"Last Leg of the ICW trip 2001-2002" White Stone Travelogue by grandmaR

We left the slip at 6:45. Bob wanted to get to Windmill Point tonight, and I was afraid it was too far. It was a fairly uneventful trip of 50.5 nm. I had to call the marina on the phone because they weren't answering the radio, and sometimes they don't answer the phone either The tide was at +0.9 ft (nearly high) when we went in, and the depth alarm made a lot of noise showing a channel of 5.3 ft. We had only about 5.0 ft at low tide in the slip so we were on the bottom. This was another problem that I had seen with going to this place. (They said that they hadn't yet dredged the channel this year). This was a resort and conference center, and the restaurant wasn't yet open for the summer season.

Chart showing track of April 17, 2002 and spider

Unfortunately high tide was going to be at about 0230 am, and we were afraid that we were not going to be able to get out of the channel in the morning. In the afternoon, Bob spotted an otter, who went up onto the beach by the entrance channel and gave himself a sand bath (photo in Intro). The other problem with the entrance - it was a sand bottom, not a nice soft mud that we could push through. The docks were very uneven, some boards were higher than others and you had to watch carefully to avoid tripping. The marina has washers and showers and cable at some docks. The convention center, has golf, tennis, and in the summer a restaurant and pool.
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We got up and got underway at 5:30 am - barely light. The tide was at 0.8 ft. We did get out the channel (followed by 2 crab pot boats).