Five Fathoms, Waccamaw & Southport

A beautiful clear morning leaving Five Fathoms Creek, SC.

The water is so calm, you can see the reflection of the marker guiding us from Five Fathoms into the ICW.

Ferry crossing the ICW south of Georgetown. This is for cars and people.

A small tour boat on the Waccamaw River.

What's wrong with this picture?

This is one of only 5 markers we've seen with the ladder on the deep side. The ladder is usually on the shallow side of the marker. It may be this way because the marker is so close to the trees.

Waccamaw River from the flybridge

Another pretty house with beautiful landscaping.

Strange water plants growing on the side of Enterprise Creek. They look like leaves floating on the water, but they are connected to the bottom.

Our next stop was Enterprise River. It is on a beautiful area of Waccamaw River. Shay said he thinks this is some of the prettiest scenery on the waterway. It is beautiful. We turned off the waterway to a small creek and dropped anchor. We circled around the area and everything looked good. I saw what I think was an eagle flying to and from its nest. I need to study up on my birds like Daddy, so I can tell them apart.

We have noticed the scenery has changed. We are no longer seeing palm and mangroves, now we are seeing pine trees.

Bird guarding its nest.

Bird flying back to nest

Log very near where we anchored to spend the night. We didn't see this log when we circled around the area last night, but we made an entry to our books so we'll know where it is next time.

Next morning leaving where we anchored near mouth of Enterprise River

Bridge we had to wait to open, south of Myrtle Beach, SC. We had to wait a long time for this bridge. It was an open on demand bridge and when we asked for an opening, the bridge tender said he was waiting for a school bus to pass. So we waited... and waited... and waited. Now this would be easy in a car, you put on the brakes, stop, put it in park and you're set. It's differnent in a boat. There are no brakes and no park. It's ease forward, then ease backward, then start all over. As you can see, there was another boat so we had to avoid it and the other bridge behind us. We were certainly glad when he finally opened and let us pass.

There are some big houses near Myrtle Beach.

We passed by some beautiful houses south of Myrtle Beach. One even had a small golf course in the back yard. Another had a fountain. There’s money down here.

 A different kind of yard art?

 This is the first McDonald sign we've seen in a while.

 Chairlift over the ICW near Bearfoot Landing.

Barefoot Landing

  This is a rock outcropping in the ICW near Myrtle Beach makes this a dangerous part of the waterway. also known as "The Rocks"

 If you come through here at high tide these may not be visible, but they are there.

This is the first mile marker we've seen on this trip. We are used to seeing them when we travel near our homeport of Morehead City, NC.

We had planned on spending the night at a restaurant near the Shallotte Inlet.  Some friends had told us if you eat there you can spend the night at their docks. Hey, dinner and a dock for one price. Sounds great. We got there about 2:00 pm.  When we got there we had a strong current. We tried several times to get into the slip but the current was too swift. We decided to anchor and thing about our options. The area in front of the restaurant was shallow and had crab pots, so we had to be careful about where we anchored. We finally dropped anchor and checked to see when the current would be less. We found out it would be 6:00 pm before we could try to dock the boat and realized the water was too shallow for us to stay anchored there since the water level would be too low. We calculated that we could be at a marina up the waterway in a few hours so decided to leave. We called Deep Point Marina at Southport, NC to see if we could come in a day early. Thank goodness, they said yes. We pulled up the anchor and traveled a few more hours.

Looking over the barrier island to Shallotte Inlet

Looking out the inlet at Shallotte Inlet. You can't see it but there was a lot of current thru here.

 Lighthouse near Southport, NC

We had a leak today. Antifreeze is leaking from the generator. When Shay investigated, he found that a hose clamp had rubbed a hole in a hose. He did a quick repair and we’ll order a replacement hose. Well, just like most everything else, nothing is as easy as we expect it to be on a boat. We called the number in the generator book to order the hose. They gave us another number to call. We called them and they couldn’t give us the part number we needed, so Shay decided he’d order a repair kit with all the generator hoses in it.  Then we found out that retailer didn’t have the kit in stock. We found another number and that retailer had the kit, but he couldn’t sell to us unless he had “permission” from the other guy since he was in a different area. We couldn’t believe it. We need the part; he has the part, but can’t sell it to us. So I called the other guy and asked him to call this guy and “give him permission”. So finally it’s on its way to Lauren in Wilmington.

We got into Deep Point Marina about 5:30. I had explained that we were new to docking and we needed all the help we could get. The dock master was great. He stayed late and even had another guy on the dock to catch our lines. We found out this place had a great deal on gas if you bought >500 gallons. When he asked if we wanted gas before we docked, we asked him if the price would go up before we left. He assured us the boss was gone and the gas price would not change unless he was there to approve it. We tied our lines to suit us and settled in for the night.

Jason and Holly, our oldest son and his wife, met us here Saturday night. They went by our house and picked up our car, drove to Morehead City and left it, then came down to Southport. We called Lauren in Wilmington and she came down too. We all went out to eat and came back to the boat.

The ferry building looks pretty at night.

Lauren decided she would spend the night then drive back tomorrow. At first she couldn’t figure out why she had to drive back, why she couldn’t ride back on the boat. I reminded her she drove her car and unless she wanted to talk someone else into driving her car she had to.

Escape at the dock in Southport, NC. We're getting really close to our homeport now.

We pumped out and fill up with diesel. We just barely could take on enough to get the discount. Lauren left in the car and we left in the boat about 11:30. We had a great trip up to Wrightsville Beach. We saw lots of beautiful water. Shay was concerned about Snow’s Cut, but it was no problem.