St. Johns Yacht Harbor

Again we get up at 6:30 to get ready to leave. We need to pumpout and get fuel. But leaving our dock is complicated by the wind now out of the east pressing the boat against the dock. We use a technique called warping, driving the boat forward with just the bow line on a dock cleat to kick the stern out as the rounded bow rocks against the dock. With the back end of the boat now 45 degrees off the dock I quickly put the boat in fast reverse and Linda tosses the bow line off the dock cleat as we quickly back out before the wind can push us back into the dock. I am successful on the second attempt. It definitely takes some commitment to power out this way and I do have commitment issues.

The weather sucks so much forecasting is "?"

Heading west from here we travel through another of the notorious shallow areas north of Isle of Palms. Our first time through here 5 years ago, was near low tide and we barely cleared through, passing a number of boats aground. Had depth readings that matched our keel depth. This area has been dredged, but it fills back in. Today we will be going through on a rising tide, half way to high tide. Don’t expect any problems and don’t have any. At the end of Isle of Palms is the Ben Sawyer swing bridge that first opens at 9:30 AM after morning commuter traffic shutdown. This time of day it opens on demand and since there has been little boat traffic it quickly opens for just us.

Passing Fort Sumter

We are soon in Charleston Harbor and with such a stinky day there is no pleasure boat traffic and fortunately no commercial traffic to worry about. The winds are suppose to build to 25-30 mph with gusts to 40 in the afternoon, so we pass on staying in Charleston harbor. St. John’s Yacht Harbor is about 5 miles west of Charleston and we plan to take an Uber tomorrow back into town.




We get in to St. Johns around 12:30. After lunch I tackle another project that I have be procrastinating on, installing a new outlet in our head. Catalina’s original one interferes with opening our toilet seat and you can not leave anything plugged in and use the toilet at the same time, rather stupid design. As with most boat projects getting out the tools and cleanup took up half of the time to complete the project.

I was initially concerned that when they had us dock, bow in, to the current at the time, facing south, the wind would be blowing hard on our stern later.  Fortunately we are almost all the way down the fairway between the docks so the outer boats are blocking much of the wind and waves.

Isle of Palms, Fog

 
Planned to leave this morning around 9:00 AM, but we woke up to dense fog at 6:30. We decide to have breakfast at the Breakfast/Lunch place at the marina. Lunch yesterday was very good, breakfast not so much. After breakfast we walk across the Island to the beach to give the fog sometime to lift. 

Fine day at the Beach

What are we smiling about ?

We get back around 9:00 and the fog is still quite dense. I decide to stay another day, I don't feel like negotiating Charleston harbor in this soup with the large car carrier and container ships that come and go.


Linda does some laundry and I work on a few things. We later go for a long walk on the beach while watching the weather radar on my phone so we can get back just before the next series of rain showers roll through. Had a late lunch at the Morgan Creek Grill next to our dock and head back to the boat as the rain starts back up. We watch a Netflix's movie from one of Linda’s favorite books “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, excellent movie.

Isle of Palms

The "crew" comfortably out of the rain

Cloudy, dreary morning when we wake up and that was the best part of the day. We leave early to get to Isle of Palms marina before it is suppose to start raining. We start getting occasional light showers and then start getting heavier rain. I finally have to put on my foul weather jacket and pants. I don't have the aft vinyl enclosure panels in and with the wind on our back the rain is landing on mine. I don't like having the cockpit fully enclosed when we are moving otherwise the clear vinyl will fog up on the inside.

We go through McClellanville one of the ICW trouble areas. We can probably not get through here at low tide any more, but today we are nearing high tide giving us an extra 5 feet of clearance. Last time we got through here at low tide and literally plowed our way through the soft mud bottom.

Sometimes I think I have too much information

Interesting trawler passing us

We arrive at Isle of Palms marina between rain showers around noontime. We had lunch at a breakfast/lunch place at the marina and split an excellent shrimp Po Boy. It rains most of the afternoon and evening. The main restaurant at the Marina is closed on Mondays, so I make a pizza on the boat. Not too often I am the one to actually make dinner. But I do let Linda wash the dishes.

South Santee

Cool night at Thoroughfare Creek, 40 degrees in the morning.  I get up and turn on our "Little Buddy" heater. We sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast, pancakes. Since we have lots of rain in the forecast, two days away, we decide to move on to make it to Isle of Palms, near Charleston, before the bad weather. We leave around 11:30. Being in a sandy area the anchor comes up clean and we get moving fast. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes or more to get the anchor chain clean of mud.

