Originally posted at www.svsweetescape.com
We woke up Sunday morning happily floating in 9 1/2 feet of water. It was warm and sunny that day, something we haven’t had a lot of lately. We pulled the anchor up and headed out, bound for an anchorage up Bull Creek off the Wacamaw River, some 40 miles to the south along the ICW.
We motored a little over five miles before we encountered two bridges. The first was the Cherry Grove Bridge, a fixed bridge with a charted vertical clearance value of 65 feet and then the Little River Swing Bridge immediately south. Upon approaching the fixed bridge we noted that there were no tide boards on the bridge. We were just beyond high tide and the clearance looked like it was going to be pretty close. Brian called the operator of the nearby swing bridge to enquire about the clearance. The bridge tender said that the clearance was 65 feet at low tide and indicated that since they have four foot tides the clearance at high tide could be as little as 59 feet. Based on that there was no way we were going to attempt that bridge at almost high tide.
So, we turned the boat around and attempted to call a marina just to the north of the bridge on the VHF to see if we could pull up to their dock for a couple hours while we waited for the tide to fall. No response. Call again. No response. Then another boat called us to tell us that the marina is closed on Sundays. Perfect. We pulled up to their fuel dock and tied up for three hours before attempting the bridge.
Once again, three hours of waiting put a dent in our travel time and so we elected to stop for the night at the Barefoot Marina in North Myrtle Beach about ten miles to the south. This is a beautiful marina in a beautiful area. We arrived there, got Sweet Escape tied up and walked over to a very nice shopping plaza for dinner where we ate at a Johnny Rockets. Although we got caught in the rain on the way back it was a nice way to spend the evening.
On Monday morning we pumped out and then left the marina headed south for Thoroughfare Creek, a remote, wooded but pretty anchorage about 45 miles to the south just off the Wacamaw River. We ended up staying two nights there because of rain on Tuesday. We spent Tuesday trying to keep the boat warm. We cooked food and baked bread, any excuse to turn the oven on and other than that we were pretty lazy.
Wednesday, we dressed up like Eskimos once again and headed out. We ran 45 miles to an anchorage at Awendaw Creek. This was another remote anchorage surrounded for miles around by marsh. It looked like we were anchored in the middle of a wheat field. While en route there we came upon a pod of playful dolphins. It was like we were at Sea World, dolphins leaping clear out of the water, swimming alongside the boat and just being very friendly. Neither one of us had ever seen dolphins jumping like that in the wild. We were able to get some photos which we will post on our albums page.
On Thursday we headed out to Charleston where we are staying at the Charleston Harbor Marina. We had planned to stay at City Marina where we had our life raft shipped along with some mail, but the marina was full and so tomorrow we have to figure out how to get over there and collect our stuff.
This evening we took the free shuttle from the marina to the downtown area. We had dinner and walked around the historic downtown section of Charleston. This is a very pretty area and well worth a visit.
Adjacent to the marina is the World War II era aircraft carrier Yorktown. The Yorktown is permanently moored here as a floating museum. Tomorrow, Marquette University will play the Ohio State men’s basketball team on the deck of the carrier. Consequently, the area is loaded with people from Wisconsin here for the game. We have met several already.
We will spend two nights here at this marina and beyond that we have not decided what we will do. Depending on the weather, we may anchor out in Charleston for a couple of additional nights in order to see the rest of the city before continuing our journey south. We’ll see.
Check our albums page for photos from this time period.
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