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Showers and thunderstorms, in the morning will give way to lots of sunshine late. Windy. Potential for severe thunderstorms. Morning high of 69F with temps falling sharply to near 45. Winds WNW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Clear skies. Hard freeze expected. Low 28F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.

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A barge, a crane and a tugboat.

That is about all the distraction you will find these days on the water between Jekyll and St. Simons islands, where not long ago a gargantuan spectacle of ship's wreckage and towering steel machinery dominated this resort's waterscape.

The two-year salvage of the shipwrecked Golden Ray has come down to the retrieval of a pile of aggregate rocks from the seabed of the St. Simons Sound. A substantially large pile of rocks.

The rocks were dropped in the sound shortly after the 656-foot-long Golden Ray overturned on Sept. 8, 2019, while heading to sea with a cargo of 4,161 vehicles.

In October 2019, salvors placed 6,000 tons of aggregate rock on the sandbar around the shipwreck's sunken port side, an effort to prevent erosion and scouring that could have destabilized the hull in the sound's swift-moving tidal currents. The rocks, plus numerous concrete submar mats, helped stabilize the half-submerged shipwreck during its removal.

The 255-foot-tall VB 10,000 crane vessel straddled the shipwreck with its twin hulls, powering a huge cutting chain that tore the Golden Ray into eight sections for removal.

The VB 10,000 hoisted the final section of the shipwreck onto a barge for removal from the sound in late October 2021.

Earlier this year, workers finished dismantling the 1-mile-perimeter environmental protection barrier (EPB) that once surrounded the salvage site with oil retention boom and mesh netting. Crews and cranes plucked nearly 800 loose vehicles from inside the EPB prior to its dismantling.

Crews have been working to remove the heavy submar mats and approximately 6,000 tons of aggregate rocks since January. This final project in the salvage operation is approximately halfway to completion, said Tyler Jones, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The crane controls a clamshell basket at the end of a long, sturdy guideline. It is bringing up the aggregate rock one large scoopful at a time.

The rock is loaded onto barges for transport offshore to enhance artificial reefs managed by the DNR, Jones said. Four barge loads of rock and submar mats were placed around what is identified as Reef F on Feb. 10 and again on Feb. 26.

Crews distributed the rock on the northeast side of Reef F, clustered tightly in structures roughly 12 feet high, Jones said.

"This will provide excellent fish habitat," he said.

Planners expect to acquire another four barge loads of rock and submar mats from what remains. This material will be placed in a similar grouping on Reef A.

When it is completed, those interested can find the coordinates for the reef enhancements at: www.CoastalGaDNR.org/HERU.

Once this project is completed, the salvage of the shipwreck Golden Ray will be complete.

Unified Command, the project's environmental overseers that consisted of the U.S. Coast Guard, the state DNR and Gallagher Marine Systems, officially dissolved on Feb. 10, 2022, Jones said.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

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Latham Saddler believes he is the most qualified candidate seeking the Georgia Republican Party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, especially with what’s unfolding in Ukraine.

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Nancy Matthews didn’t need to be in the room on Thursday to provide the class of prekindergarten students at FACES with a captivating reading experience.

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