Myrtle Beach, SC - July 20

Tuesday, July 20

Happy Birthday to our favorite daughter, Michelle!

On July 19, we started our journey to Myrtle Beach, SC.  This is where we'll have to part ways with Jim since it's got a bus station for him to use to get back to his car in Brunswick. 

We travelled the Waccamaw River thru SC ... quite a beautiful cruise.  Deep water, no bridges = no worries for the day!  It looks a lot like travelling in the BWCA, except on a more comfortable boat than a canoe!

We had a leisurely breakfast on the boat in Georgetown, plus a long walk to find a liquor store (followed by a cool shower), so we were slow to leave Georgetown.  The Waccamaw River is full of beautiful anchorages, and that had been our plan for the night, but it was soooooo hot that we didn't want to anchor until 8pm in order to avoid baking in the sun on the hook.  However, by then, we were out of the river and approaching a low swing bridge.  When we started calling ahead to marinas, most were closed for the day.  Fortunately, the Osprey Marina was still open, and they were nice enough to say that they would hang around until we arrived to help with our dock lines.  We had already heard such good things about this marina, so we decided to make them our next stop.  Good choice ... beautiful site and great bathrooms.

The Osprey Marina has a very cool channel that you use to enter the marina from the main river.  That gives it a very secluded feeling.  Nice ....

After getting fuel in the morning, we headed out toward Myrtle Beach.  No problems at the swing bridge. We ended up following this sailboat all the way to Myrtle Beach.

This section of the river was full of beautiful southern homes. Since it's a deep water river, the homes are built close to the water (we are now in fresh water). Very different from the quarter-mile docks we had been seeing.

We didn't go far on Tuesday, the 20th ... about 3 hours up the river, we stopped at Marina at Grande Dunes.  They have a pool and access to the ocean.  No clouds today, or much of a breeze, so even 3 hours of travelling on the water made it a long, hot day.  Jim leaves on the 22nd, so we'll stay here for 2 nites ... enjoying the break, the 2 pools, and time to change the oil on Maja. 

We are currently at mile marker 357 on the ICW ... we started at mm 680 in Brunswick, GA ... Norfolk, VA is mm 0 ... so we are halfway there! YaHoo ....