Making Our Way Through South Carolina

Some thoughts from Martha:
Our night at Wacca Wache rates 5 stars. The deck hands gave us advance slip information for our late arrival, then ended up staying after closing to fuel and dock us and a few other late boats. The fuel and slip rates were very affordable. 
The floating docks are in great shape, we had a tasty meal at the Marina restaurant, and a dock hand even offered me his truck for a grocery store run. 
Bathrooms are well-equipped and maintained. We will definitely return to this marina.
We noticed unusual floating vegetation south of the marina and found out is floating water hyacinth, an invasive plant that impacts fish, native plants, and boating. 

Matthew’s Cut at McClanville during dead low tide was a scary section of shallow water. Bob stayed near 6 knots to have good reaction time in case we hit ground. 

Now from the main blogger:
I took the last couple of nights off from the blog, mostly due to mental exhaustion. On Friday we left Morehead City and went out into the ocean for a few hours. The weather was great and we had a good return into Masonboro Inlet, which is just south of Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina. We rejoined the ICW and headed towards the Cape Fear River to go to Southport. The river was fine, however there was some major dredge work going on and it was a little confusing determining how the dredge operator wanted us to pass. The boat in front of us, C: Drive (a cool boat name) asked a couple of times, but the answer was never definitive. We made it through ok. 

There was a lot of traffic when we joined back up to the ICW at Southport and then our marina was right there. We got fueled up and then they put us in  our slip for the night. It was a little tight, but we made it and enjoyed a nice sunset. 

The big concern were with the predicted winds on Saturday morning and if we would get out ok. I watched another boat leave and determined that we should give it a try. It was the right decision and the day turned out very nice after a 7:30am start. Thjis was the Myrtle Beach part of the trip...........and not my favorite. We first had to contend with a few treacherous  inlet spots that are frequently shoaled up, and then we had to get through the very busy North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach area. It goes on for miles. Slow speeds through tourist areas and lots of homes with docks. We passed one of the casino boats heading out as we entered North Myrtle Beach and then waited 10 minutes for the Little River Swing Bridge to open. Before getting into Myrtle Beach we had to go through the infamous "Rock Pile." It has never been a problem for us, but the name itself gives people concern. You can actually see rocks on the shoreline, and of course, we had to go through at low tide. Just to make it more exciting.

Once we got to the Socaste Swing Bridge, we knew we were through the worst of the day and the beautiful Waccamaw River awaited. It is such a scenic part of the ICW and has always been one of my favorite parts. We put Encore up to speed for a while to give her a workout before shutting down for the night. As Martha said above, The Wacca Wache Marina folks had told us they go home at 4:00pm, so we thought we would be on our own for docking. As it turned out, they stayed around, saw us on AIS as we cruised up the river, called us on the radio, and took care of our fueling and docking. The workers there are great and I'm sure we will stop there again. Martha like their facilities, and even took some pictures.

We left Wacca Wache around 9:30am this morning and enjoyed a beautiful trip on the rest of the Waccamaw. As Martha mentioned, there were a lot of hyacinth floating in the river. There was a bit of traffic on the ICW today and especially when we got to the bridge outside of Georgetown where a lot of construction is going on.

South of Georgetown we entered a very different area with windy rivers running through grasslands. There are very few trees. It is picturesque and you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere...............until a local fisherman goes speeding by. At that point we realized we are never far from civilization. As Martha mentioned, we went by McClellanville, another treacherous area, at DEAD low tide. I was using all the instruments at my disposal to help get through this area.

We made it and got tucked safely into our anchorage for the night. It was a bit disconcerting to see an overturned boat at the entrance to the anchorage, but I'm sure it has been here since some long ago storm passed through. We are surrounded by grasslands, it may be rice, and I even saw a dolphin mom and calf swimming around. It is raining, but the winds are calm and the boat seems to be staying put (that is the biggest concern when anchored overnight). Martha took a picture of her dinner preparations for tonight. We are lucky to have a lot of very nice conveniences on this boat.

Tomorrow we head for Charleston and the weather forecast is looking good. Until then...............