Wednesday April 13: Walburg Island Anchorage - GEORGIA!!

It was once again time to change the oil in the injector pump on this Lehman engine. It's one of the older styles designed so the injector pump has it's own oil supply instead of using the oil which circulates through the engine.

I like to think there was a very good reason for this because it's a pain to change every 50 hours as opposed to the whole engine oil change which happens every 200 hours.

There must be a better way ..... and we now have it!

Sitting next to the engine and unscrewing the drain plug on the injector while trying hold a baggie open to catch all of the old oil without spilling it into the bilge (always a bad thing!) was shaky at best.

So we put Steve's minnow net to good use - remove the net, put a ziplock baggie with the edge folded over. Now one handed easy to use oil catcher!!

Marvelous :-)

Travel in Georgia is at the same time easy and difficult. Difficult because of the 6 - 8 foot tidal swings. Easy because of the 6 - 8 foot tidal swings! Just depends where we are when the low tide hits :-)

You can see the sand bar next to the dock at the St. Johns River. When we first arrived the water totally covered this.We knew it was there only because we'd been here before (and the charts of course indicate it is shallow there).

Not a good thing to run into so we try to time the tides so there is always plenty of room where it is needed most.

We've traveled 120 miles the past two days - mostly out of necessity not because we wanted to go that far.

The plan was to stop at Cumberland Island (land of the wild horses) for a night with plans to roam the island for the day.

Weather said not today! So we continued north into Georgia farther as the weather grew worse. Wind and possible storms.


It just wasn't very nice. But the rain held off until we were 10 minutes from the marina on Saint Simons Island.

Steve was soaked by the time we docked - and then of course the sun came out!

We like this marina because they deposit the day's paper and a couple of muffins on your doorstep! What's not to like :-)

Today was also overcast, quite windy and cool. There is more wind due in this weekend. What to do. It's two days to Isle of Hope near Savannah for us and marinas are few and far between in the marshes of Georgia. Stay or go.

Ended up leaving Saint Simons Island and headed for Darian. A small town 8 miles off of the ICW and of course then 8 miles back to the ICW.


In the end we just kept going and figured the wind would not be an issue for us. Then we crossed Sapelo Sound! The last major sound for the day. Current was running west. Winds were blowing from the NW. Should be ok to run the 5 miles or so east on the sound until we're back on the smaller rivers running through the marshes.

After all, the sounds get nasty when the wind opposes the current so it should be ok. And it was sort of ok. No real issues just some waves kind of going everywhich way!. At one point Steve called to talk to me on the VHF radio as he didn't think it wise to attempt to come up to the flybridge!

Smart person ;-)

It wasn't too much longer until we were anchored for the night just south of the last large sound: St. Catherines. Then it'll be across Hell Gate (with plenty of water under the keel) and off to Isle of Hope Marina to wait out the next day or two or three of bad weather.

Fun things:

Two tug boats were moving dredging equipment somewhere. Fortunately they were very easy to pass.

Shrimp boat coming in the Altamaha Sound.