Monday, April 15th - St. Augustine, FL to Brunswick River, GA (Day 12)
Sunny and Warm. Winds SE light but increasing in the afternoon to 10-20
83 nautical miles today. 485 total trip miles
We were anxious to get going and enjoy a nice day on the ocean. We had agreed with Russ and Pam to leave at 8am but they were already 1/2 way out of the harbor when we dropped the mooring lines just before 8. I guess they were anxious too.
Winds were light from the E to SE so we pulled out our jib and mainsail to help with the boat speed and cut down on the slight roll. It was a very pretty day with lots of cruisers taking the off-shore route instead of the ICW.
There were MANY boats heading out as the seas were light. Here is a screen-shot of my chartplotter. We are the little pink boat icon near the bottom with the red line just coming out of the dark blue color. The bottom left of the picture is St. Augustine Inlet. Most of the other boats in front of us are shown on our chartplotter by their AIS (Automated Information System). Their boats are the little triangles at the bottom end of the crossed lines. The crossed lines show the direction they are moving. One of the boats in the upper left is Russ and Pam on Apre' Ski.
Our plan was to go in St. Marys inlet which was a little under 50 nautical miles on the ocean. In the early afternoon the winds picked up a little which brought our boat speed to 6.5 - 7 knots. Not enough wind to turn off the engine and make some miles but we were making great time. We saw lots of dolphins today playing and splashing around us.
We approached St. Marys around 3pm and now had a decision to make. We could go in the harbor and be anchored near Cumberland Sound in a couple hours. But the winds and seas were so nice, we instead decided to keep going overnight. The boat was barely moving around with the light SW swell so we figured we would be able to sleep well when we were off-watch. Plus, we could be somewhere around Charleston by tomorrow afternoon which would bypass all of the shallow, twisty-turny Georgia and southern South Carolina ICW. I altered course slightly east and continued our motor-sail up the coast.
Oh boy. About an hour later, the wind picked up to near 20 and a little while later the seas increased too. This was not in the forecast! Dang. The ride was getting uncomfortable for us as the boat occasionally did a corkscrew motion down the following sea.
Instead, I decided to head in St. Andrews Sound and we could be anchored by the north end of Cumberland Island before dark. This might be the only Georgia inlet I've never been in so I started doing some research and checked both my AquaMaps and Navionics chartplotters for the best course to run.
Hmmm. All of these Georgia inlets have a few channel markers maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard to show the current deep channel. No channel markers in this inlet. Then I found a danger marker on the AquaMaps chart from ActiveCaptain (crowd sourced) that said this inlet was very dangerous because the shoals were constantly shifting. Someone had commented on this marker that the Coast Guard no longer maintained channel markers here because the deep water changed so often. Time to head farther north and find a better spot to come in.
The next good inlet was St. Simons Sound which was a class-A inlet (big ships use this channel) into the Brunswick River. Because the coast of Georgia is so shallow for a long way out to sea, we had to join up with the channel almost 6 miles off-shore before turning in. Also, we would have 2-3 knots of tidal current against us so this could be a long slog to the anchorage.
Fortunately, the winds were from the south so really helped our boat speed with the big sails out. I don't think we ever dropped below 6 knots all the way into the turn up the Brunswick River. Here we are motor-sailing in the channel just before sunset. You can see the water is more choppy but the pictures never show waves very well.
A short while later we were crossed paths with a huge car carrier ship heading out to sea. Brunswick has a big terminal to off-load cars from these ships. This guy came pretty close and almost shoved us into shallow water. Guess he didn't care about giving a little room to a tiny sailboat.
We were in the river just before sunset and motored to the anchorage I had picked out on the shore of Jekyll Island. I figured this was an unusual place to anchor but we had to work around 3 other sailboats already here to find a good spot.
Anchor down at 8:45pm in the dark. That was a long day and we were very happy to have the engine off and a calm boat for sleeping.
Tuesday, April 16th - Brunswick River to Port Royal Sound (Day 13)
Partly overcast but still warm in the 80s. South winds 10 increasing in the late afternoon
94 nautical miles today. 579 total trip miles
We pulled the anchor at 7:30am and used the outgoing tide to head back out to sea. Pam and Russ had anchored about 4 miles from us north of the inlet and decided to take the ICW today. I thought the ride would be good on the ocean and there were lots of inlets where we could "bail out" if the ride wasn't nice.
Today was a lot like yesterday all over again.....
It was a beautiful morning with fairly calm seas and enough wind to help the boat speed a little plus cut down on the roll with the big sails up. We motor-sailed up the Georgia coast and I was thinking we would go in somewhere south of Savannah - maybe Ossabaw Sound.
By mid-afternoon the ride was so nice we decided to keep going passed Ossabaw and maybe do another overnight trip to Charleston or WinYah Bay by tomorrow afternoon. Once again, it was not to be.
The weather was nice until late afternoon. Just after this the winds again picked up to low 20s and the swell increased to a rolly ride. We had already passed Wassaw Sound where we could have gone in and anchored before dark. Bummer.
