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.

Herb River, Beaufort SC, Church Creek and Five Fathoms

4-1-11 through 4-6-11

It’s April Fool’s Day but the weather is better so we’re leaving today. Shay said he actually saw the moon and stars when he got up during the night to check the anchor and make sure everything was ok. He’s gotten into the habit of making his rounds several times during the night to make sure everything is ok. The Wahoo River was isolated, but it took good care of us during the bad weather. Florida and Georgia have had bad weather the past few days with heavy rain, strong winds, hail and even tornados, but all we have had is rain so we were very fortunate.

It’s a cool 47 degrees this morning but the water is calm and peaceful. When Shay took up the anchor chain we had 2 horseshoe crabs on the anchor chain. He had to shake them off.

We had some rough water near Hell Gate. We had rolling waves made worse by the wind and current. We had heard some bad things about this area and could see how it got its name.

 We anchored in Herb River about 2:30 pm.

We left the next morning for Beaufort SC. That’s BU fort not BO fort like the city in NC. We passed by Hilton Head Island. Shay said I missed a Kodak moment. He said we went by some big mansions but I was downstairs on the phone. Well, maybe next time. We had nice weather, a gentle breeze and calm water. The weatherman was calling for a windy day. Thank goodness, he was wrong.

A pretty boat that passed us on the way form Beaufort to Church Cr.

Lighhouse near Hilton Head

People having fun

Beautiful Hilton Head beach

Pretty houses

Sailboats in Port Royal Sound

We anchored near the city dock at Beaufort. There were several boats there but there was enough room for us. We got the dinghy down and went to town. We have been on the boat for over a week and we need to get off and walk around some. We took our backpack and rolling cart and took off. We walked about a mile to the grocery store and found a Mexican restaurant nearby. We have had terrible luck with Mexican restaurants but decided to give this one a try. We were pleasantly surprised. It was not as good as our favorite hometown Mexican, but it was a close second. We were stuffed when we left to go shopping and had enough leftovers for the next day. Shay had to remind me that everything we bought had to be carried or rolled back to the dock, put in the dingy then out of the dinghy, then back onto the boat. So I decided we didn’t need 6 2-liter bottles of ginger ale. Two would be enough. We had a lazy evening on the boat making calls and working on the blog. We are behind and I need to get caught up. The last blog I posted was the Gulf Crossing.

The water is so calm tonight. It looks like glass. We are surrounded by sailboats in this anchorage.

We left this morning for Church Creek. The forecast for today is good but Monday and Tuesday look like more bad weather is coming in. It’s 54 degrees this morning. We had calm water, blue skies and a slight breeze. We had a good day on the water and arrived at Church Creek at 2:45 pm. We were surrounded by crab pots. Riverdance came in and anchored later.

This is a ship yard that we passed on the way to Church Cr.

Happy birthday to me! We are staying here another day. Shay had been busy and I have been lazy. He cleaned the floors and I laid in the sun and worked on the blog. Well, it is my birthday. I wish I had the birthday cake that Betty made me.

The wind is getting up and we put out more anchor chain. They are calling for bad weather tonight and early tomorrow. 

We watched some crabbers come by and check their pots. The wind was rough and they had a hard time. It doesn’t look like an easy job.

I woke up at 6 to howling wind, hard rain, lots of thunder and lightning. I heard a bell and realized the boat was rocking so much that it was ringing our bell. That’s the first time I’ve heard it ring without someone making it. Shay was already up and standing at the helm.  He had been up most of the night, keeping an eye on the weather. He said a storm came thru earlier but wasn’t as bad as this one. It was still dark outside so we could only see what was going on when there was lightning but there was plenty of that. He decided to crank the engines just in case the anchor didn’t hold. The storm lasted about 45 minutes and we were glad when it passed. It rained all day but that was ok since we didn’t have anymore storms, just rain. The weather was very windy with white caps and rolling waves.

See how the wind is blowing the flag.

This sailboat anchored next to us.  It didn't have any lights on during the storm but we could see it when the lightning flashed.  It looked like a ghost ship.

