This photo of us was taken today by an anchor and dock mate we've had the last several days, both of us traveling south. We took their photo as well and exchanged. It's rare to get photos of us while under way! Thanks Wade and Don!
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| Lockwood Folly inlet |
We left the marina about 7:15 AM, as we are hoping to make 2 short days we had on the way north into 1 not too long of a day going south. Bucksport is on the Waccamaw River just south of Myrtle Beach. This means that we will go through the areas of Lockwood Folly and Shallotte that are well known for swift currents and shoaling, but we are going on a favorable tide which is great.
The weekend and 4th of July revelers were out early staking out a spot on the sand bar by the inlets.
Little River inlet area by Calabash was busy, busy with small boat traffic, making us crazy. At the risk of making me sound like an old person....
... the jet skiers and small boats pulling children and then stopping directly in front of us was insane. Don't they know that we are a big heavy boat that just can't get out of their way when they are in our only channel? (Ok, kids, I sound like your grandpa and grandmas!)
We also went through the legendary Rock Pile. It’s about a 3 mile stretch of the ICW with rock ledges jutting from the sides. It’s high tide today as we go south and it’s deceiving because you can’t see most of them.
When we traveled north, it was low tide and the channel appeared narrower but you could see the rocks. Above you can see some of the rock ledges that are visible at high tide and you can see how close to the boats they are. We just stayed in the middle with the smaller local traffic going around us. We just hope no one larger than us is going north at the same time. Captain B radioed a Securite call for large traffic and no one answered as well as no AIS showed up on the computer. All is well. It’s actually a beautiful stretch with fine great homes.
Along the way, there is still evidence of the broken docks from the storms the last couple of years and lots of new and repaired docks going in. We've met people that are taking their boats south now because they got caught up north too late and couldn't get home with the storms.
After the Rock Pile area which is around North Myrtle Beach, the small boat traffic got even crazier, as you can see. We had to really watch them because they were not watching us.
Bella on duty watching Socaste Swing Bridge open.
We anchored at 6:30 behind Butler Island just in sight of the Ocean Highway Bridge north of Georgetown. This gives us a good start to get to Charleston tomorrow. We made it farther today than we anticipated with some good tide travel (kind of like time travel when you are on a boat) so we hope to make it to the Charleston harbor tomorrow and take the boat offshore to do so. Will check waves and weather one more time in the morning and have drug laced peanut butter and Relief Band ready.
Unfortunately, as we showered and getting ready to cook up some fresh grouper, we discovered a water pump issue. Bruce is not sure if he can repair it here or not. We are so close to home! We were hoping to stop off at Botany Bay Beach for the 4th of July and then go home the next day but we can't live without boat water for that long. I have to shower. We have plenty of drinking water so all good there.
Miles today: 87
Miles total. 1285
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