Now I needed to find an inlet and anchorage we could safely run and anchor in the dark. No motoring up a little creek. This had to be pretty open.
I eventually found an anchorage in Port Royal Sound near Hilton Head Island that would protect us from tonight's winds and be easy-in / easy-out. Unfortunately, Port Royal Sound was still a couple hours away and that inlet channel was even longer than St. Simons. This one was 9 miles from where we could pick up the channel until we crossed into land coverage.
It was 7:30pm when we passed the channel outer marker. The sunset was just 20 minutes later.
Once again, we had helping winds to push us in against the 1-3 knot outgoing tide. It was 9:15 before we reached land and almost another hour before we reached our anchorage just after 10pm.
As you can see from the beginning of today's blog, we logged 94 nautical miles out St. Simons, up the ocean and in Port Royal Sound. If we had done this part on the ICW, it would have been 140 miles - almost 3 days. Plus, we bypassed all of the Georgia shallow parts that would have been at low tide. So, I consider it a success even though Laura wasn't happy with us anchoring in the dark.
Wednesday, April 17th - Port Royal Sound, GA to Church Creek, SC (Day 14)
Sunny and warm again. SW winds 10-20.
55 nautical miles today. 634 total trip miles
We decided to run the ICW today even though low tide would be around 11am. I thought we could make it almost all the way up the Beaufort River before low tide and there were no shally spots I had to worry about. After that the tide would be coming up and we should be fine when we reached the Ashepoo - Coosaw Cut whch was my first worry area. Keep in mind the tides here were 7-9 feet so they bring in a lot of water.
Anchor up at 8am and we headed across Port Royal Sound to turn up the Beaufort River - against the tidal current as usual for this trip. The Lady's Island Bridge opened for us at 10am and it was a nice morning.
After turning off the Beaufort River onto the Coosaw, the tide had changed to flood so AGAIN, the current was against us. But, now we had some helping winds so we rolled out the jib for an additions 2 knots.
No problems with the Ashepoo Cut where the water seemed deeper than I remembered. Maybe it had been dredged since we were through here last Fall? Also no problems with the next couple shallow spots - North Creek and the Dawho River - since we now had about 5-6 feet of tide under us.
Making use of the wind whenever possible, we were able to keep our speed up and anchored in Church Creek at 6pm for a nice happy-hour and dinner. This is one of our favorite places and only a couple hours from Charleston.
A couple other boats came in after us to anchor including this tiny one with two people (at least) and a dog. I thought they were pretty adventurous.
Plans for tomorrow prioritize a few feet of water past the Ben Sawyer Bridge (one of the worst shallow water spots on the whole ICW) and maybe getting to Minim Creek which is another of our favorite spots.
Pam called and said they had made reservations at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club for Saturday and Sunday. We could just make that if we got through the trouble spots tomorrow. Wish us luck!
Thursday, April 18th - Church Creek to WinYah Bay (Day 15)
Sunny and a little cooler. SW winds 10-20
68 nautical miles today. 702 total trip miles
Low tide at the Ben Sawyer Bridge was at 11am so I planned on not going through there until at least 1pm. That meant going through the Wappoo Creek bridge at least an hour earlier. The Wappoo Creek Bridge only opens on the 1/2 hour so that meant 11:30am. That was 18 ICW miles away so I figured 2 1/2 - 3 hours from our anchorage to there. We pulled the anchor at 8:45am and got underway.
Dang. I thought we would only have the tide against us for a few miles before we would get sucked down the Stono River with the ebb. But, we ran about 1 1/2 hours at only 5 knots before the speed picked up. Now it would be close.
This part of the ICW through South Carolina has some of the longest private docks. The water is very shallow a long ways from shore so, if you own a home and want to dock a boat, you need a long dock. Check out this one. It's about 1/4 mile long.
We entered Elliott Cut at 11:15pm and thankfully had some helping current there. In the past, we've had 4-5 knots of current against us in this section. Good thing that didn't happen today.
At 11:25am we motored up to the Wappoo Creek Bridge and only waited a few minutes for the 11:30am opening. We made it!
A short time later we passed the Charleston City Marina and entered Charleston Harbor. Once again there was a big sailboat with a huge mast that made the other masts look dinky.
About 3/4 of the way through the harbor to the ICW entrance, we had this nice view of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.
We passed through the Ben Sawyer Bridge just before 1pm and entered the notorious shallow area. I had been reading on the Facebook ICW Cruising Guide by Bob423 page that one area here was only .5 feet at low tide. 2 feet of tide was not going to help us there.
This page is run by a cruiser who started traveling the ICW about the same time as we did 17 years ago. But, he has decided to help other cruisers as much as possible and this Facebook page is a great help. On this page, I learned about a way to get around that area with only .5 feet of water. Here is the screenshot from my chartplotter.