The weather looks better for tomorrow so we will be leaving in the morning.  

We left at 7:30 the next morning. It is 44 degrees this morning. The weather is clear, the water calm with a gentle breeze and clear blue skies. We did have some swift current at Elliott Cut. We are going to Five Fathoms today.

 Charleston skyline

 Aircraft carrier with planes on deck in Charleston Harbour

 Coast Guard boat gaining on us.

 They caught up with us. The guy on front had a gun. They take homeland security seriously.

Fort Sumter

 Cruise Ship coming into Charleston Harbour

 Bridge in Charleston

 Lighthouse near Charleston

We passed by several old boats on land. They have been abandoned and look very sad.

Sunset at Five Fathoms Creek about 40 miles north of Charleston
.

Light house off to the north east.

Next stop somewhere in Waccamaw River

Cumberland Island thru Wahoo

Cumberland Island thru Wahoo

3-26 thru 4-1

We left St. Augustine to travel to Cumberland Island. We had a long day. The weather was good, and the current was swift. Most of the time the current was running against us, but sometimes we got a little boost from it.

The first thing we passed by was the St. Augustine Inlet, at sunrise.


Another shot of the inlet, showing the swift current around the buoy.

At the Pablo Creek Bridge, north of the St. Augustine Inlet the water on the north side of the bridge was at least a foot higher than the water south of the bridge. This was caused by an island north of the bridge that narrowed the channel, holding the water back during the rising tide. It like driving a slow boat up a small waterfall. It was actually scary. If we got sideways in that current, we probably would not have had enough power to straighten the boat out and there wasn’t enough width under the bridge to go thru sideways. Shay said he wished we could have made a picture of it, but we had our hands full throttling the engines up and holding the boat straight.

Below are a few pictures of sights we saw leaving Florida and entering Georgia.

We saw more dolphins coming toward the boat, so I went down to get a picture off the bow. When I got to the back deck I looked over and the dolphins were right beside me. I got very excited and started yelling that they were close. I got a good picture.

Cumberland Island is a park, with wild horses, and is supposed to be a great place to go ashore and spent time. We did see wild horses as we were leaving the anchorage.

We passed by a submarine base on our way out of the anchorage.

As we were leaving the anchorage, we noticed a very unusual sailboat going north on the ICW. Shay called the sailboat on the radio and asked where they were coming from and where they were going to. We wanted to find out if they had a good anchorage in mind for the bad weather. They said they were just going to pull into a creek and anchor when the wind got up. They weren’t nearly as concerned about the weather as we were. The sailboat traveled just slightly slower than we did, so it took a while for us to pass them. We ended up spending several hours talking to them on the radio. Ann said she didn’t usually talk this long on the radio. I guess we just hit it off.

We found out they had built their boat themselves in England in 2002 and then sailed it across the Atlantic. Their boat was a catamaran approximately 45 feet long and 25 feet wide. It sounds like a huge boat, but it was basically 2 narrow pontoons tied together with a steering station in the middle. The couple on the boat were named Ann and Neville. Ann was very well spoken and interesting to talk to. They were an older couple and lived on their boat fulltime. Ann said they never go into a marina. They anchor just off from the marina and go in to get fuel, water, dump trash, and empty their porta-potty. They live frugally and don’t waste money staying in marinas. Ann had made 3 trans-Atlantic crossing. One of them she made alone in a small sailboat. It makes you wonder why anyone would want to do that. They decided to follow into our anchorage and hide from the storm.

We passed by beautiful Jekyll Island. Thinking about Jekyll Island made me sad. We have some good friends from back home, David and Betty York that come here very spring and fall. This year we had made tentative plans to meet for my birthday. Because of the weather, we decided we’d better skip Jekyll Island. We called them to tell them we wouldn’t be able to meet them and found out that they had brought me a cake and a gift. So they had to sacrifice and eat the cake themselves. I know it was delicious. That’s the only kind of cake Betty makes.

