Bull Creek to Barefoot Landing

4-5-12
We left Bull Creek about 7:30. We started to leave earlier, but realized Shay had not done his charting last night, so he had to do it this morning. We are stopping at Osprey Marina for diesel. They are the cheapest place we have heard about. It will probably take us an hour to get fuel and we are on a tight schedule since the weather is calling for storms later today. Well, we will stop and see how things go.  

Bull Creek. Yes I know this should have been in the previous post. Hey, I'm still getting the hang of this blog-thing.

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. We love Bull Creek. It is so peaceful and quiet. The scenery is beautiful. We hope to spend more time here later. Yes, I know there are 'gators in here, but it's still beautiful. This place makes me miss Rocking B again. The last time we were here with them and Refuge. We all had dinner on our boat. Well, we didn't have flies then.
 

Meeting a barge in the Waccamaw River. We were ok here, but there are narrow places in the river that could be a problem when meeting something this long. Remember the "big boat rule"? The big boat gets his way so the small boat, us in this case, had better get out of the way or get runover.

 

Entrance to Osprey Marine. Can we get in there? Do you see that catamaran? It looks pretty narrow, doesn't it?



Turtles at the dock looking for food.


We had no problems getting to the fuel docks and had a surprise when we got there. Tom Conrad from Pacific Eagle was there. We met him in Marathon. See you never know where you will see friends again. We knew he and Drew had brought the boat to Osprey, but didn't think about him being here. He had just got back here yesterday and planned to leave tomorrow. It was just luck that we got to see him and catch up again. He has been busy getting his house ready to sell. We wish him good luck.


More beautiful Waccamaw

We kept checking the weather and decided we were not going to be able to make it to Southport today. The weather was calling for storms and high winds and we just don't like to travel in those conditions. So, we called Barefoot Landing Marina in Myrtle Beach, SC and got a dock for the night. So we slowed down and saved some of that fuel we had just bought. We'll just enjoy the scenery.


Azaleas in bloom. It must be spring.

All this is just one house, not a condo or apartment building. And I'm not sure I got it all in the picture, there are so many parts and pieces.

Easter egg hunt along the way. We never know what we'll see.

Remember these cable cars? They take the rich people across the river so they can chase golf balls.



Barefoot Landing is the highlighted spot, but its on the right side of ICW.





















Well, the weatherman was right. Just after we docked, the wind started blowing harder. We decide to grab our raincoats and eat lunch on land. We enjoyed the lunch specials at Flying Fish near our dock. When we came out it started to sprinkle, so we headed back to the boat. Shay worked on route planning and I worked on blog stuff. We had a lot of rain and thunder. Between showers, we (mostly Shay) washed off the boat. It was covered in a sticky, salty, black grime from our ocean travels.

Later we decide to walk around the shops and stopped at our favorite cheap place, McDonalds, for our cheap meal off the $1.00 menu. He had his McDouble and I had my McChicken. Hey, what can I say, we are cheapies. But we enjoyed it. Back to the boat for more charting for Shay and blogging for me. .

This yacht came into Barefoot Landing this afternoon.

"Hootie and the Blowfish" are chartering it and are here for a charity golf tournament. The guy on the dock said they have done this for several years. Shay said he had never heard of them. I recoginized the name but that's about all. Maybe I should look them up so I will recoginze them if I see them on the dock?

We checked the weather before bed and it looks bad for tomorrow. It looks like we may be here for another day. We'll check in the morning and decide.

Oh, I just wanted to tell you, I got more birthday wishes. My sister sent a text wishing me happy birthday. I texted her back and said my birthday was the 4th not the 5th. She texted back saying she thought today  was the 4th. I called her and we laughed. She said she asked her husband what the date was and he said 4th. She had lost track of the date, since she had been off work a few days. Then I got a call from Lauren and she sang "Happy Late Birthday" to me. My oldest step-son, Jason called and wished me a happy late birthday, too. He said you knew you were really old when your kids were too old to remember your birthday. I laughed and told him, he had a young wife to remind him and she did wish me happy birthday. He said she couldn't remember either, she just got notices from Facebook. He and Lauren both said they thought about it earlier in the day, then got busy and remembered it again about midnight. I'm glad they didn't call then.

Well, we are still here. The winds are supposed to be strong so we will just stay put. We are pretty protected in the ICW, but the next part of our route takes us into the Cape Fear River. Did you catch that name? Do you know why they named it that? Cause it can get rough and make you fear. Or "afeared" or afraid or something.

We looked at the weather, then the route, then the currents and decided if we leave at a certain time and get to a certain place at a certain time we should have an ok trip. So for now, the plan is to leave early in the morning and get to the middle of the Cape Fear River around 1:45. That will give us winds and current moving in the same direction. This is lots better than them moving in the opposite direction.

We are a very humid boat this morning. It was about 40 degrees, yes 40 this morning. I talked to my dad in Virginia and it was 49 there! What's going on here? So Shay has been working on getting all the humidity out of the boat before we mold. So far, so good.

Shay has worked on the heat pumps all day. He worked until almost 3, then we just barely caught the lunch specials at Flying Fish again. Then back to work on the heat pumps again. I have been working on a list of anchorages and marinas we have stayed at for future reference.

The weather has really improved. When we left the boat to go eat, it was still cloudy and dreary. While we were eating we started to see some clearing. It's 4 pm now and it looks nice. I see blue sky and fluffy white clouds. It's still a little windy but lots better than I expected it to look. We hope tomorrow will be a better day since today has improved so much so fast. But it's still only 57. Remember, I am used to it being 85 degrees all winter. It's a big change to this.

It's 8 pm and we just got back from a long walk. We met Pepper, a girl that worked in the office at Jones School when Lauren went there. We told her about our adventure and told her to come by the boat if she wanted a tour. She is easy to get seasick so she probably won't come by.

You never know what you'll see at Myrtle Beach, SC.



Escape at Barefoot Landing



It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. It's 65 degrees and clear blue sky. Looks like me might have a good day tomorrow. The water is so calm. Hope we have a calm day tomorrow