Back River

804 nm   N31 23.705  W081 19.534

Today was a pretty uneventful run of 42 NM.  The marsh scenery was pretty, but unremarkable.  After so many miles of twisty turns, endless massh grass, egrets and herons, it all starts to look the same.  Not many unique landmarks.

When we reached our target anchorage for the day, on the Back River, I was much more cautious searching for a shallow spot to anchor, not wanting a repeat of the Walburg Creek grounding!  The guides recommended using the South side of the river, but the wind was out of the North which made the South side realy rough.  The charts showed a shallow 5.9 ft patch on the north side, but I was dubious.  As a result, we spent almost an hour motoring back and forth next to the "shallow"  spot, moving our track a few feet closer each time.  I felt like a survey ship!
But eventually, it panned out exactly as the charts showed, and we dropped the hook.  The tide was at +5 ft and we were in 11.5 ft of water, so this meant we would be at about 15 ft at high, and 6.5 at low. Our 70 ft of anchor rode was less than I was comfortable with for 15 ft, so I set the anchor drag alarm again.  Can't wait 'til we're out of these Georgia tides!

And then, after all this,  about 20 ft off of our starboard side, just about even with our stern, I spotted a nearly invisible crab pot float!  It was black with crusted growth and very hard to see.   I was worred we might swing across it and snag it on our prop!  So I sat and watched it for a while,  and finally decided we would be OK.  Fingers crossed.

The wind blew hard all night, but the drag alarm was silent. The wind was enough that our wind generator kept up with the power demands of our refrigeration, and we reached the morning with the same amount of power as when we went to sleep!  This rarely happens.

I got dressed and immediately went to look for the crab pot float.  It was nowhere in sight!  Had we snagged it?  Then I leaned out over the rail and found it, less than 2 ft from our hull!  Its line was plainly visible heading parallel to us, and as I watched we slowly drifted away from it and it did not follow. Phew!

Close Encounter of the Crab Pot Kind

We'd heard from our friends Bruce and Gayleen aboard s/v Pearl.  They had left the Chesapeake almost two weeks behind us, but were steadily catching up.  Now only two days behind us, we expected that they would catch us soon.  It will be fun to see them again.

Life is good.