Day 361 - To a New Anchorage near Sapelo Island, GA

     

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    		The motor yacht "Integrity" The Loop

    Day 361 - Saturday, April 22nd: We woke to a quiet dawn.  By 8:00am all the sailboats in the anchorage had gone.  We have turned into lazy boaters.

    The NOAA weather radio was predicting a "strong cold front" with strong thunderstorms, some severe, high winds, possible hail, etc.  We had planned to stay another night in this area this weekend.  We debated whether to stay in this relatively unprotected anchorage or move to the originally planned spot in the Duplin River.  There was some higher ground and tall trees on the west bank of the Duplin, and the winds were supposed to shift around to the southwest.  The trees would give us better protection in the cold front blow, so we decided to move.

    About noon we hauled anchor and puttered the six miles around to the new anchorage.  It was much deeper here, about fourteen feet at low tide, so we put out plenty of chain - or so we thought.  The outgoing tidal current eddied around the anchor chain and snubber:

    To the southwest, the trees were a comfort:

    The tree line continued around to the northwest.  There was a low power line crossing the river there:

    Across the river to the east, there was almost no protection:

    We relaxed for most of the afternoon, checking the weather occasionally.  The winds built up about mid-afternoon, gusting to about twenty knots.  The tide had changed and the current reversed.  We soon noticed we seemed to be dragging anchor.  We hauled the anchor and moved back south a bit.  This time we let out all 130 feet of chain and about thirty feet of nylon rode.  The anchor held.

    However the winds continued to build and, unlike the predictions, was out of the south.  That made the fetch several miles along unbroken water.  The chop on the water became big waves:

    About 4:30pm it started raining gently and in an hour it stopped.  No thunder, no hail - just light rain.  The blue sky broke through.  By 7:00pm the front had passed and the sky was clearing:

    However well to the north we could see the final throes of the storms:

    By the way, that boat to the left of the picture is Ladyhawke, a nice Krogen 42.  We had visited with them in Marathon back in February.

    The weather calmed down - we had "dodged the bullet."  We had a nice Italian supper to top the day off.

Position tonight: N31 26.041 W081 17.654

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