just like South Carolina, there is a profusion of Spanish moss dripping from the trees.
No one is about apart from a couple of fisherman cleaning their catch at the marina and it is silent apart from the birdsong and the rather nasty humming of the somewhat dubious sounding electrical system then suddenly the thwump, thwump noise of a helicopter sounds overhead and a Chinook bursts out from behind the trees. It even has a re-fuelling line sticking out from the front.
We walk back to the boat and close her up for the night. There is supposedly a lot of rain coming overnight and tomorrow will be cool. Still, there will be no bridges and for that I am thankful!
Position: 31 deg 47 min N, 81 deg 12 min W
Distance so far: 3420 miles
Jean, I met you over drinks with William and Frances in Beaufort. I am loving this blog! Your comments about Savannah are dead right. Beautiful town, but the docks don't seem very nice. I look forward to following your posts down the waterway.
ReplyDeleteJane, I did wonder if I was being a bit unkind to Savannah as I was there for such a short time but there is a thing about first impressions. Glad you like the blog.
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