CT to GA Day 19
St. Johns Island, SC to Beaufort, SC
We pulled anchor and were underway at 0700 leaving the St. Johns Island / Charleston area... planned destination today Beaufort, SC.
The water was like glass for most of the day...it was beautiful. Very little boat traffic... only the occasional small recreational boat... we did have one commercial boat hold us up for about 10 minutes in Watts Cut... Dredge Hennessey working at daymark 138... nice to see a dredge making this area deeper.
We arrived to Beaufort, SC at approximately 1500 and docked at the free day dock adjacent to the Beaufort Downtown Marina (
N32°25.846', W080°40.527') and took the dogs for a long walk around the area.
At 1700 after our walk we moved SAILS out to the mooring field and took a mooring ball for the night. Our position tonight is
N32°25.707', W080°40.890'. We traveled today for 8 hours covering 55.3 nautical mile averaging 6.9 knots.
Posted at 5:04 PM
CT to GA Day 18
Myrtle Beach, SC to St. Johns Island, SC
We left Osprey Marina this morning at 0700 just before sunrise. Forecast for the day was sunny and 10-15 knot winds. Did not get any sun until afternoon and the winds were as forecast.
We did get a nice boost once we hit the Waccamaw River... pushing us over 8.5 to 9.5 knots all the way to Georgetown. Just below Georgetown we lost the push when we turned into Estherville Minim Creek Canal and we were down to less than 6 knots... Then we entered the Yo-Yo area of inlets and rivers all the way to Isle Of Palms... running 8 knots plus for a few miles and then back to below 6 knots for a few miles. Once we hit Isle of Palms just before Charleston we had the current once again against us for the rest of the day.
We did manage to arrive to the trouble spots with a mid tide and rising so we had no issues in the McClellanville area and the stretch of ICW from Isle of Palms to the Ben Sawyer Bridge. We would of had some depth issues if we had not had mid tide plus... even so there were some real skinny areas.
We ran a little longer day running a couple of hours past sunset... needed to get past the Ben Sawyer Bridge to clear all the shoaled trouble areas. Just after sunset crossing Charleston Harbor we met a huge cargo ship headed out to sea... per AIS info it was 700 ft long... a MONSTER specially when cross your bow a few 100 yards away.
Just south of Charleston we had to go through Elliott Cut... very narrow channel at the south end of Wappoo Creek taking you to the Stono River. We had current on our bow and the water was churning... slowed us down to under 4 knots... so about a 3 knot current against us... Susan hates this area when we have current... being dark made it much easier for her as she could not really see the water boiling from the current. Once in the Stono River we headed south for about a mile or so we were at our destination for the evening.
We arrived to St. Johns Island, SC and anchored just north of St Johns Yacht Harbor at approximately 1195. Our position tonight is
N32°45.389', W080°00.557'. We traveled today for 12 hours and 15 minutes covering 87.0 nautical mile averaging 7.1 knots.
Posted at 7:40 PM
CT to GA Day 17
Carolina Beach, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC
We left Carolina Beach State park this morning at 0700... just before sunrise. Had a long day planned with destination being Myrtle Beach, SC.
Current was in our favor for only about an hour today as we headed south down the Cape Fear River... pushing us to over 10 knot at times... once we turned into the ICW at Southport the brakes came on and we were down to 6 knots. We did have a couple of times as we passed inlets that we had a short boost of speed but for the most part we ran between 5.5 knots and 6.5 knots.
Tons of boats heading south today... several passed us and we passed several sailboats... nice to see more boat traffic.
We arrived to Osprey Marina, Myrtle Beach, SC and were securely docked at approximately 1645. Our position tonight is
N33°40.873', W079°02.508'. We traveled today for 9 hours and 45 minutes covering 66.5 nautical mile averaging 6.8 knots.
After arriving we fueled SAILS... SAILS had not been fed since April of this year and she was hungry... not as hungry as I thought... only taking 740 gals... 355.5 hours which gave us a fuel consumption of 2.08 gallons per hour... Awesome!
Posted at 6:39 PM