We pulled the anchor and departed at 0700 hours from Beaufort, SC this morning... had the current against us full force first thing... making 5.5 knots all the way down the Beaufort River... made our turn up Port Royal Sound and had a short lived burst of speed making 8 knots... until we turned into the Skull Creek... again current on our bow slowed down to 6 knots... it's a constant loop back and forth with the current in this area... you just hope that you have more time with a boost... with no boost from the current we would make 6.5 knots... so today we averaged 6.51 knots so I guess we had a little more boost today... :)

The tides are much more extreme than I remember them being any time in the past... today as we cruised through the last of SC into GA I checked the tide range and we had over 10 foot rise and fall and of course dead low tide was mid afternoon... approximately 1430 hours... but it made for some really skinny water... only one place really gave us any worries and that was Hell Gate... the cut between the Little Ogeechee River to the Ogeechee River... it's notorious for shoaling... we have been through it many times and never really had any trouble with shoaling... today was a different story... I had never seen it like the it was today... there was exposed land to the port of us and there was maybe a 100 foot wide span between the exposed shoal to port and Raccoon Key to our starboard... we slowed to bare idle and the shallow water alarm was singing all the way through... it is set to 6 foot deep and we saw 5-5.5 feet for several hundred yards...and the deepest I saw in the cut was 7.1 feet as we passed through... and it was 1545 hours... this was an hour and 15 minutes after dead low tide... we would not of made it through at low tide.

We had very little cruisers traffic today... in fact no one passed us going south or north... we did have two sailboats that left Beaufort the same time as we did following us most of the day but they were moving a little slower and soon we lost sight of them behind us... there was a lot of small local boat traffic... :)

The weather was nice all day... not a lot of wind and the sun was shinning... :)

We had thought we would try and get to Walburg Creek and anchor but it would have been after dark so we opted out of that and went to one of our favorite marinas... Kilkenny Marina... on Kilkenny Creek... We were turned on to this marina several years ago by a good friend of ours... Don Gillete... Kilkenny was one of his stops as he took his boat north and south each year... we love it here... :) At approximately 1730 hours we were secure to the dock at Kilkenny Marina.

We traveled today for 10 hours and 30 minutes covering 68.32 nautical miles and averaging 6.51 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 1137.03 nautical miles
Hours: 178 hours 41 minutes
Avg Spd: 6.36 knots
Days not moving: 12

We departed Charleston, SC before sunrise at 0630 hours and were bound for Beaufort. SC. We had a good boost of current with us for the first few hours but soon lost it... that was the way most of the day went... 4.5 to 9.3 knots... it seemed to be equally split slow and fast today. It was not as windy as yesterday and it was sunny all day... NO RAIN... :)

There was not a lot of boat traffic... a few sailboats and one steel trawler with Sydney, Australia as the hailing port... one sailboat we had passed yesterday leaving Georgetown, SC... its hailing port was Cape Coral, FL and we passed it again today just after leaving Charleston, SC... I feel really bad for these people on the sailboats... totally exposed to the weather... and it was pretty COLD this morning... low 40's... :)

We were cruising with an ebb tide... so most of the areas we went through were at or near dead low tide... very skinny waters in a few places... the cut that goes between the Ashepoo River and the Coosaw River was really thin... 5-7 feet all the way through it and we lost the depth sounder reading as we exited the cut and entered the Coosaw River... did not feel us dragging but we were inches from the bottom... all mud bottoms... :)

When we turned up the Coosaw River is when we had the worst current against us... we actually slowed to below 5 knots for a little while... but we were close to the tide switching from ebb to flood so it slowed and we eventually were doing almost 6 knots. Once we exited the Coosaw and entered the Beaufort river we had the current kick in our favor again and we held 7.5 to 8 knots all the way to Beaufort.

We arrived to Beaufort, SC at approximately 1430 hours and had hoped to dock at the small city dock just south of the Beaufort Downtown Marina... but, it was full... 3 sailboats filling the 140 foot floating dock... no FREE dock tonight...:( So, we moved a little further south and dropped the anchor at approximate coordinates... N32°25.801', W080°40.571'... safe and sound at 1445 hours.

We traveled today for 8 hours and 15 minutes covering 61.3 nautical miles and averaging 6.45 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 1068.71 nautical miles
Hours: 168 hours 11 minutes
Avg Spd: 6.35 knots
Days not moving: 12

Eager to get a good day of travel we set the alarm clock for 0600 hours... alarm clock goes off as set at 0600 and you can hear the rain pouring down outside... shut the alarm off and went back to sleep... no need to get up and try to get underway with this down pour of rain... of course once you're awake and anxious to get going... going back to sleep did was not really an option... so we got up and started the day... the rain stopped at about 0630 hours and we were able to walk Beecha... put the bikes back on the boat and we cast off the liens and departed the docks at 0730 hours... destination Charleston, SC.

It had stopped raining but the skies were gray and the wind was blowing... forecast was for 15-20 knot winds with gusts to 25 knots and it was everything that was forecast. We had intermittent rain most of the morning but nothing very heavy... winds were the biggest thing... the 25 knot gusts were over 30 knots most of the time and winds increased to a steady 25 knots all day long. The sun did come out mid afternoon and was a beautiful day excluding the wind. The ICW through this area is well protected from the wind and we did not have any issues with waves.

We did have quite a time with low water... several stretches where we had to slow to idle with less than 6 feet of water in the channel... it was low tide but I think the high winds were making it extremely low... all the docks along the waterway were high and dry with the boats sitting on the bottom.

We got to Charleston Harbor about 1530 hours and the wind and current opposing each other it was very choppy... 2-4 foot waves... but as we crossed they decreased to almost nothing once we got in the lee of Charleston waterfront. We passed the Charleston City Marina and there were a few mega yachts docked but nothing Elliott's Cut... we had a flood current so we were zooming through the cut... I had slowed down to 1600 rpm and we were still moving at 8 knots... love the boost from the current. We exited the Cut and turned to starboard out of the ICW and headed down the Stono River towards St. John's Yacht Harbor... at approximately 1700 hours we were securely docked.

We traveled today for 9 hours and 30 minutes covering 61.3 nautical miles and averaging 6.45 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 1007.41 nautical miles
Hours: 160 hours 56 minutes
Avg Spd: 6.26 knots
Days not moving: 12