CUMBERLAND ISLAND, GA TO BRUNSWICK, GA

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

Day 239
Miles Traveled: 37
Total Miles Traveled: 3093


  It was another day of multiple waterways - 4 sounds, 2 rivers, and 1 creek.  We left our anchorage at Cumberland Island, GA and headed north up the Cumberland Sound.  Just before entering the Cumberland River, we passed the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay.  This Submarine Base is the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's home port for the U.S. Naval fleet ballistic nuclear submarines armed with Trident missile nuclear weapons.  The base covers 16,000 acres of land, of which 4,000 acres are protected wetlands.  There are patrol boats at the entrance to make sure pleasure craft don't make a wrong turn into the surrounding restricted waters.  We have been told that if a submarine is entering or leaving the base and you start to enter the restricted waters, you will be politely advised by the patrol boat (with a machine gun mounted on its bow pointed at you) to turn around.  

submarine being worked on at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay

  The scenery is beginning to change as we cruise along the Cumberland River.  We are seeing fewer and fewer palm trees and more marsh lands.  The tides in this area are 7 feet, so what looks like plenty of water at one hour will be dry land six hours later.

Cumberland River

  After leaving the Cumberland River we entered our second sound of the day - St. Andrews Sound.  This sound is very large and can develop rough seas with 15mph winds, especially out of the northeast.  We had a near perfect day to cross St. Andrews sound with winds about 5mph out of the southeast.  The water was almost flat.  We had blue skies and white puffy clouds to add to the enjoyment.

St. Andrews Sound - calm winds and fair seas

  After leaving St. Andrews Sound we entered a much smaller sound called Jekyll Sound.  This carried us to the shallow Jekyll Creek.  Georgia has not done a good job at dredging the Atlantic ICW as Florida and the other states and Jekyll Creek is a fine example of this problem.  We came through about 1 hour after low tide (low water).  At that time the water level had risen about 1.25 feet.  There were several areas where our depth sounder showed only 1.8 feet under our keel (bottom) of the boat.  If it had been low tide (do the math), there was not much room for error in staying in the channel.  For any boaters reading who are planning on traveling this waterway, we recommend cruising this area at high tide, or at least a rising tide.  Fortunately, it is marked very well. 

leaving Jekyll Creek - if you look closely there is a large sand bar just at the exit

  Jekyll Creek dumped us into St. Simons Sound.  This sound in not as large as St. Andrews, so wind is not as much of a problem.  The wind had increased some by the time we arrived here, so, we did have some light chop (small waves).  From here we took a course off of the Atlantic ICW and went up the St. Simons Sound to East River.  Up this river is the town of Brunswick, GA and our final destination for the day, Brunswick Landing Marina.