This is Tuesday, October 21, 2014.

It's been awhile since I have done any writing so I thought it would be good to update on some of the events that have happened in the past week or so.

I have been spending a lot of time during the daylight hours heading to Jacksonville, Florida since my son Jared and my grandson, Linkoln were planning on flying to Jacksonville to meet me and we would do some sailing/boating for a few days. That being said, I needed to average approximately 50 miles per day to get there in time to meet them on Thursday the 16th of October.

Tuesday morning the 14th, I set sail towards my goal of Jacksonville.  There had been some weather predictions of foul weather coming and I woke to find it quite pleasant and decided I needed to get going and get as far as possible before the foul weather hit.

I crossed the St. Catherine's sound and it was pretty choppy and I was getting quite a bit of spray from the bow of the boat from the waves coming over the bow.  It was looking like I might like to find a place to anchor then I decided to keep going to the Jeckyll Creek which  by the way is much wider than any river we have in Utah including the Green and Colorado rivers however not as deep or fast running for the most part.  It was fairly easy going down the creek and I stopped at the Jeckyll Island Marina to get fuel since I decided I didn't want to go far with an unknown amount of fuel in my tank.  I was planning on finding an anchorage nearby to spend the afternoon and night since I knew the storm was coming and I didn't want to cross the Jeckyll Sound in the storm.

In talking with one of the marina employees who has spent most of his life on the water, he said I had plenty of time to get across the sound before the storm and before dark.  He convinced me it would be ok for me to head out and get to the next river past the sound where I could anchor for the night.

I headed out and within the hour I was in some of the worst waves I have ever been, 5 and 6 foot waves and a lot of wind.  I started to lose my way and with all of the ocean spray coming over the bow, I could not see my charts and soon was lost heading towards the ocean in a storm.  I was able to get a glance at my tablet maps and saw I was in the breakers near the land being tossed about and did a 180 degree turnaround but by then I was completely disoriented and didn't know where I was.  I kind of followed the shore as best as I could see and decided I would turn around and return to the previous anchorage. 

As the storm intensified, it got darker and waves higher and I finally had to abandon my phone and tablet as I threw them inside the cabin to keep them out of the salt water which I knew would destroy them.  I was continuing to head towards the direction I thought might be where I wanted to return to but couldn't see enough to know for sure I was concerned the boat may be taking on water and I knew I needed to get the bilge pump running to make sure it wasn't collecting water inside.  I made a very quick and scary move to leave the wheel and run down the ladder to turn on the pump and couldn't see a think.  I felt around and pushed a button and not knowing until later that it was the correct one for the pump.

Well when it couldn't get any worse, THE storm came across the sky with a vengeance, and it became as dark as night and the wind got worse, the temperature dropped 20 degrees, the waves got worse and I couldn't see much of anything.  To top it off, it started raining with a vengeance and at that point, nothing was going to be dry including my log book and other things and fortunately my phone and tablet were safe and dry as possible.    I called for help but didn't know where I was and was just hanging of the wheel when a white boat came towards me from behind and didn't call on the radio but yelled at me, "Follow Me".  I did just that, not knowing anything else to do but do so but soon I lost my visual of his boat but did see a light and then the harbor master called on my radio and directed me in to his harbor on the radio.  That mysterious person and boat kept going and never stopped, they said he just kept going up the river.  The harbor master helped me tie up, I was as wet as if I'd been in the ocean and he just said, get inside your boat and get dry and relax after he made sure I was ok.  I asked how long I could stay and he said as long as I wanted, all night or longer if need be.  What a relief it was to be in a sheltered area, safe and the boat tied up securely.  No one knew who that man in the white boat was or where he went after he passed the dock but he was my "savior" for that night. 

The next morning the storm had mostly passed over after raining all night and even thought I was still a bit shaken, I headed south across the Jeckyll Sound in relative calm waters on my way.  The bad thing about that sound is that the route actually takes you into the Atlantic ocean just to get to the next part of the waterway and in a storm, you are in the ocean storm where the waves and winds are greatly exacerbated.

I spent a quiet evening and night in an anchorage down the waterway getting closer to my goal of Jacksonville.

No pictures to show, too busy keeping the boat afloat!