Jekyll Island to Isle of Hope via one anchorage and Kilkenny Creek

The first photo is the dock at Kilkenny Marina. The second photo is the old village hotel at Kekyll Island.

We got a fairly early start for us, underway from Jekyll Island by about 7:40. The winds were light and we had a good beginning. The forecast was for 15 to 20 miles per hour from the NE. We figured this would not be too bad in the ICW. Before long Muriel said she was seeing gusts to 49 mph on our anemometer. Crossing the sounds was not nearly as bad as I thought it might be with that much wind. We intended to anchor in Back River but when we got there we found virtually no protection from the NE winds and the water was too deep to anchor where there was slight protection. We decided to move on and look at a couple of other possibilities further along the way. We selected New Teakettle Creek. The water depth is better for anchoring and the wind gets very little fetch to produce waves however the wind does keep the boats in constant motion dancing before the wind. This is Easter and Muriel has prepared ham and potato salad. We are looking forward to dinner.
We have reservations at marinas for the next couple of nights because the forecast is for thunderstorms Monday evening and 60% chance of them continuing into Tuesday. Hopefully we will be able to get into a marina tomorrow before the weather turns bad.
We got underway Monday at 7:30 to try to get passed the two inlets and on to the marina before the weather turns too bad. The wind was already coming into Sapello Sound off the ocean by the time we ran down the sound. We had three to four foot waves in the sound on our bow. We were able to get into the lee of the north side of the inlet before we had to turn broadside to the waves. This worked well for us. In St Catherine’s Sound the wind was not nearly so strong but we still had some fairly large waves coming in from the ocean. From there we had a short run up a narrow channel to get to Kilkenny Marina. Shortly after we got secured at the marina, about 12:30, the wind started to pickup and a little after that we had tornado watch issued for this area. There is a line of heavy rain on the GPS weather radar moving toward us. Glad we are in the marina, even though it is not much of a marina.
The tornado watch became a tornado warning and the wind blew and the lightning popped and it rain hard for a while then steadily for several hours. On Tuesday morning the weather was still forecasting a chance of more rain and T-storms but it looked pretty good so we took off at 9:00 to arrive at Hell Gate with a favorable tide. This worked for us but we had to idle along for an hour to arrive at Isle of Hope near high tide so we could approach the dock for a starboard tie. This is a beautiful facility. We have signed up for the courtesy car to make the inevetable Wll-Mart run. It has been a few weeks since we have been to a Wall-Mart. Tomorrow we plan to ride the bus into Savannah and spend the day touring the City.