Duck Creek to Sandy Bay, west of Elliott Cut

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The anchor came up clean this morning, as we began our morning continuing to the south.   Our journey today took us through the South Carolina low country, having departed from the fresh waters we were in yesterday, to the salt marsh today.

I love the marshes, and the abundance of the wading birds.  The transition has brought pelicans as well, and dolphins rolling alongside the boat.  We've missed seeing these friends of the south.

Then we lost the marsh to be surrounded by civilization with Isle of Palms to the south, and Mt. Pleasant to the north, as we continued on.  

Crossing Charleston Harbor seemed much shorter to me today.  It is amazing how much longer the ride can seem on days the wind is howling and you are bucking a tide....  Today was gorgeous, in that there was almost no wind, and we had a current pushing us.

We caught up to our friends on the SEASALT, an Island Packet, who were circling at the mouth of Elliott Cut, to time their transit with the next bridge opening.  We are low enough to not have to wait for the bridge.  

We remembered plucking a little boy floating down that current in a life jacket with our dinghy earlier this year.

After we went through Elliott Cut, we turned to the north, and went past Edgewater Park to anchor in the 15' of water behind the shoal.  The forecast for the evening was for winds N around 5, and it was late enough in the day that the ICW traffic was waning, and cloudy and rainy enough that locals hadn't been running around too much that day.  I would be concerned about high winds from anywhere but the north, and you definitely can get some wake from the ICW, so it might not always be a good anchorage.... but, for tonight it was great!

We watched grilled chicken, and watched Survivor (our one hour of tv we try to catch each week!) and settled in for a quiet evening.

It was still enough I heard birds all during the night.

48.6 nm today, approx ICW mi 472

Osprey Marina, Waccamaw River, to Duck Creek

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

We awoke to rain, and I took care of some paperwork chores before returning the rental car.  

Osprey Marina and the friendly staff were hard to say good bye to, though we eventually did around noon.

We travelled in a day of rain, through one of my favorite stretches of the ICW down the Waccamaw River.  This area is still recovering from its "1000 year flood" with the rains from the feeder bands of Hurricane Joaquin.  Cypress swamps are designed to flood, and I'm sure the flooded waterways aren't affected nearly as much as some of the homes in the area.

We passed Thoroughfare Creek, which we had greatly enjoyed on our way north, but, decided to head south a little further to check out a new anchorage somewhere.

The Socastee Swing bridge was still closed to the north, and we only met three northbound vessels, one which I suspect was a local.  The other boat was unaware of the closure, in spite of USCG broadcasts every 30 minutes.  The only other vessel we met was a tug pushing a barge, as he was entering the Waccama from Winyah Bay.

We saw several individual large wading birds, all hunkered down in the rain.  One eagle sat in the top of a dead tree.  There were some pretty good sized fish rolling in the Waccamaw.

In the past, I have anchored In Minim Creek, to the west of the ICW, and had planned to anchor on the east side tonight.  I saw two vessels in there, so we eased down to Duck Creek, where we dropped the hook on a 5.9' spot, which, I figured at low tide with these waters would be at least 7.5'     That is about mm 416