The ICW runs from middle left to upper right. Notice in the middle there is a spot that's colored all red. This is the bad area. But, there is a way around there by taking a circular route south of the ICW around the island. The dotted red line was our track going through there and we had plenty of water. I was pretty happy. Thanks Bob!
We had no problems the rest of our trip past McClellanville (another ICW problem area) and even had some help from the wind on our jib. As we passed Minim Creek, we had some helping current so I decided to keep going and anchor in Winyah Bay. This is another open anchorage that I like a lot.
Anchor down at 7:45pm after a long day on the water. But, we were now setup well for making Myrtle Beach by the weekend so I was happy.
Just before sunset, I saw a huge dredge barge being pushed by a tug. He was coming down the river and turned to enter the ICW where we had just some out. There was so much current on the river, the experienced Captain actually turned the dredge completely around heading in to the current before entering the ICW. Here is the picture that I altered as much as possible so you could see the tug and tow.
We had a quick dinner and hit the sack early after the long day. I now felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders because we had gotten through all the ICW shallow areas for Georgia and South Carolina. Now I could relax....
Friday, April 19th - WinYah Bay to Wacca Wache Marina (Day 16)
Mostly sunny and warm. Winds S at 10-15
28 nautical miles today. 730 total trip miles
Our first short day in quite a while as now we were in "relax" mode. Our plan was to stay overnight at the Wacca Wache Marina. We had gotten fuel there a few times in the past and the marina looked nice with a restaurant right on the water. Yesterday, Laura snagged us an overnight slip. Our first marina since leaving Marathon.
Anchor up at 8am and we slowly motored up the Waccamaw River - once again against the tidal current. I wasn't too worried about it as we didn't have that far to go. We did leave early to try and make the marina in the early afternoon. Being our first marina in over two weeks, we wanted to have time to enjoy it.
As we motored up to the Georgetown Bridge, we could see lots of construction on the water underneath the bridge. Here was the approaching view.
There were a couple working tugs and barges moving around but the channel seemed clear. Just as we passed under the bridge, we were called on the marine radio from the bridge workers asking us to speed up. HAHA. Didn't they know we were a sailboat? Just after we went through, a tug and barge filled up the channel we had just used. See ya!
It was a pretty day on the Waccamaw River as we slowly motored north.
At 1pm I called the marina on the radio to say we were coming in. They gave us a slip next to the fuel dock and said we could get diesel on our dock too. Nice! I pulled into the slip and we quickly tied up with lots of help from the dockhands.
After filling up with 106 gallons of diesel (not bad for coming all the way from Ft. Pierce) we cleaned up a bit and headed into the restaurant for a late lunch / early dinner. Fuel was $3.55 / gallon which was the cheapest around.
Here we are enjoying a great lunch with Second Wind in the background.
We took a short walk after lunch to loosen up legs that were not used to walking more then 40 feet at a time. My legs didn't want to cooperate at first but they eventually felt much better.
Tomorrow we have another short run to Myrtle Beach Yacht Club (MBYC) where we will hook up with Russ and Pam again plus sit out bad weather this weekend.
It was a pleasant evening at the marina and we enjoyed a jazz musician from the restaurant for several hours.
Saturday, April 20th - Wacca Wache to North Myrtle Beach (Day 17)
Partly cloudy and warm. Winds variable
35 nautical miles today. 765 total trip miles
Off the dock at 8:30am to another pretty day on the water. Today was to be our warmest so far with highs in the mid-80s and lots of humidity.
For a change we had helping currents almost all day and made great time. Just a little way up the river, I saw this huge Osprey nest with a mom. She yelled at us all the way by.
Just after entering the land cut to Myrtle Beach area from the Waccamaw, we were finally reunited with Pam and Russ (sort of). They had anchored near Butler Island just south of us last night and caught up. Here they are behind us - but not for long....
They passed a short time later and got to the marina about an hour ahead of us.
Lots of local boat traffic on the ICW today as it was a pretty Saturday. We were able to dodge around everyone and had no problems with the 3 bridges that needed to open for us. Even the Little River Bridge stayed open so we could get through after about 30 powerboats that were waiting.
You can see from the picture above we have our front window open for cooling air. It was pretty warm in the boat now. Here was the temp just before entering the marina.
85 feels like 90? I thought we were out of Florida!
No problems docking up just after 2pm. Pam suggested the pool and we all agreed. A short time later we were the first folks in the pool for the season - they had just opened it! Sorry. No pictures of us fat, old people in swimsuits.... (yes. speaking for myself...)
I really enjoyed the cool water after a hot day on the boat. Now at the dock, we have the air-conditioning on in the boat.
Pam had made dinner reservations at the MBYC restaurant but, when we got there, the place only had about 3 tables full. We had a nice time together at dinner with lots to talk about since we hadn't been together in a week or so.
On the way to the pool earlier, I had looked at the weather and didn't think Monday morning looked very nice either. I stopped at the office and reserved Monday night if the forecast didn't improve.
It turns out we had to stay a little longer because of boat problems I found. But that's for the next blog.
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