South Carolina

4/11/18:  It would be a 60 mile day, with no real issues.  Yippee!  We were up and atum and ready to go before 8:00.  And my phone said it was 39 degrees outside.  Seriously?!  Good grief, it needs to warm up already!!  Captain started out driving from upstairs for the best visibility, although all of the windows were soaked with dew inside and out.   As soon as we were out of the marina basin and into the ICW, we headed downstairs.  The chief cook Karen hadn’t even made coffee yet!  But that is easy to fix while underway.  We actually use a single serve Keurig, which works out great for us.  And we have a huge pack of mini cinnamon rolls from our trip to Costco a few days ago.😋

Our scenery keeps improving!  In Georgetown, we learned about how prevailiant the rice crop was prior to the 1900’s in this area.  Well, there is still a whole lotta acreage of abandoned rice fields here along the Waccamaw River.  We wondered if there are gators in these here waters.  Captain went down to the engine room to check in with Engineering, and found that the water flowing through the engines was less than 60 degrees.  That seems chilly for gators.  So I looked it up.  Shore-nuff, there be gators in these waters, but they’re probably a little chilly today.

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4/10/18:  This was a short travel day – only 28 miles to Georgetown from McClellanville.  No crazy shallow shoaly spots to plan around.  Tides were not a big concern.  Although, if we had planned a little better, we might have had the tide working with us instead of against us all day!  We fought a 1-2 knot tide the whole way.  It was COLD again – the high today was only 57 degrees.  So as soon as we were out of the creek and into the ICW, we headed downstairs to the warm and dry comforts of our living quarters.  Some people might think that two helms are not necessary.  And for a long time, Captain refused to drive from down here.  But on this long journey, we both are thankful for the dry and warm place to be!  He still docks and undocks (good word, right?😉) from the flybridge for better visibility.

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4/9/18:  McClellanville is …  where we are!  It is a tiny town with a population of just over 1000 people.  It is a fishing/shrimping village, with not much town, but they do have fresh seafood!

We woke up to rain.  Not blowing nasty hard rain – just drizzly get-you-nice-and-wet rain – like Seattle gets.  Our journey today started around 10:00.  It was another day that had to be timed with the tides.  High tide was only going to give us an additional four feet today around 4:00pm, and we would need it about 4 hours after departing the marina.  (That’s a lot of 4’s in one sentence!).

We cast off our lines, with Captain at the upper helm for better visibility getting out of the marina.  Here is a look back at Charleston, as it appears if you were arriving from the ocean.  In fact, a Carnival ship was in port!  These buildings/homes are absolutely stunning to see up close along the battery (sea wall).

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4/7 & 8/18:  We weren’t sure when the rain would start, but we knew it was coming.  Swab Kenny wanted to wash down the boat, but was hoping the rain would do it for him.  We have found with the various swabs that we’ve had on board in the past, that they will work and do chores if needed, but mostly they’re pretty good at drinking beer.  😋🍺. In the meantime, Louise (that’s long been the name of our housekeeper …me) got out the cleaning stuff and spiffed up the bathrooms, while Kenny cleaned the upholstery in the salon.  Then R2D2 (our little mini shop vac) got out of his cubby and vacuumed all the carpets (with some help from Louise).  I changed the sheets on the bed…. but then, I didn’t want to walk the mile long dock to the laundry station.  Usually I just take them off, wash them, and put them back on, but today I’m glad I brought more than one set along.  I’ll get around to doing laundry at a more convenient (read as – short dock walk) location.
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4/6/18:  We stopped at Church Creek yesterday, because we want our arrival in Charleston to be timed with slack tide – which would be at about 1:15pm today (Friday).  Navigator Me also discovered that just a mile or so prior to Charleston,  is Elliott Cut.  This is a very narrow channel with the potential for very swift current.  The current can run up to 5 knots with rock walls on both sides of the channel!  Holy tidewater, Batman!  We definitely want to be there at slack tide.  Since it is close to Charleston, slack for both places will be timed together, which is great!

We had a leisurely morning watching dolphin swim around the area.  Hopefully this little video works – I was able to capture a little glimpse of them on camera – including hearing them breathe.  (Kinda hard to hear through the breeze on the speaker, though.)

click on the link:

http://lattitudetravel.com/travelblog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/F450AFF1-A3D0-4C9C-8A44-2EF3CA9FDFA8.mov

Charleston dolphin

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4/5/18:  We had three areas of interest to deal with today.  They were all discussed at docktails the last couple of nights, including some insight from a couple of locals.  The biggest concern is 40 miles away, called Dawho River.  (They call everything around here a river.  I guess its for lack of any better term.  In my learnins, a river runs one way.  The “rivers” around here run both ways because they are tidal.). Anyway, Dawho is a challenge with shallow water and a narrow channel that you have to S curve your way through.  It shows only 2 feet of water at low tide on the charts… How can that be a navigatable waterway?   But before we get there, we have Ashepoo Cut in 19 miles, Watts Cut in another 13 miles, then Dawho 10 miles from there.  Along with all of this, we are headed to Charleston.  The City marina where we have reservations, is on a ‘river’ that has extreme current.  Geeze.  Again?  Another one?  They advise arrival be timed with slack tide.  We can’t leave Beaufort at sunrise and get to Charleston for slack tide.  So Navigator Karen picked a spot to anchor about 18 miles prior to Charleston. Read more →

4/3/18:  I woke up to “Happy Birthday to you”!  Awe, thanks Captain!  :). We weren’t in a big giant hurry today, since high tide would be around 11:30.  Any thin water spots would be easy with that timing.  It’s my birthday, and the sun is shining!  No fog today!  We had lots of dew on everything again.  Captain came up with a great idea for the windows.  Since the dew is so heavy, just put a squeegee on the end of a pole and squeege all the water off.  It worked great!  We got all squeegeed up, untied the lines, and away we went!  We had to weave in and around with the rivers and soon crossed the Savannah river and entered into South Carolina.  Woo-Hoo!  State number 3 in just 3 weeks. Read more →