Three Days in one post...........lousy WIFI

4/5/2021

Poor wifi is one issue that we contend with at some marinas. Unfortunately, that slows the blog process. This blog will cover three days of travel to catch us up.

After saying good-bye to a number of new cruising friends, we departed Georgetown and headed for Myrtle Beach. I knew this was going to be a day mixed with great cruising and ............ not-so-great cruising. North of Georgetown is the Waccamaw River and one of our favorite spots along the ICW. It is natural and undeveloped for quite a distance, as well as being deep and wide. There was little traffic along the way. It had been a very cold morning with record low temperatures for the area. I suspect that kept the locals inside. We had frost on the boat and on the docks as we untied the lines.

The second part of the trip was through the Myrtle Beach area. There was still little traffic, but the going is slow due to the number of homes and docks along the way. As I have said before, our boat makes a pretty big wake and I am very conscientious about damaging anyone's property by going too fast. The Myrtle Beach area has a mix of modern mansions to modest homes that have been around for years. There are also many condominiums in the area. It's a little too crowded here for me.

We had to transit to swing bridges and the notorious "Rock Pile." This area of the ICW is narrow and has created problems for boaters as it has shallow rocks on the edges. We made it through ok, but a boating couple that we met in Georgetown lost a prop in the "Rock Pile" and spent 5 weeks getting it repaired. Needless to say, we were extra careful.

We docked at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club in a very protected harbor with a number of marinas. A lighthouse at the entrance was our landmark. The folks there were very nice and we enjoyed walking around the harbor for a little exercise. It was ok for a one-night stop.

We left the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club around 9:30am on Easter morning to head for Carolina Beach. We had a few challenges ahead of and were as prepared as possible. Two famous shoaling areas, Shallotte Inlet and Lockwood's Folly were on the route as was the Cape Fear River and Snow's Cut. We made it through the shoal areas ok following the routes of Bob423. He is a well-known ICW cruiser that provides a wealth of information including downloadable tracks of the routes he has taken. If it were not for Bob423, many ICW cruisers would be aground, especially the sailboaters who have much deeper drafts than us. Shallotte Inlet was in the process of being dredged and the equipment was still on the scene. Later on, we had to pass a tugboat at a narrow point in the ICW. It didn't seem as though there was enough room for both of us, but we got through without crashing into each other.

Traffic was a little heavy on the Cape Fear River. In addition to a flotilla of tugs and barges heading out for dredging, there were a number of boats traveling in multiple directions. A large sport fishing boat passed us at nearly full speed waking us to the point we thought we might capsize. These guys are pretty obnoxious and are well-known up and down the ICW for their disregard for other boaters.

We passed another tug and barge a little further up the river. Martha and I enjoyed seeing the two crewmen sitting at the front of the barge. I guess they were the lookouts. We made out way through Snow's Cut taking it slow to avoid waking other boats. As we approached a small boat carrying a concerned woman and her husband, another large boat passed us fast and waked both us and the small boat. Fortunately for the small boat, we took the brunt of the waking.

We made it into the Carolina Beach harbor and found the mooring balls. We struggled with the wind to get tied up, but eventually got two lines through the thimble on the ball and settled in for the night. It was a quiet and comfortable night. The sky was beautifully clear.

Our departure from Carolina Beach went well. Martha untied the lines from the mooring ball and we headed out of the harbor area. It was slow going up the ICW as the tide was out and we had to watch for a few shallow areas. There were few boaters on the water, but we went slow anyway.

We headed to sea once we reached Masonboro Inlet. This is a fairly deep and safe inlet with a Coast Guard station right there. We made it out and headed towards Beaufort, NC. The ride got a little bumpier than we had hoped for, but it was not nearly as bad as our outside passage a couple of weeks ago in Florida. We skirted the Camp LeJeune security area. There was mention of possible activity in the US Coast Guard Local Notice to Mariners, so I chose not to take a chance of going through the security zone.

The detour added a few miles to our journey, but we still made good time and arrive in Beaufort around 1:30pm. Once inside the inlet, it was no wake speed until we reached the marina. There was a quite a bit of activity. This is a major harbor area with all manner of fishing, commercial, research and recreational boats.

We tied up at Homer Smith's Docks and settled in for a two-day stay. After rinsing down the boat, we took a walk into town for dinner. The town center is only three blocks away and very convenient. There are a number of restaurants and shops.