Watch the Current and the Wind!!

We got an early start this morning and left Beaufort a little before 8:00am. We enjoyed our time in this distinctly southern town and had a very pleasant evening on the boat after a brief walk after dark.

On our trip south in November, we skipped this part of the ICW and travelled from Charleston to Hilton Head in the ocean (on the outside as they say). There are a few tricky spots where you need to watch the depths, but we hit them all at high tide and had no problems. Most of the trip was in wide rivers with plenty of depth. It was very pretty and I'm glad we did not skip it this time. We passed a few boats that have become familiar to us now. 

I became concerned as we approached the Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff. This is and area that connects to different rivers and is known for shoaling. I saw a barge and some construction equipment at the entrance to the cut, but it wasn't operating and we passed through without incident.

It seems that the traffic always happens at one or two places each day. You're going along for miles and miles in solitude and then you come upon a group of boats. Today it happened as we approached a boatyard area with barges and workboats all along the shoreline.

We made much better time than anticipated, arriving at the marina around 12:25, a four and a half hour trip. It was getting near low tide, the current was moving swiftly and the wind was gusting a bit. As seems to be the norm, these conditions made docking a little tricky. The marina gave us instructions to travel down the last fairway and tie up at the fuel dock. They warned us about the swift current. It was another heart-thumping moment getting into the fairway, but once in, we laid up against the fuel dock easily and the dockhands took the lines and walked us to the overnight spot. All in all, it worked well, but the knuckles got a little white there for a moment. You would think I should be getting used to this, but every situation is a little different and we are completely at the mercy of the elements. It's even more exciting when it is a marina that we have not visited before.

We had a chance to visit with some new friends that we met in Beaufort and ended up here as well. We will explore the area a little this afternoon. The marina is pretty isolated. Tomorrow we head to Georgetown. We have tried not to repeat marina visits, but Georgetown was one of our favorite stops on the way south.