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.

Sunday we really slept in today… 0830 before we got out of bed… boy did it feel nice… Susan fixed a big breakfast and it was great to relax and enjoy it… no rush to get anywhere and looking outside the weather was crap… windy and rain all around us… we had some rain during the night but it was not raining this morning. Took Beecha to land via the dinghy landing at the University of Georgia Marine Institute docks. They have a great floating dock that you can land you dinghy. The current is really swift through the area but this morning we were close to a slack tide and landing was no issue. Back to boat about 1030 hours… pulled the anchor and we were underway at 1045 hours.

Checking weather pretty much confirmed the way it looked… it was going to be windy and chance of thunderstorms… oh boy!

Getting such a late start we would not get to far today… Walburg Creek or maybe Kilkenny Creek depending on the currents… and we had them today… saw as low as 4.4 knots and as high as 8.6 knots… I was running at 2250 rpm about 500 rpm below full cruising speed and that would normally push us at about 6.5 knots… keeping the rpm down 500 helps tremendously with the fuel economy.

We did encounter one thunderstorm as we crossed St. Catherines Sound and headed up the Bear River… radar showed it as a real small cell… but it packed a big punch… winds as it approached increased to a steady 30 knots with gusts to 38 knots… although the rain was not too bad… visibility remained pretty good through the whole 30 minute duration of the storm. After the storm passed the winds remained fairly strong… 15-20 knots with some gusting to 30 knots.

We had already passed Walburg creek and decided that we would stop at Kilkenny Creek… anchoring just past the Kilkenny Marina… however, in the Skipper Bob’s Cruising Guide we saw a paragraph about the Shrimp Docks Restaurant… we love dock and dine restaurants… normally they will let you spend the night on their docks… we arrived and docked at approximately 1600 hours… only to discover that the restaurant is closed on Sunday and Monday… we decided to remained docked and see if we make it overnight without being kicked off. Our approximate location N31°47.419’, W081°12.159’.

Today we traveled for 5 hours and 15 minutes covering 32.94 nautical miles averaging 6.27 knots.