Southward!! On Thursday, we traveled 30 miles from North Myrtle Beach to South Myrtle Beach. We docked in Wacca Wache marina because it is close to where my brother and his wife live. It is on the Waccamaw River which is fabulous. It is a wide, winding river full of cypress trees with hanging Spanish moss. We knew we were in South Carolina. Tom and Carolyn came to the boat and then we had a great evening at a Thai Restaurant and got caught up with what everyone has been doing. We even got treated to dinner! We hope to get the next dinner on the way back north. It was great to see them again.
We left on Friday morning and headed south to one of the best anchorages we have stayed in. It was my first time at taking the boat off the dock and I didn’t hit anything and was very happy! (ed:RR: she did a fantastic job). We anchored that evening in Awendaw Creek in the Santee National Wildlife Refuge. There wasn’t a thing around except for water, endless saw grass, dolphins and lots and lots of birds. It was just a wonderful, peaceful place. We’ll make a return trip there.
Someone enjoying the end of the day.
The next day we were on our way to Charleston. We passed a lot of funky homes and also some palaces. We timidly worked our way across Charleston Harbor, and stayed in one of the marinas near the Battery. On this trip, the only thing we saw of the town was the Harris Teeter!
This was a funky one. Below is, well, you can see for yourself!
This is the new Charleston Bridge. It is a pretty sight.
The Battery.
During this trip we saw our first bald eagle, Sandhill cranes (the tall ones) flew over the boat, and last night in Charleston we saw 3 sea otters playing with a dolphin, all of whom appeared to be watching the sunset, like us. Several dolphins have decided to play in the boat wake and it is great fun to watch them. When they get bored with that, they just disappear to parts unknown .
The forsythia is blooming in SC, so are the azaleas and the star magnolias. The weather is a bit scary!
We are now in an anchorage off of the South Edisto River. It is lovely, but the coolest thing is that we are looking out on a ‘House’ as it is shown on the chart. Turns out that the house is the Prospect Hill Plantation built in 1790. The design of the plantation was by a guy named John Hoban who also was the architect of the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. We don’t see any lights in the house and it looks like it might be abandoned, which is a shame.
This evening at anchor we cranked up the starboard generator to charge up all the batteries and run the house 110V plugs. While Rick was in the shower, the generator decided to drop dead. All the lights went out, so we cranked up the port generator and continued with the evenings festivities which included hamburgers on the grill. At the moment Rick thinks it’s an oil pressure problem; always something to learn. We also anchored in about 9.5 feet of water, which seemed a generous pleanty at the time. It’s now near low tide and we are close to bumping mud; always something to learn.
We have been averaging 38 miles a day so the pace is very slow. Nice, though. These guys followed us for a bit looking for fish in our wake.
