Day 9 - The Deep and Wide Waccamaw River

Our trek today was pretty straight forward. Our travel partner Dave, from the previous day, stopped by while walking his dog to talk and give us some helpful tips. Getting local knowledge is very helpful. We left Grande Dunes Marina at 8:30am. The first hour was a little boring. We passed more beautiful homes along the ICW and many under construction. The homes were perched up on the hillside bank and many had beautiful landscaping and infinity pools. I know there is a lot of controversy about the topic of wakes in this area, but I chose to err on the side of caution and went slowly to avoid damaging anyone's water toys or docks. After passing through the Socaste River Swing Bridge, things opened up nicely and we were able to travel at our normal speed of 22 knots for quite a while. We had to slow down occasionally for slower boats, marinas and one tugboat captain working on a barge that thought we were going too fast for his liking.

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We entered the Waccamaw River which was deep and wide. It didn't hurt that it was also high tide. We passed a few boats going in the other direction as well as trawlers and sailboats going south. We hailed them on the radio and gave them a slow courteous pass. As it turned out, one of the trawlers we passed is right next to us in the marina. Glad we did the courteous thing, otherwise it could have been an awkward situation. Martha's note on the picture below says "traffic jam." One boat docked on the shore said "South Carolina Public Schools" on the side. We were wondering what is was used for, on water school bus, field trips, etc.

We made it to Georgetown. The entrance was a bit confusing, so we took it very slow and watched the depth carefully. The Harbor Walk Marina is great and had the lowest fuel prices of the whole trip. Needless to say, we filled up......................only took on a 150 gallons. The staff here is very helpful and seem to take pride in running a nice marina. It is a very pleasant town and we treated ourselves to dinner at the River Room. They are taking the COVID protections seriously here, and most people are wearing masks. All establishments have signs announcing the need to wear a mask if you enter. The meal was excellent, although we may have overdone it a little. Had to have seafood since the fishing trawlers are docked just down the block. We will definitely stop here on the way back in the spring. This is a great stop! They have a little boardwalk along the water with some restaurants and bars. It ends at a park with a fountain. As usual, Martha needed to take a selfie.

Tomorrow we move on to Charleston for a couple of nights and have to get used to the time change. Our days will be ending sooner now. There are a couple of shoaling areas to go through, but I don't think it will be anything as worrisome as yesterday.

Thanks for reading.