Sam's Point on the Coosaw River

We have some skinny water to go thru again today so we need to travel when the tides are right. It's cold again today, 50 outside and 59 inside.

We left the anchorage at 6:30.

Welcome to my world. Isn't it beautiful!

Southern Star looks beautiful in my world!

Lighthouse near Charleston

Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor

 

Pretty house along the waterfront

Barge, Coast Guard boat and Southern Star in Charleston Harbor

Wapoo  Creek Bridge

Cute tug on a lift

Beautiful house with ivy along Elliot Cut

 

We had no problems with the Ben Sawyer Bridge area and didn't really expect any since it had been dredged. But again, we didn't know if Matthew had caused any changes. Elliot Cut was not a problem, since we had timed it so we went thru at slack tide. 

We had no problem at Watts Cut, Fenwick Cut and neither of the two Ashepoo/Coosaw Cuttoffs. I don't want to make this seem insignificant. We were very fortunate that the tides we in our favor and happened at a good time for us at each of these places. It doesn't always work our this way and sometimes we have to travel a short distance and get thru one place then wait until the next day at a certain time to get thru the next one. We spent lots of time looking at mile marker, tide tables and calculating how long it took to get from point A to point B and at what speed we had to travel.

 

 Beautiful "Trumpy" boat.

Southern Star and crew. Hey who's driving the boat?

 We anchored at Sam's Point on the Coosaw River. It wasn't marked as an anchorage. It was just a wide  place in the river that we could be out of the ICW and in relatively shallow water. It's sounds funny. We been trying to find deep water all day and now when we anchor, we want shallower water. We like to anchor in water that we can put out about 125-150 feet of chain and feel like we will be secure there. It's complicated. You take the depth of the water plus the tide if any then the height of your bow add those together and multiple by whatever scope you want (6:1 or so) and then put out that much chain or line, whichever you have.

We traveled 9.5 hrs at 6.3kts and went about 60 nm. Long day. We had potluck dinner on SeaSalt and had a great meal and a great time. We all prepared something and it was all good. Maybe we can do it on Escape next time.

Our anchorage scenery

Richard setting the anchor while Connie drives

 

Here you can see that we are not far from St Helena Sound.

 

 

We just dropped anchor on the side of the ICW

Our trip for today.

 

More drone shots! Thanks

I've never seen Escape from this angle.

 

 

 

 

Long Creek, north of Charleston.

We left Georgetown about 7:20. It's 56 degrees outside and 62 in the boat. We waited too late to head south. The cold weather is here! We love Georgetown and wanted to stay longer, but needed to travel when the weather, winds and tides are with us. We know we need high water when we go thru McClellanville, and should have it when we get there if we leave early.

Miss Ellie swing bridge

 

Got to pay attention all the time.

In the past, I've said this house was playing hide-n-seek in the bushes. It won't be long until I won't see it at all.

We were traveling in a caravan by the time we got to McClellanville. We didn't have any problems. We knew they had dredged thru this area when we came north this spring, but didn't know if the hurricane could have caused changes. Thank goodness it hadn't.

Southern Star anchorged on Long Creek

And SeaSalt

 

We got to Long Creek at about 3pm. We traveled almost 48nm at 6.3kts. We have not stayed at this anchorage but it came highly recommended by Salty Turtle. And it seems to be a great place to stay. Thanks Vic and Gigi. We'll be back

 

I think this is beautiful. All the twists and turns.

 

This shows how close we are to Charleston

  

 

Our trip today

 

Little River Inlet/Bird Island

We got up a little after 6:00 and were taking up the anchor at 7:45. It was still dark when we started moving but by the time we got to the ICW it was OK. When we talked to Robby, on Southern Star, he wasn't sure it was light enough to leave, but said he'd follow us out. Shay told him to not follow too closely, since we might have to stop suddenly!

We got a good push part of the way to the Cape Fear River, 9.3kts for a while. That's great!

Meeting a barge

Unusual house along the ICW

ICW ferry on Cape Fear

These barges have been very busy since Hurricane Matthew. Lots of high water along the ICW

 

Could be from the hurricane, could be from neglect.

Cape Fear Inlet

This is living the life, step out of  your RV and go fishing!

Several sailboats in Calabash Creek, as we passed by on the way to our anchorage. We've never stopped here. We think there's not enough room. Maybe for one boat, but you can't keep the others out!

Gambling boat coming back in from the ocean.

There were two boats at Bird Island anchorage when we got there. We had no problems anchoring and got settled in. The big party type boat in front of us decided to leave and "throw a tantrum" with his boat. He pulled up anchor, moved away from us then came back in front of us. He got very close to our bow in a fast moving current and we didn't know what he was doing. Shay said he must have thought we anchored too close and was mad at us. We were not too close and what did it matter if he was leaving. Shay said the guy driving to boat was probably not the owner and was just showing off for his guests. We would love to know who owns the boat so we could let him know how careless the driver was.

Looking toward the inlet from Escape

Southern Star

Here are anchored right on the line between NC/SC

You can see the inlet here

This shows how far we are from N Myrtle Beach. Not far.

Our trip. Sorry, I forgot to turn it on at first. My bad.

We traveled 8.5 hours at 6.4kts and went almost 53nm. A good day on the and a good night at the anchorage. When we got up the next morning we were very close to shore with the tide in and the water rising.

We felt like we  could almost walk to shore.

Thanks for the drone pictures Robbie!
 
Looking out the inlet at Bird Island.