We both slept well in the calm anchorage. I had the alarm set for 5:50am which would give us a little time to get the boat going by 6:15 - first light. No problems as I completed my morning engine checks and we were underway as soon as I could see the channel markers. As I was pulling the anchor, another sailboat motored by. Someone else was up at this hour?
I used AquaMaps with the Army Corps of Engineer survery overlays throughout the day to stay in the deeper water. This section has been dredged over the past few years and there was still a dredge running by McClellanville. High tide was at 8am but there was still 4 feet of tide as we approached the typically bad section just south of McClellanville. After passing the dredge and moving back to the center of the channel, the water depth was 12-16 feet all the way through. Nice!
Here's what it looks like as you approach a dredge on the ICW. Which way do I go? Actually, I called the dredge on the marine radio and he gave me directions.
We saw several bald eagles in this area and Laura got this great shot with her Nikon.
Slow Cruisin' had passed us a little ways back so they led the way to Charleston. Of course, they run 8.5 knots while we run a little less than 6 so they ended up more than 10 miles ahead by the end of the day. And, they even stopped for fuel!
Not much wind to help us as we motored up this open area before Charleston. Only problem was the Ben Sawyer Bridge was on it's weekend schedule - only opening on the hour. When we were 10 miles or so away, my GPS said we would arrive at 1:20pm. Bummer. I slowed down to kill 40 minutes before the 2pm bridge opening.
Did you ever see white Pelicans? Here is a group having a party next to the waterway, They are cool!
After passing through the Ben Sawyer, it took a little over an hour through Charleston Harbor to the next bridge, Wappoo Creek. I love the old houses on the Charleston waterfront.
We passed through the Wappoo Creek Bridge around 3:30pm and had the current with us through Elliot's Cut that pushed us to over 8 knots. A few years ago we tried to go through here against the tide and I thought the houses on shore were going to pass us....
Slow Cruisin' had anchored in Church Creek but we couldn't make it that far before dark. Instead we motored about 3 miles up the Stono River and anchored by the southern shore. It was quiet and peaceful but a little chilly. I'm still waiting for nice weather to eat dinner in the cockpit and watch the sunset. Seems like it's been a long time...
Monday, November 11th (Day 46)
We slept in a little today waiting so we'd leave near high tide which would help us up the Stono River then down the North Edisto River. Plans were to head off-shore from the North Edisto and sail overnight to somewhere near Florida. Winds were supposed to be pretty calm so we'd probably be motoring the whole night.
There was a little fog this morning on the river and it was very calm. The water was like glass. Check out this reflection of the bridge we passed about 1/2 hour underway..
Because of the cold front coming through tomorrow night, we decided it was time to make some miles south and GET WARM! During the day I called and cancelled our reservation for Lady's Island Marina in Beaufort and tried to make a reservation for a mooring in St. Augustine. No mooring available so they put me on the waiting list. Now we had to figure out where we were going to sit out the storm on Tuesday night.
As we motored down the North Edisto, the tidal current really picked up and the boat hit 9.8 knots. We were zooming! Out onto the ocean for about 5 miles before we could turn south and not be in shallow water. There was a 1-2 foot swell that ended up just behind our beam (coming from just a little behind us) so we pulled out 3/4 of the mainsail and sheeted it in tight to stop the boat from rolling.
The day was sunny and nice as we motored southwest toward the GA / FL border. I wanted to be on a mooring or in a marina for this storm so eventually decided to head into St. Simons Sound and Brunswick Landing Marina. We'd stayed here many times in the past and it's very nice and protected. I called them and made a reservation for Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
We could have made St. Augustine by the end of Monday but the winds were supposed to clock to the SW in the afternoon which would be right on the nose. Plus, we didn't have a place to stay for the coming bad weather.
Just before sunset, a beautiful full moon rose in the eastern sky and kept playing peek-a-boo with us through the clouds. It was a very colorful sunset over the Savannah River entrance. See how calm the ocean was? We are 10 miles off-shore here.
Laura hit the sack just after dinner and I planned on letting her sleep until about 1am. Then she would take the watch until we entered the St. Simon's channel around 6am.
I had no problems on my watch and was even able to roll out the jib which helped our boat speed and also made the ride much calmer. Now we were going too fast with the sails helping so I lowered the engine RPM to just off idle. I tried without using the engine but not enough wind to keep us moving at even 4 knots. Ok. Low engine RPM was cheap on fuel and much less noise to sleep.
Tuesday, November 12th (Day 47)
Laura took over just before midnight. I was pretty tired and slept almost all of the next 5 hours. She woke me up when we were about 3 miles from the entrance channel so I could do the more difficult navigation.
Sometime during her watch, the moon came out from the clouds and she was able to get this picture with her Nikon. Pretty amazing figuring she was standing on a moving boat. Well.... the camera did some of the work too. A great zoom lens and image stabilization help a lot.
I continued to slow down as the marina doesn't open until 8am. We entered the river channel at 6am and slowly motored the 5 miles to land. Sunrise was just before we entered the river proper. Another pretty one but you've seen enough sunrise and sunset pictures, right?
On September 8th, the car carrier Golden Ray floundered and turned over on it's side in St. Simon's Sound. The wreck is still there and the cleanup is in work. It was an awesome sight coming in from the ocean to see this 660 foot freighter laying on it's side blocking a fair amount of the channel. The investigation is still underway to determine why it turned over but crews are currently draining / transferring the 300,000 gallons of fuel from the vessel before they figure out how to get the gasoline out of the 4,200 vehicles still inside.
Crews have decided that it would be too risky to re float the ship so plans are to take her apart where she lays. That should be interesting!
This is the bow of the ship as we were going by.
Once past, I was able to get this picture of the crews working with holes cut through the bottom to drain the fuel and access the interior.
Once past the shipwreck, we slowly motored up the Brunswick River to the marina and arrived at 8:30am. A short while later we were tied up and walking on land again.
We traveled 143 nautical miles in 24.5 hours from our anchorage on the Stono River. If we had stayed on the ICW, it would have been 203 miles - probably 4 or 5 days.
Plans are to leave here Thursday and head south again. Maybe St. Augustine will have room for us this time?
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