Sunrise at Kilkenny Marina – 6:33am

We were up at first light.  Beautiful sunrise!!  Red sky in morning – sailors warning?  What is there for purple skies?

Sunrise at Kilkenny Marina at 6:37am

Since the dock master had us pretty close to one another, we didn’t have enough room to get out until the boat in front us left the dock.  Everyone helped push the first trawler away from the dock and into the current.  We were next to leave the dock.  A bit of help from fellow boaters and we made a clean departure.  We decided that for today’s challenge we would follow “Smiles”  since they have loads of experience going through the shallow waters ahead.

Leaving Kilkenny Marina at 6:44am

Cloudy all day with chance of showers in the later afternoon.  Today’s journey is only 33miles.  A perfect distance to find the marina and get settled before the cold front moves in.

Our challenges for today is to go through “Hell Gate” and “Skidaway Narrows”.  Again, everything we read told us to take “Hell Gate” at mid-tide or better.  The high tide for today was at 5:30am.  We were calculating that by the time we left the Kilkenny and get to “Hell Gate” it would be at mid-tide… a falling tide… but still at mid-tide.   You can see the water depth before and after “Hell Gate” is 10 -20 feet.  But within “Hell Gate” it was to drop to 6 – 7 ft at mid-tide or better.  At low tide, folks have reported less than 3 ft in some places.

Hell Gate

I stood behind Wayne watching our depth finder and recited the depths as we followed the trawler ahead of us.  Taking it slow, we saw 7-8 ft water and had no problem traversing this area.  Thanks to all the folks who warned us about this area!

Skidaway Narrows wasn’t as daunting, just lots of curves.  As you can imagine, around every curve is a potential shoaling area where the water isn’t as deep.  Again, I stood behind Wayne and recited the depths so we wouldn’t get grounded.

Skidaway Narrows

Lots of low grass and marsh seen today.

Marsh grass lands of Georgia

Welcome to Thunderbolt Marina where we will be for 3 nights…

Arrival at Thunderbolt Marina