St. John's Yacht Harbor

Friday 22 May 2015

A couple of notes about this nice place to stay...

The docks are floating, and ours had 30 and 50 amp available.  The slips are lined up with the current, making docking and undocking pretty simple.  There is a lot of current.

The staff here is friendly, with much of the help being teen-age.  That means if you are in front of them, they do anything!  Just don't ask them for something in an hour, because you'll never see it.  I think multi-tasking plans for later is reserved for people in their thirties and forties.  It takes thirty years to learn it, and by fifty, we've forgotten how to do it!

The marina has a pump-out boat that comes to your slip, in addition to one by the gas/fuel dock.  (I mentioned the other day how they didn't mind selling me just a few gallons of gas when I wasn't renting a slip.)

Their is a laundry room with four washers and dryers, a buck a load. The showers and restrooms are nice,  There is free wi-fi.  The docks are long, so its good exercise.

The marina has a courtesy car that we borrowed and went to CVS, Costco, and Food Lion.  Although the grocery store is within a couple of miles, it is down a road  that I would not want to walk or bicycle down.

We met a lot of friendly folks around the docks, too.  One lady had given me the CVS/Costco/grocery info.  Her and her husband have sold everything, bought a sailboat, and are on a retire in four years and sail plan.  They were such nice folks, I hope our paths cross in years to come.  (If you are reading this, remember, bike to the Keys this winter!)

Julia (with the sailboat)  came by the boat when she was going to the hardware store to see if I needed anything, and I rode into town with her.  I asked her if a pet store was nearby, and she called one that she uses to make sure they had our brand of dog food.  She ran me by, and I grabbed a bag for Mercy, who is greeted me happily upon my return.  

Steamboat Creek, SC to Kiawah River, SC

20 May 2015

Today's pre-breakfast romp at the boat ramp was a little less eventful than yesterday's drills.  The boatramp gives great access to a long dirt road, which makes a great place for running for the dogs, complete with a lot of interesting smells.  This photo from the ramp was the evening before.

It looked like an 0800 departure would have the tide pushing us all the way, with a stop at a marina for gas without much current.  The calculations where pretty close!  

We bucked the current out the short stretch of Steamboat Creek, and it was pretty much all downhill from there.  Sometimes, this is a good thing!  We went up the North Edisto River, joining the ICW where we had left it on Monday.

To the south of here, the ICW is pretty much cut to connect rivers flowing seaward.  At this point the ICW turns northward following the natural low marsh well inland.  The surrounding land seemed a little higher, and there were more houses, many with loooong walkways over the marsh grass to connect them to their floating docks.  

I loved the boat house matching the main house.

There was also this large commercial operation, with its barges, cranes, tug boats, and shipyard, complete with a couple hundred foot ship hauled out.

At some point our journey became the Stono River, though I'm not sure at what point the name change took place.  We turned south on the Stono River just as the ICW kept going straight through Elliott Cut and pulled into St. Johns Yacht Harbor to get some gas for the RIB.  Since we've left home, we've burned through 7.8 gallons.  

I was impressed with the marina!  There are nice floating docks, and nice looking facilities.  But, the thing that impressed me, was the friendliness of the staff.  A lot of marinas can't be bothered with such a tiny purchase, but the dockmaster I talked to by phone sounded delighted that I would come in, even though the marina appeared pretty full and busy.  The dockhands welcomed us like friends they were delighted to see.  (I did have to watch the one young man, who looked like he'd like to keep Mocha!  Mocha was enamored with him as well.)

After our gas purchase, we continued down the Stono to near its confluence with the Atlantic, and ducked into another marsh grass creek, Bass Creek.  We hunted around for a spot to return to later to anchor, and went back to the Stono for another half mile down to anchor off a great little sandy beach.

I imagine this beach is huge at a lower tide, but, even two hours after high tide, their was a lot of empty beach of hard packed sand for another dog romp.  When we arrived, we had the place to ourselves, but, we hadn't been there long when I heard a small boat run aground in the creek immediately north of the point.  A 26' Hunter (sail boat) came and dropped the hook a little inshore and up current of us.  

I suspect this beach is the "picnic island" (our place at home) for Charleston boaters to come.  This Memorial week-end, I bet this whole area is full of boats.

Thunderstorms gathered around us, and there was a special marine warning to the north, and the south of us.  We went up into the Kiawah River, a little wider than our pre-explored Bass Creek, where we could get away from the marsh grass a little as the biting flies were looking for a good meal before the storm.  Rain passed all around us, and the temps cooled off nicely, but, we didn't get any rain 'til around 10pm, when it rained enough to rinse off the boat good. The local news said parts of Charleston flooded.

Our anchorage, where the Kiawah River had shallowed to 14' at N32 38.275' W 080 02.676' was a great place to watch the distant storms.