A cool day with some sun, but with the wind on our back we are fairly warm in the cockpit. We drop anchor in one of our favorite places the South Santee River. Very remote area surrounded by old rice growing areas. There is one trawler there ahead of us, interestingly he is anchored exactly on the spot we anchored last time we were here. 

 

Panorama of the South Santee River

Thoroughfare Creek

Being a Saturday, Enterprise does not open until nine, so we get up early and get some chores done, before returning the car. I wind up assisting a number of boats that are leaving that need a little help because of the wind. We get back and are on our way around 9:30. This late we don’t see any other boats and the three draw bridges we go through only open for us. The day is rather cool and we are back to fleece and long pants.

After our first swing Bridge, immediately after leaving the Marina, we enter the "Rock Pile".  This area on the ICW in South Carolina has rock ledges that are exposed at low tide and makes the ICW here quite narrow. We listen to radio traffic and check AIS for commercial ships like barges that maybe be entering the "Rock Pile" from the other end. When they dug the ICW here they unexpectedly found this area of rock, so to save money they removed as little as possible.  It is actually safer to go through here at low tide, because the ledges are just lurking underwater on the sides. Many boaters have hit the ledges thinking they had room to move over for passing boats.

Entering the Rock Pile

 

The Rock Pile

High water line, middle of windows

Floating docks hung up on top of pilings

Barefoot Landing Bridge

Past Myrtle Beach we motor south on the Waccamaw River past swamps and old rice plantation areas.
 

Dark line of the high water mark from Florence

By late afternoon, 4:00 PM we reach a new to us anchorage that caught my attention last time through “Thoroughfare Creek”, next to Sand Island a state wildlife refuge with a large sand dune along the side of the creek, formed when the ocean shore was here, miles inland. 

Thoroughtfare Creek of the Waccamaw River

Homes on the canal

Sandy Island is bounded on the east by the Waccamaw River and on the west by the Pee Dee River and has no land connection or bridge to the mainland. Rice plantation land was bought by freed slaves and an isolated community has lived there ever since. There is a School Boat that takes children to the mainland to school each day.

Some interesting history on Sandy Island

https://www.southstrandnews.com/news/saving-sandy-island-a-big-piece-of-the-waccamaw-national/article_5403ec00-4339-11e8-91fd-3f7550783448.html

https://knowitall.org/video/saving-sandy-island-part-1-history


There is a strong current here and the anchor sets very quickly. I put the dinghy down and we head to shore to explore the dunes. Very pretty and popular spot, but this time of year we have it all to ourselves.

Myrtle Beach Yacht Club, Day 3

We get up early and have breakfast out and do some more food shopping for some hard to find items. In the afternoon Linda finishes cataloging all our food and storage locations. Even though our boat is 36 feet, it can be hard to find things when they are packed away behind other things. Knowing exactly where everything is, is a big time saver. I do some more work on our clear vinyl enclosure panels, making roll up straps that snap on.

Antares

While working on them I see Lenard and Lynnea Rosner “Antares” walking down the dock towards us. They are Lake Champlain sailors from the Lake Champlain Yacht Club who left three weeks after us, but have been gaining on us until today. We have a nice conversation with them. They have done this trip many times over the last 30 years or so and we have run into them on both our previous trips to the Bahamas. I have been following her Blog, so was expecting to see them soon.

Linda gets a notice from UPS that her package had been delivered so we quickly head out to pick it up, but it is too late to return the car to Enterprise. On the way back to the boat we make one stop to Harbor Freight to pick up a tool that I need for one of my projects.

Myrtle Beach Yacht Club, Day 2

Linda and I work on a couple things on the boat in the morning, before Enterprise comes and picks us up. Once we have the car we head to a number of stores to fulfill our shopping list. Then that evening we drive to Myrtle Beach to go out to dinner with Linda’s niece, Charla and her son Mateo and his girl friend Jess. Since Mateo and Jess are vegans we go to a Vietnamese restaurant they like and Linda and I go vegan for the evening and have a very good dinner.

Linda had ordered some medicine to be delivered to Charla’s house and paid extra for two day delivery. Unfortunately Caremark CVS doesn’t understand the concept of two day delivery and screws up the order forcing us to stay one more day.Linda demands a refund for this "service".