Vernon River, Montgomery, GA

March 21, 2016

  

Miles Today:  46.6 NM

Total Miles:  386.0 NM

We left New Teakettle Creek early to chase a rising tide to the notoriously shallow Hell Gate – some 40 miles away in the Ogeechee River.  This means it was low tide when we pulled back onto the ICW and started north. 

Our first encounter with extremely low water was at Creighton Narrows.  Georgia was driving and realized the markers had been moved to different positions than what our chart plotter indicated.  There was a bit of a scramble to get back on course and during those few minutes, our depth alarm was beeping and the depth sounder dropped to 0.0, but we didn’t hit bottom.

We had a good crossing of the Sapelo Sound and up Johnson Creek, across St. Catherine Sound up the Bear River, through the narrow Florida Passage.  

Crossing St. Catherine's Sound

As we started out into the Ogeechee River, the wind came up a bit and we saw some small white caps as we approached the dreaded Hell Gate – a short, narrow, shallow channel from the Ogeechee River to the Vernon River. 

The path thru Hell Gate and up the river to our anchorage

We had timed it well; it was 1 hour before high tide peaked.  We made a sharp turn to enter the channel causing the current to hit us on the side of the boat.  Took a few tense moments to straighten Bazinga out. We had 8 feet below our keel, but the river was quite shallow on either side of us. It was important to stay in the center of the channel.  But wait!  Here comes a sailboat from the other direction, under sail not power.  He gets the right of way; we need to make adjustments to give him room.  Jim did a great job moving us to starboard (right) but not too far to put us in the shallow water.    

We thought we would head up to the Herb River anchorage that Craig and Carolyn had recommended, but opted to stop early at an anchorage up the Vernon River near the small town of Montgomery, GA.  It was a nice spot on the river, near some homes with long lawns that came down to the river.  Only one other boat was anchored near us, although there were a couple of nice sailboats tied to some old wooden docks.  The current is still strong here and the tidal change is between 7-8 feet.

A sailboat sharing the anchorage on the Vernon River 

Homes and a couple of sailboats at the docks

It was windy so we put out 125’ of chain and had an early dinner.  Kept a close eye on the docks behind us, the sailboat 200’ to our starboard.  No changes to our position.  Around 8:30pm our radio let go a very loud beeping – weather alert.  Forceful thunderstorms were heading our way later that night.  Beware of periods of high winds, rain, lightening.  It hit at 2am.  We got the high winds; lightening in the distance; but no rain.  We stayed up an hour watching the ‘guideposts’ we had picked out on shore (street lights, house lights) and the anchor light of the sailboat near us, to be sure we were not dragging our anchor and moving toward the docks or toward the sailboat. We bounced around for 45 minutes until the storm passed.

By morning, the water was smooth as glass and the winds were low and gentle.  Hoist the anchor and make way for Hilton Head Island.