Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
HK wrote:
Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
HK wrote:
Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
news The area in question is frequented by tugs and barges. They manage to
transit the ICW without serious issues.

The boaters who run into trouble typically are on large cruisers
heading
for the sun.


I have some really good videos of us passing "close to" some
quarter-mile
long barges in the ICW. Interesting and tense, to say the
least. If I
can figure out how to post some of them on my website I will try.

On the other hand, those tugs and barges tend to dredge their own
channel
while making the transit unlike a smaller boat like the Navigator.
Where
they can pass, I might run aground.

Eisboch



The barges are interesting, especially in some of the tight ICW
turns...

I've made the "jump" from the Golden Isles to St. Augustine about a
dozen times, in the ditch and out in the ocean. Ran my 19-foot Sea
Pro up to St. Simons Island once on its bottom, mostly inside. Great
fishing along the ICW and in its creeks. St. Simons was a popular
destination. Nice beaches, good eats, still have a couple of
tee-shirts leftover from my last trip there.

So Harry, which way is better, to run the outside in good weather or
to contend with the barges on the ICW?



Why would you care? You're not going to encounter the ocean or the
barges.

For what it is worth, the ICW run is far more interesting visually.

Well thanks for your input. I am really surprised that you made the
"jump" dozens of times, since you have always said you don't like taking
long trips in the boat, and you would prefer to drive or fly somewhere
and then rent a boat, than to make a slow trip in a boat. I guess you
have changed your mind since you made the trip "dozens" of times.

I am surprised that this is the first time you mentioned all of these
many trips to St. Simons and area, it really is a nice place both
fishing in the area and on land.



D'oh. It isn't that long a trip, about 60 miles from Mayport to St.
Simons by boat, less than two hours on a good day, and another hour from
St. Augustine. I probably fished 70% of the creeks between the St. Johns
River and Nassau Sound along the ICE, and would many times head farther
north to catch different tides.

You really don't know much about coastal boating or in fact any sort of
boating. It shows.