We stopped at Awendaw Creek
between Georgetown and Charleston South Carolina. The ICW is a waterway made up of various
rivers, smaller rivers called creeks, man-made ditches connecting other
waterways, bays, etc that is marked, bouyed and sometimes (not often enough)
dredged out to a controlling low mean tide depth of maybe 6 feet (although
silting makes finding that "guaranteed" 6' sometimes
interesting. We managed to keep water
all the way under us into Charleston.
This stretch of the ICW was just beautiful, a very delta type wetlands with grass stretches with multiple creeks crisscrossing the ICW route and very few trees for miles, lots of birds, dolphins and apparently some alligators that we have yet to see. Our anchorage at Awendaw Creek was lovely, shared with about 7 other sailboats. The Awendaw Creek connects the ICW route to a very shallow inlet to the ocean proper and we were looking at the Atlantic while at anchor.
OK, this inukshuk thing is getting out of hand, containers stacked on a river barge!
The next day we rode the
tide into Charleston and the ICW became more and more developed until we
entered Charleston Harbor proper. A
number of Coast Guard ships monitor the harbor and we saw 2 cruise ships and
passed Fort Sumpter. We saw lots of
dolphins (including some small young ones.)
The anchorage is across from the municipal marina and alot of very large
motor and sail yachts are slipped there.
By large I mean huge. However,
the dinghy dock is located there and while they want $5 per day no one monitors
the dock so you can assume we have done the right thing. River has a big current and we swing 4 times
a day.
We have walked around
historic Charleston, the french quarter, King St., the Market etc and have seen
the horse drawn tourist carriages. The
area has a different feel and flavour but there is no mistaking it is
touristy. Laundry today and hopefully
will get internet at a coffee shop to edit and post pics for last report. Have run into old friends (Nauticus and Lance
L'Eau, making new acquaintances on Sea Change & Taia) - and everyday the
boats change. Tonight have a concert at
the Circular Congregational Church (Sounds of Charleston From Gospel to
Gershwin covering slave music, civil war music, gospel, jazz, Gershwin from
Porgy & Bess) which is a beautiful and historic building. The song Amazing Grace was inspired by a
sermon the slave ship Captain John Newton heard here. Edi's b-day tomorrow so this
is a night out with dinner before.We pushed on from Charleston thru lower South Carolina and into Georgia. Georgia tides are much bigger, the water rising and falling 7-9 feet so when you anchor, you must allow for that and put out a greater "scope" or length of chain. Georgia also has the worst shoaling areas of the ICW. We plowed mud coming thru "Hell Gate" from the vernon river to the ogeechee river for about 200'.
We stayed the day and another at
Crescent River as the winds upped to about 25++ knots, made for a sleepless
night with the very strong tide in and out also operating on the boat - wild
that even with that wind, the tide is stronger on the boat until it gets closer
to slack. I am using the garmin handheld
to track boat's movements at anchor (in addition to plotting way points on the
E80 for boat positions) and I took a picture - looks like a kid on a sugar high
on an etch-o-sketch! The anchor held
well but we did crazy back and forths and circles all night long, I'll post the
pic it is pretty funny. We took the
"free day" to change the engine and transmission oils, checked the
alt belt and the raw water strainer and got caught up on season 6 of Sons of
Anarchy.
The next section of the ICW
Georgia has some very shoaled areas that are alerts and warnings are to only go
at high or rising 2 thirds tide for the STM 650-660 Little Mud R and also
STM678-686 Jekyll Island. We left
Crescent River timing to cross Little
Mud R at mid rising tide and got passed right at the top of the stretch by
"Silver Six" m/y - I noticed his home port was St Simon's Island GA -
a local! I revd up and rode his
"six" all the way - a little local knowledge is a good thing here and
there and here was one of those. Anchored at Jove Creek off Mackay River
STM671, only us and the crab pots.
We
got through again time the rising tide thru the next problem areas and in fact
got passed by a Carnival Cruise lines river cruiser with a 7 foot draft -
follow him - an expert and a 2 foot lower draft!!
Just when the tug and barge traffic started to slow down, the shrimpers come out! These guys have dismasted sailboats that got in the way!
