Georgetown, SC to Charleston, SC

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

032-49.860 N
079-44.700 W

Ahoy from an anchorage 10 miles N of Charleston!

The last 2 days have been cold and rainy. The last time that you heard from us we were in North Myrtle Beach and were headed to Georgetown, SC the next day. In the early hours of the morning a low pressure system arrived bringing bands of heavy rain with it. Rain pounding on the deck right above your head is not a welcome sound when you know that you're going to have to get up and get moving. I made the mistake of telling Sue that we would leave at 7:30 but I forgot what I had said and I was ready to move at 7:00. Sue wasn't happy as she thought that she was going to get an extra half hour of sleep.

We left the dock slightly before 7 AM in a light rain, but that quickly became a moderate rain with lengthy periods of heavy rain. We were dressed head to toe in our foul weather gear as we motored through miles and miles of Cyprus swamps, which I hope to never see again. At one point the ICW was S'ing back and forth and you put on 3x more miles than you had if you went straight. Arghhh! To say that I was bored and wet was an understatement. At around 3 PM we pulled unto into the Hazzard Marina in Georgetown, SC. We had 4 people help us at the dock and were told that they had 3.5" of rain that day. I don't know if we had that much, but we sure had a lot.

The Hazzard Marina is close to historic Georgetown, so we headed there as soon as we were all set at the dock. Georgetown is a quaint town with galleries and historic buildings. The town also closes down at 4:30, so we were limited in what we could see. Sue wanted to have her hair trimmed, but instead of taking off 1/2 of an inch she took off 1 1/2". Sue wasn't happy...

Today (Wednesday) we left the dock at 6 AM and had to maneuver around all of the boats docked in the harbor. It was low tide and as I swung around one of the boats in the anchorage we slowed down to a crawl as we plowed through some very soft mud. After several minutes we worked ourselves free and managed to get out of the harbor without getting stuck again. Getting stuck while leaving the marina at 6 AM would definately have been on my short list of things to do that day!

We spent the day motoring through the "Low Country" which pretty well describes the land in the area. It's consists of marshes that are hardly above water level and extend for as far as the eye can see. There's lots of birds, but not much else. We had planned on making it to Charleston, SC, but there were no slips available. There are almost 300 transient slips available, but they're all full and there's no place to anchor. As a result we're anchored about 10 miles away. We'll motor through Charleston tomorrow and make it as far as we can. On Friday we're going to pull into Savanah, GA and spend the next day there. On Saturday the winds will finally switch to a friendly direction and then we're going to hop out and make as many miles as possible.

As a funny aside, we anchored in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after anchoring a boat from Canada decided to drop their hook right next to ours and an hour later another boat anchored next to them. When the tide switched they were literally 50' behind us. You have to realize that that there are miles of space to anchor around here and I have two boats so close that I could pass the Grey Poupon...

 

-- Geoff & Sue

For the Cruiser:

The Hazzard Marina in Georgetown was $1.50/ft with free power. The docks are in floating concrete and in great shape. There's pumpout and fuel available from anywhere on the dock. They also have free wireless Internet. The unisex bathrooms/showers are nice and clean.

Log ID: 913