Crew Log for April 17th – 18th, 2023
Trip Summary:
• Church Creek - Georgetown
• Trip Distance of 78 NM, Total Distance To-Date of 3,900.8 NM
It was breezy and cool, with a short burst of rain at midnight, otherwise it all was quiet. I mentioned in our last post how much we loved the Church Creek anchorage. We still do.
I was feeling anxious this morning. We had to navigate the Elliot Cut and Wappoo Creek Bridge and transit across Charleston Harbor before heading back up the ICW to Isle of Palms, our destination for today. I tried to reassure myself that we had planned the trip as well as we could.
The bridge opens every hour on the half hour. Our plan was to arrive for the 12h30 bridge opening, which was close to slack tide. As so often is the case, I get impatient in the mornings and we hoisted the anchor at 08h30, which would likely put us at the bridge earlier than we wanted. In my defense, I figured it was easier to slow down than to speed up. However, our original plan to leave at 09h00, was likely the smarter option.
We made our way down the Stono River, admiring the homes and marvelling over the massively long docks, some of which had to be 500 meters long. This was a relatively peaceful section of the ICW with very few navigational hazards.
The one thing you always have to watch for though, are approaching boats. Especially large motor yachts, piloted by delivery captains. Your first clue is they have their Automatic Information System (AIS) turned off. Your second clue is the speed that they drive. And finally, they are firmly in the middle of the ICW and have no intention of altering course. Boat delivery captains are “cowboy truckers” on the water. I suppose, like truckers, there are good ones, however for people who call themselves, professional captains, our experience with delivery boat skippers has not been a positive one.
As we approached one of the many 65 foot ICW bridges, we noticed a motor yacht coming full speed towards us. We inched our way over to “our side” and continued towards the bridge. We both arrived at the bridge at about the same time. We were doing maybe 4 knots and barely creating a ripple, and the cowboy captain was throwing a 3 – 5 wake. We met just as our bow went up the bridge. The wake from the passing boat rocked Elizabeth M violently from side to side, and we came dangerously close to running aground. Beware of delivery boat captains.
Elliot Cut is a narrow body of water on the Wappoo Creek, between West Ashley and James Island, across the river from the city of Charleston. Despite slowing down, our earlier than expected departure meant that we arrived at the top of Elliot Cut about an hour before we wanted. The receding currents had pushed us along at a brisk pace. Rather than delay for a full hour, we carefully entered the cut and idled through the narrow entrance. We estimated that the current was running at 2.5 – 3.0 knots. At one point we reached 6.5 knots of boat speed with the throttle on idle speed.
Fortunately, once we cleared the cut, the creek widens out just before the bridge, which not only reduced the current, but provided lots of room to hover the boat and wait for the next opening. We had about 15 – 20 minutes to wait, which provided a good opportunity for us to practice our maneuvering skills. We still can’t back this boat up easily, due to the prop walk. She’ll go backwards, just not in the direction we want!
We safely made our way under the bridge, across the Charleston Harbor and headed towards Isle of Palms. A short distance before our final destination we noticed 2 – 3 trawlers anchored just off a narrow section of the ICW. It seemed like an unusual spot to anchor. We carefully made our may by them and continued on, until we felt a slight bump, and then another, before coming to a complete stop.
The reason they had anchored, is there had been some shoaling in this area and we had a very low tide. We ran aground. However, we managed to wiggle ourselves off and continued on towards Isle of Palms.
Isle of Palms is a city in South Carolina, on the slender barrier island of the same name. It’s known for its beaches, luxury homes, hotels and resorts, golf courses and restaurants. It is also home to the Isle of Palms Marina which, despite being in a “high end” rent district, was reasonably priced and offered some nice amenities, namely a shower.
The staff at the marina were helpful and courteous and the transient space on the face dock provided easy access to the ICW. However, once we were tied up, the conversation shifted to what wasn’t available. “The on-site restaurant was excellent, but not open on Mondays, the washer and dryer were free, but were down for repairs, there was a great boaters store, which was closed for renovation, and there is free wifi on the dock, but it wasn’t working”.
