Sat 27 Nov – Georgetown – Arrived at Harborwalk Marina at 2:30 pm after a cold but uneventful trip down the Waccamaw. Docked, filled the fuel tank, and headed for a hot shower and shave, it had been a week and it looked like it in the mirror. Next, I take Uber to Walmart for restocking. Georgetown apparently has no resident Uber drivers as they all have to come from Pawleys Island which is 13 miles away. Eventually Larry shows up and took me to Walmart, he owned a Pearson 26 and we talked sailboats the entire way to Walmart. Inside I got groceries, stove fuel, and bath towels. I took two large duffel bags with me and that is what we packed everything into. You should have seen the checker; she took this as her personal challenge and what a trooper she did an excellent job packing everything. Now time to wait for Uber again and back to make dinner and start the laundry. I only had enough quarters to stuff the washer, so into town I had to walk to get some change so I could wash AND dry the cloths.
Sun 28 Nov – Awendaw – There are 3 places on the ICW that I absolutely hate with a passion and all are shallow areas. The first is Onslow Bay, but that went swimmingly. The next area is long and unforgiving, it is the first place I ran aground and I’ll never forget it… McClellanville, SC, low country and I mean really low. You can’t trust the charts, you can’t trust the buoys, the bottom can go from 8 feet to 3 feet in a heartbeat and that’s not an exaggeration (FYI, I hit bottom as 4 ½ feet). This isn’t just a little area; it goes on for about 70 miles with shallowing danger at literally every turn and goes on until you exit into Charleston Harbor. The last place is in Georgia and it called Hell Gate, we will cover that if we have to. Breakfast – 2 cups of tea and pancakes, Lunch – Triple decker ham and cheese sandwich, Dinner – Hot Dogs, baked beans, and cheese cake.
Mon 29 Nov – Sullivan’s Island – woke up the first time at 1:30 from line noise slapping the mast, I laid in my bunk hoping it would stop on its own, but after 10 mins I knew I had to get up, get dressed, go up on desk, rearranged some lines and all was quiet. Back into my warm bunk and back to sleep. I had to stop last night due to running out of light. I looked for a little creek to stop in, and found one on the chart that said it had 7-foot of water (all I need is 4 1/2), I went to turn into the little creek and watched my depth sounder go from 12 to 8 to 6 to 4.5 when I turned and headed back out. Finally found 5-foot of water along the ICW and anchored for the night. I had to use 2 anchors, one at the bow and one at the stern so that the boat would be held parallel to the ICW, that way it would not swing into the middle or into the shallows on the other side. When I awoke the depth sounder read 4.5′ and I had to pull the boat off the bottom into deeper water before I could get going. I made it through McClellanville at low tide with 6 inches of water under the keel. It was a tense 5 hours the whole way and then I arrived at the Ben Sawyer Bridge (bridge to Sullivan Island near Charleston and Isle of Palms, only minutes from Charleston Harbor) and spoke to the bridge tender about an opening, she asked me to wait a few minutes so another sailboat behind me could catch up and she would only have to make a single opening. I said ‘sure, I’m in no hurry’ (remember this), the boat behind caught up and the tender announced her opening and then… well then… well nothing moved, absolutely nothing. After a few minutes of holding and waiting the bridge tender announced that she was having mechanical issues and would be abandoning the opening and would have to call her maintenance crew to look at the bridge before she could attempt another opening, that was at 10:30 am. It’s now 5:04 pm (sunset is 5:11) and there have been 11 test openings and with each test nothing moves, 6 south bound sailboats sit anchored near the bridge… waiting & hoping. Breakfast – freeze dried ‘breakfast skillet’ it’s not all that good but it’s hot, Lunch – Ham and cheese sandwich, Dinner – Chef Boyardee ravioli, cup of tea, chocolate chip cookie(s) .
Addendum: At 6:05 pm using only a single motor the bridge finally opened in the darkness. All but one of the south bound sailboats at anchor elected to stay anchored until morning, Aine included. It is my greatest hope that the bridge will still be able to open again at 6:30 am tomorrow.
Each week I have a new guest Chef catering in the galley, only the finest cuisine for this sailing yacht. This week it’s that Italian Wonder we all grew up with, the one, they only… Boyardee, ‘its-a so gooda’