Oct 27 to Oct 30

Wednesday morning we left late in the day for us - 9:00 a.m. because we thought we would have a short day.  One of the most interesting bridges on the water way is this pontoon bridge.  They are decommissioning it in the next month or so because they have built a new bridge.  In order to open the  bridge the bridge tender has to fire up the diesel engine and drive the bridge to the side of the river.

 Our original plan was to anchor in the Calabash River for the night.  We dropped the anchor at 2:00 and then the tide and the wind conspired to spin us in circles until we were dizzy (and worried about dragging the anchor).  At this point our attitudes went downhile which is silly because no matter how bad a mood you are in new good anchorages don't magically appear.  In this area of the waterway it is a LONG way between anchorages.  We ended up at a marina in Myrtle Beach.

Thursday was a better day, mostly sunny, temperatures in the 80s and many anchorage choices.  Most of the day was spent in a cypress swamp.  The swamp was pretty in an eerie sort of way as we saw very few other boats.  At low tide the roots of the trees are exposed. They look like they are getting ready to walk away with their scarfs of spanish moss blowing in the breeze.

Treebeard

A camoflaged aid to navigation.

 We spent Thursdday night anchored near Butler Island.  After dinner we rowed over to the boat POW-MIA and had a nice visit with some other Mainers.

Friday we were up bright and early as always and left before sunrise.  Finally, we had a north wind and were able to use the sails!  We had a fun day with some actual sailing and some fast motor sailing.  The creeks, canals, and land cuts were to narrow to safely sail without the engine on because of the volume of boat traffic.  Tacking was definetly out of the question.  The route today was from Butler Island down the Waccamaw River to Winyah Bay to the Esterville Minim Creek Canal to the North Santee River to the Fourmile Creek Canal to the South Santee River to a long land cut to Price Creek to Dewes Creek.  (Try following this on Google Earth starting at Georgetown, SC.)

See, we really do have a mainsail!

Palm trees

Saturday we headed into Charleston.  Coming into the harbor we saw a huge container ship and this gigantic car carrier.  The building just in front of the car carrier is Fort Sumter.