Apparently, we arrived in the “off season” so the marina upgrade projects were in full swing. The main facility was under going an extensive renovation, which was “almost” complete. There were construction workers everywhere. It occurred to me that when your web site and phone message starts with, “we are open for business to serve you”, you might want to qualify the statement a tad more accurately.
Good news though. The beach was still open, which aside from a shower, was all we really needed.
The beach was truly beautiful and had good public access. The Atlantic Ocean is on one side and a narrow salt marsh and massive luxury homes are on the other. It felt good to be walking on a beach again. The shells all seemed to have a black tinge to them, which also darkened the color of the sand. We were left wondering what would cause this color variation. We had lots of theories, but no definitive conclusion.
We had a quiet night on board. It cooled down quite a bit in the evening but I have so far resisted putting long pants on.
We headed out early the next morning, shortly after first light to Georgetown. This section of the ICW feels very remote and is like a plaid patchwork of creeks and rivers. I am sure it is possible, but figuring out the currents in this maze of waterways, is a challenge for me. At one point, the boat slowed to 3 knots, as we struggled against the current.
Just about the time the current slowed us down, we were attacked by a horde of giant horse flies. We swatted flies for 3 – 4 hours and laughed when we got a text from our good friend and trip mentor, Colin, who said he and Patty had 2 fly swatters going full time through this stretch on one of their trips. It was an epic battle and there were piles of flies dotting the cockpit. It felt great to leave the narrow section of the ICW and turn up the Winyah Bay towards Georgetown, which provided some relief from our flying pests.
As we made our way into the Harborwalk Marina, we were greeted by loud Indian Music blasting from the construction project adjacent to the dock. It actually wasn’t bad, although I did wonder what the permanent neighbors thought of volume level and genre. It turned out, that different construction workers must get to pick the music at different types throughout the day since the following morning, we woke to classic rock from the 70’s and 80’s.
We were here right around American Thanksgiving on the way down, and the marina was full of mostly sailboats. This time around, it wasn’t at capacity, but the transiting boats were mostly trawlers and tugs, all doing the “Great Loop”. There was a tug across from us, mv Jack Robert. Judy thought it was called Jack Rabbit, which seemed like a funny name for a tug. It was owned by Lee and Dee, from Minnesota, who were full time live aboards. They weren’t “necessarily” doing the Great Loop, since they wanted to keep the boat on the east coast and could easily head south in the fall. It sounded like they headed back to their family cottage in Minnesota for the summer.
Everyone we met the first time we were here and again this time, said we “had” to go to the River Room for supper. We arrived before the “first seating” back in November and went to The Big Tuna instead. As we waited this time for a table to open up, we met another couple who wanted to go to The Big Tuna, but said it was closed on Mondays. I am not sure which meal was better, but the unique décor of the Big Tuna was certainly more interesting than the River Room. If you missed our first post from Georgetown, be sure to scroll back and check it out.
The clientele at the River Room was a decidedly “older” demographic, so we fit right in. That said, I likely had more hair than the aggregate hair length of all the other men there, and my flip flops were inconsistent with the dress code of brown loafers with no socks. Luckily Judy is generally more presentable, which likely helps us get into places like the River Room.
The house specialty was shrimp and grits, but if I am giving an honest review, it wasn’t as good as our meal at Chez Heather and Dennis, when we visited them in Charleston in the fall. The River Rooms recipe had andouille sausage and a brown gravy over it, which wasn’t my preference. I did eat it all though, so it couldn’t have been that bad. Judy had a pasta dish that actually tasted better the next day as leftovers after she made some modifications.
One of our other absolute favorite anchorages, was Bird Island, right on the border between South and North Carolina. Despite being right on the coast, it is well protected and a short dinghy ride to a spectacular beach that extends up from the community of Sunset Beach. It was a little bit of a hike to get there in one hop from Georgetown, so we decided to head back to Wacca Wache Marina, since we like saying Wacca Wache so much. Unfortunately we get some bad tourist advice during our brief stop.
But more about that, next time.
Additional Photos:
Comments