In trying to decide where to anchor, we circled by Fort Fredricia.

About 30 minutes after we dropped the anchor and settled in, Ann picked us up in her dinghy to show us her boat. Their boat was very unusual. For one thing the 2 pontoons that made up the hull were lashed to the center section with rope. The boat was 3 major pieces tied together with rope. As we approached the boat, Shay noticed the rudders were hinged to the hulls using ¼ inch rope and looked a lot like shoes that had been laced up. Everything on the boat was simple but very practical. The boat was powered by 2 19 horse power outboard engines. They were mounted between the pontoons in a manner that would allow them to be hoisted completely out of the water using rope, to reduce the drag while sailing.

It started thundering and lightening and looked like rain so Ann took us back to our boat. She said that was her rule, if it thundered, you needed to be back on your boat. That was ok with us. The rain lasted a short time so we called them on the radio and invited them for dinner. We told them it would be simple. I made chicken salad sandwiches and got some key lime pie out of the freezer. They accepted and came over after the rain. We started off with a tour of our boat. Ann kept telling us what a nice boat we had and how much we would enjoy living on it. Ann brought some dried fruit and chocolate which we enjoyed with our meal. After we ate, we sat around and they told us old boating stories about the places they had been and things they had done. They were a very interesting couple and we enjoyed their visit. We weren’t paying enough attention to the weather and another thunderstorm came up before we realized it. They rushed to get in their dinghy but got soaked before they got back to their boat.

Early the next morning at what they called “dark thirty”, they took off for their next anchorage. We haven’t seen them since, although later we met another couple, John and Sue on “Debrief” that had spent quite a bit of time talking to Ann, who again doesn’t spend much time talking on the radio. It was interesting, that the boat John and Sue were on was a boat we had previously been on and considered buying. We actually made two trips to look at the boat. It was a 42’ North Pacific.

The weather man was calling for more bad weather so we decided to stay put in Frederica River. We had more storms all around us. We did get some wind and rain but nothing too serious. We wanted to go ashore and tour the fort, but stayed on board because of the weather. We’ll be coming this way again and maybe the weather will be more cooperative the next time.

We worked on started making entries to our blog. When we were at Vero Beach, Lauren helped me set-up the blog but we didn’t do any entries. So Shay and I worked on doing our first entry. It took a lot of time. We had to do the write-up first and then add the pictures. First we moved the text to the blog site and next we moved the pictures. That’s when the problems started. Things didn’t line up like we wanted so we had to add spaces or take away spaces and it’s not easy. Finally a blog we can post.

John and Connie from “Riverdance” came in around 5:00 pm.

Shay worked on plotting our next few travel days, so when the weather finally gets better, we will be ready to go. The weather is not so great today. It has been overcast and drizzly all day. It thundered all night and Shay was up and down all night checking the weather.

We finally left on March 29th. It was windy but the forecast had called for fog and they were wrong about that. It was 51 degrees and with the wind it was cold.

We talked about driving from the inside, but decided we want to be able to see everything especially the crab pots. We knew we had to leave today or be stuck here 4 more days, if the weatherman knows what he’s talking about.

Even though the day started out not so great it could have been a lot worse. We got to the Wahoo River about 2:00 pm, to anchor with a sailboat. We are out in the middle of nowhere. No internet and the cell phone is “iffy”. I sent a text to my sister, Chelle, to have her let my daddy and Shay’s mom know we were safe and might not be able to talk to them for a few days. We did find out if we went up to the fly bridge we could make calls but we might loose them.

 Sharks??

The forecast was for 90% rain one day and 70% then next and they were right. We had rain both days. Shay worked on figuring out the wiring for the SSB radio.

I worked on the blog, even though I couldn’t post anything since no internet. Shay worked on more trip planning. When the weather breaks we’ll be ready. We had dolphins visit while we were here. Shay was standing near the door and said he heard a noise that sounded like something blowing air he looked around but didn’t see anything. I looked out later and was some dolphins and heard them blowing.

We hope the weather will be better tomorrow so we can travel again.