We pulled anchor and departed from Steamboat Creek at approximately 0852 hours and continued north on the ICW. Current was in our favor and we were soon doing 8 knots… at least when the water was deep enough. A lot of shallow water again today and also winds. We are getting very tired of the shallow water and high winds… it’s time for them to cease. Destination for the day… not sure… we plan to go until about 1700 hours.

A few boats passed us during the day… but really not a lot of traffic.., I think maybe the winds are keeping people in port… it’s not rough but maybe it could be for a smaller boat. 1700 hours came and we had a few spots charted out… none of which we had been to before… first one we came to was Awendaw Creek MM 435 on the ICW… as we passed there was absolutely no wind protection from the 20 knot SW winds and the anchorage was lying east to west so we decided to continue on… next option was McClellanvile in Five Fathom Creek at MM 430… when we came to it we were at almost dead low tide and the channel entering it looked really narrow and shallow… also, again no wind protection. That was the last one we had planned… out come the cruising guides… nothing before Georgetown that was listed as pet friendly… I took a quick look at ActiveCaptain via Coastal Explorer and saw where others had anchored in the South Santee River at MM 420 and was listed as pet friendly with boar ramp and pier to land your dinghy… Perfect! Another hour to go and we would be to MM 420…. The pier and boat ramp were about 1.7 nautical miles west on the South Santee River. We had never been in the area before so we slowed to just above idle to slowly work our way back up the river. It was dead low tide which I think is the best time to enter an anchorage for the first time... you either make it or not… we were seeing the actual depths to be 2-3 less than what the chart was telling us… one area was charted at 7 feet… so I was a little worried about it… but it was actually still 7 feet as we crossed it. We arrived to where we were going to anchor… an area just before the boat ramp and pier and protected from the south and west by a line of trees and about 300 yards wide… plenty of swing room. We dropped the hook and were securely anchored in 12 feet of water at 1852 hours at approximate location N33°09.237’, W079°21.120’.

Today we traveled for 10 hours covering 70.31 nautical miles averaging 7.03 knots.

We departed very very late from Port Royal Landing Marina… I had several things I needed to catch up with that required a GOOD internet connection…. The WIFI was excellent at Port Royal so we hung around for the morning so I could get some things done. We departed from Port Royal Landing at approximately 1200 hours and continued north on the ICW with our destination for the day… Steamboat Creek.

Checking weather we had the same forecast as it had been… 10-15 knots from the west… no rain forecast… and as it has been it was not long before the wind was back up to 20-25 knots with 30 knot gusts… not as many of the high gusts today but we are sure getting tired of this wind.

Very little boat traffic today… one boat passed us going north… forget the name but they had a hailing port in NJ… looked like a delivery crew rather than cruisers and it was a SeaRay type boat about 30 feet… we did have two boats pass us going south that were definitely cruisers. Other than those three boats… wait we did have pone other research vessel pass us going south… and he waked the heck out of us.

We left on a high tide but would have been better to leave before high tide… we encountered a lot of shallow water and shoaling… the first place was the Ashepoo Coosaw Cutoff with several places just over 6 feet… and we were at a mid tide there… then north side of Fenwick Cut again saw 6 foot on the depth sounder… then at Watts Cut we had very shallow water just after entering, several times during and exiting… the worst was just before the North Edisto River on the Dawho River… at marker 117 we started see less than 6 feet quite often… several times the depth sounder stopped reading… just flashing 5.2 and LAST… we were crawling at just above idle through here… it of course was just about dead low tide... we always seem to hit this area at low or near low tide… no encounters with the bottom. Once into the North Edisto River the depths were fine… we departed from the ICW here and headed East on the North Edisto River to the entrance to Steamboat Creek. The wind was still blowing so we went quite a ways up Steamboat Creek to get out of the wind as much as possible… but Steamboat Creek is not really the best place to get out of a westerly wind. We anchored in 25 feet of water at approximate location N32°36.240’, W080°17.628’.

Today we traveled for 5 hours and 45 minutes covering 38.83 nautical miles averaging 6.75 knots.

We ended up getting kicked off the docks in Kilkenny about 1845… so we moved about a quarter mile up Kilkenny Creek and dropped the anchor at N31°47.416’, W081°12.154’. Cross this off as a free dock for the night.

We were up bright and early after a very chilly evening on the hook… not sure what the temperature dropped to but it was COLD… we had the anchor up and made a quick stop at the dock we got kicked off of to walk Beecha and we were underway at 0645 hours. Destination for tonight was Beaufort, SC… about 10.5 hours at 6.5 knots… had a long day of cruising ahead of us.

Checking the weather there was no rain in the forecast just 10-15 knots winds out of the west… so much for forecasts… I don’t think we saw less than 20 knots all day with gusts over 30 knots quite often… only a few spots was it open enough to produce any waves but we saw 3 foot waves a couple of areas… and 4 footers in Port Royal Sound… current was favorable most of the day and we made better time than anticipated. We docked at Port Royal Landing Marina in Beaufort, SC at 1645 hours. Our approximate location N32°23.769’, W080°40.664’.

We were greeted by one of the local live aboard boaters inviting us to join the local people from the dock for dinner at the marina restaurant. We went up at 1800 and had a lovely evening with them. Everyone was very friendly.

Today we traveled for 10 covering 66.1 nautical miles averaging 6.61 knots.