Wahoo River (Anchored)

October 9, 2014
31 35 677 N
81 12 373 W

Our plans for today were dictated by "Hell Gate". This is a narrow and shallow passage in the Ossabaw Sound that we needed to pass through safely. Shame on the Georgia and Federal Governments for not maintaining this passage. We use a "crowd sourced" website for boating information called "Active Captain", and reports in Active Captain indicated that the water in this passage could be as little as 30" inches at low tide. We need a raw minimum of 54" to 57" plus a safety factor. The tidal range in this area is about 9' to 10' so we decided that to be safe we needed at least 50% tide to attempt the passage. (The extra safety factor needed because we would be passing on an ebb tide - the worst time to run aground.)

The tide started to ebb in Savannah at about 10 AM but we decided to leave at 7:30 AM and fight the last of the flood in order to arrive at Hell Gate with plenty of water. We arrived at hell gate right on time and passed through with no less than 6' under our keel - indicating overall depth of about 10.5'. So much for "crowd sourcing"!

Leaving the river front this morning

Our only neighbor in the marsh

We are now anchored - in complete isolation. The marsh stretches out in every direction, with just a few "hammocks" of tree-islands scattered around. The sun is setting, the wind is getting up a bit and whistling thru the boats aerials and insect screens. It is just amazing that in this country of 350 million people that such wild places can still be found, and I love it. We could probably nose our way a bit further into the marsh and no-one could find us for months. A contradiction to all this isolation is that we can still get internet access and satellite TV! The tide is changing and the boat is moving - time to check the plotter.