Beaufort, SC; Ana, and Steamboat Creek 2015

Had a good day traveling to Beaufort. That's Beau-fort not Bo-fort. Margaret said someone told her you could remember because it's beau-ti-ful.

We have seen this ferry before.

This really big ship had come inside an inlet to wait out Ana.

Anyway we left Savannah at 6:30. We had some skinny water and had calculated times and depth. We will be glad when we get out of this shallow water.

We got here about 1 pm. We had traveled a little over 6 hours, at 6.7kts, and traveled about 42nm. We had some current pushing us today so our average was more.

Looking toward the marina

 

Looking toward the bridge.

 

We got a great deal on a rental car so Shay and Ken went to pick up the car and then we had a steak dinner at the "Fillin Station", a local bar/restaurant that has great specials. We were disappointed since the meal was now $12.00 instead of $10.00 like last year.

We got there at 5:00pm when they started serving and didn't get our food until after 6:30. Margaret said they made you wait so you'd order more drinks. That may be right, since Isaw a lot of beers being consumed.

The meal was good and we met some new friends. Our table had some empty seats and we invited some others to use them. We got to talking to them and had a great time. Shay and Ken went to a small airport nearby to see the guy's plane. They had a good time and were treated like royalty.

We like Beaufort and enjoyed walking around the town. It has lots of antique shops, restaurants, and other shops. I even bought two gifts. One for my sister, Michelle's birthday and one for Shay's mom. No I'm not telling what you got. You'll have to wait till we get there!

Big, beautiful trees with Spanish moss. They are all over town!

This shows how low the water is at low tide.

And how high it is at high tide. Lots of change.

Shay took this picture of the church late one night. He thought it was really pretty.

By the way, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Wish we were home to be able to give all the special women in our lives a big hug! We love you and miss you!

We have spent hours looking at tides, currents, bridges, and times. We have more shallow water ahead of us. We have also been watching the weather even more carefully. We have Tropical Storm Ana to worry about. It started in the Bahamas and is heading this way. Of course each station gives a different path for the storm and a different day for it to hit landfall. So, we watch and watch and finally realize, we are out of harms way and can forget about it. Well, we are glad of that! Anyway, we had planned to leave on Monday, but had delayed so Sea Salt- Richard and Connie- can catch up.

We did have a shower one night from Ana.

And a beautiful double rainbow!

 



All looks calm on B.

Hello, Sea Salt!

Get that mooring ball, Richard!

All settled in!

When they got here we had dinner on shore. We will be anchored out for several days and this is the last time to eat out for a few days. Yeah, like we don't eat out too much anyway. I think B is a bad influence on our eating habits.

So right now the plan is to leave here Tuesday morning to head to Steamboat Creek to anchor. We have several skinny places so we have to have a plan to get to them when we have enough water to make it thru and to try and get as much push from the current as we can. Good luck with that!

Rocking B had to leave early because the Ben Sawyer Bridge has restricted openings. So they went thru the bridge at 6:15. We can go under the bridge without it opening, so we left at 8:00. Sea Salt opted to leave at 10 and hurry up and catch up with us later. Ready, set, go!

Pretty house just north of the bridge.

Bye, Ladies Island Bridge. See you in the fall.

As I said, we had several skinny cuts to go thru. We decided to go even slower for the first part of the trip. We went 3.4kts for several hours so we would be at the Ashepoo Cutoff at about 12:30, so we would have enough water to get thru. There was NO air. Absolutely none. And on top of that we had flies and no see'ums. Not a good trip. I check the temperature inside the boat and it was 99, yes that hot. We had kept the doors and windows closed, so we wouldn't get flies and no see'ums in the boat. It was 87 outside.

Sign at the Air Force base on the ICW. The birds didn't pay it any attention!

Jets getting ready to take off.

 

The crab pot is not supposed to be showing.

You can see how much the tide is out.

These pictures show just how ABSOLUTELY CALM the water is. This is not something you see very often.

We kept very detailed reading of water depth, time and tides at each place, so we would have records for our next trip. Things change, but at least we know what we have seen in the past. If we know what we saw at MLW or mean low water, we can check the current tide table and guesstimate what we will have then. Not perfect, but as good as we can do.

So, we made it thru Ashepoo (Lower and Upper), Fenwick, and Watts Cuts without incident. We put our lowest reading in our chart book, so we can refer to them next trip. We have all commented, "how did we do this our first trip and not get stuck?" We all decided we had guardian angels watching over us!

The first picture shows us going thru Ashepoo and the second shows how low the water was.

Connie, thanks for the picture of Escape. We don't have many of us traveling.

 

We knew we were going to have a long day, since we had to travel so slow to get to the first place. We traveled  7.5 hours, went about 36nm. at an average of 4.8kts. We got to Steamboat Creek at 3:30. Rocking B had left earlier and got there about 1:00. Sea Salt got there about 4:30.  

We all had dinner on Sea Salt that night. Connie fixed stuffed pasta shells, I brought dip for appetizer, and Margaret brought a salad. Everything was delicious and we were all stuffed. It's great to get together with friends and share a meal.  

 

We have another "fun" day tomorrow with more skinny water. Will it ever end?