Challenging Day

This area of the ICW channel is as wide as this big boy is!
Passing him was impossible for several miles.

We have 88 statute miles to go today.
At 10 to 12 knots it should take us 8 hours or so.
But not if you're going 3 to 4 knots behind the American Star

Well today was the most nerve wracking day so far. First as I told you yesterday that getting off the dock was going to be difficult on the best of days. Today was not that.  We thought it would be raining, but it was not.
What it was, was windy 10-20knots with gusts of 30. My captain thought out all the scenarios that could happen and decided on the one that would get us in the least amount of trouble, he executed it like a pro.
 Now we are  on our way at 7:30am. This stretch of the ICW through GA is notorious for very narrow channels,and very shallow water in certain spots. One spot called the Little Mud River brings fear even to the most seasoned captains. At one point the depth finder said 3'5" which is our draft and at that moment we felt that we might have hit ground but the depth changed immediatly to 4, then 5 maxed out at 6. It is really important to try to time this with the tides. Now the time we were going through was high tide.
 Today on one of the rivers that was  narrow, we came upon The American Cruise Lines ship The Ameican Star. So that only made our long day longer. The ship was as large as the channel and was traveling all of 3 knots.
It was a very windy day today and the water was rough depending on which direction you were going. This section of the ICW was very desolate. Just marshes and sea grass.
We arrinved in St Simons Island, GA around 3:30pm after 8 hours on  the water. Both Bob and I were exhausted so luckily there was a restaurat at the maina so we ordered fish tacos and paella along with an arugala salad.