Yes we are still tripping -
can't believe it's 3 months. Getting
colder again, getting condensation, running diesel heater in mornings and
before bed. We are enjoying the ICW
alot, yes a little monotenous(sp?) by the end of certain segments but really
the ICW is very varied so it is holding our interest. We are trying not to get bogged down in
cities and towns - we blew a few months budget in Annapolis - and being back on
the boat is very relaxing. Towns and
cities are money vacuums! Things are mostly working - some glitches but nothing
major. The weather has been just great
so that has probably contributed to the overall level of enjoyment and makes
everything so much easier.
We are anxious to get south
- we really are looking forward to slowing some in the Bahamas and gunkholing
with multiple days in one anchorage. We
are hoping to jump early December. The
ICW has been great and there has been a lot to see but this is not our main
priority. So we are seeing some,
provisioning and dieseling up as needed etc. and taking some time off here and
there as needed. We had thought of going
to Savannah but both of us felt that we didn't want to spend the extra 16 miles
round trip! Charleston was great but we
only stayed 2 full days getting laundry done in there too. Nice town, we walked a fair bit but tried not
to be too touristy and saved our money. We are travelling like we will be back
- maybe not as frequently as Larry Webb was but we'll do this more than once up
and down. Really the ICW has been
enjoyable but it is a travelling route to another area - Bahamas and on.
We've met alot of boats,
exchange some emails, but when we are in an anchorage it is not our priority
now to drop the dinghy and do drinks - we and most seem to be focused on
racking the miles under the hull.
Different of course in Oriental, Georgetown, Charleston etc. We are not travelling in lock step with any
one - we seem to be slower anyhow than most.
Makes for some conversations tho - when we get passed 3 days in a row by
the same boat we joke if we are the turtle and they the rabbit! We seem to start a bit earlier and finish a
bit later but that is our choice.
Finally made shrimps -
bought a pound in Georgetown and edi sauteed them with garlic and olive oil -
was good! We have also become
Sodastreamers. Cost is about the same as
regular pops but much less room required and don't have to lug the cases - and
also of course less garbage. The diet
coke is actually almost a doppleganger for "the real thing".
The weather got noticeably
better when we got to Florida, the ICW got more water in it and the humidity
picked up. Yay! More bridges to time for openings but it is
not really bad.
Getting into Cumberland Sound, heading past the end of Georgia and pointing to FLorida we passed the Kings Bay Submarine base and its security boats. 
We spent 3 nights on a
mooring ball in St Augustine. The town
is very nice and the price of the municipally run marina was excellent at $21 /
day with fantastic facilities and great services. Bridge of Lions just before the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. 
St Augustine's City Hall
We got a huge shopping done there, loaded up
all our provisions for the Bahamas for about 6 months and will just need to
"top up" in Miami in 10 - 14 days before we leave with as much fruit,
veg, meats etc as we can - and more beer!
Have loaded up a 8 month supplly of sodastream pop syrup and CO2.
Laundry was done, filled diesel, water,
pumpout etc. Again will top up before leave Miami all liquids and get another
laundry in. We went out for dinner with Manon and Alain (Nauticus) and walked
the "old town." Went to A1A
Brewery that is a microbrewery pub on premises, very nice and we went to JP Henleys another pub style
place that has 70 beers on tap and over 200 diffent types of bottles
beers. Wow, we played the trivia game
with the locals and might have done better if we knew anything about NFL
football. No questions regarding the
Argonauts. Didn't get thru all the
different brews but made a valiant effort.
Saw breaching (jumping out
of the water) dolphins today - they do this to herd fish and direct the fish to
other dolpins in the pod (a group of dolphins is called a
"pod".) We also saw a manatee
(they are big cow-like creatures that eat seagrass and are very slow and are
endangered as they do not do well when hit by speed boats)today right in front
of the boat. I immediately put the boat
in neutral so if we hit it (we go slow so not likely) there was no possibility
of the propellor stricking it. Very
cool, first time either of us has seen one.
Lots of birds, pelicans, egrets, ossilets, ibises etc.
We will make for Cocoa Beach
area or Indian Harbour area tomorrow - how far we go all depends on the
tide. We mostly somehow rode the tide
all day long which madeup for us sleeping in today - nothing to do with JP
Henley's, honest. I still can't figure
out sometimes how or why the tide is moving a current the way it does. We assume everyone is well as we haven't
heard to the contrary.
Love and hugs and Kisses to Amy Megan
Hannah Thomas Charlie Grace
1789.9 Nautical Miles /
2059.5 statute miles / 3295 kilometers
November 19, 2013
Blair & Edi out
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