Up and underway again at 6:30am so we can pass thru stretches of SC marshes at high tide. The tide can run 6-9ft in this area, so we happy to be cruising at high tide when we see the water depth at 11 feet! This will be a short day (37miles) because we are stopping at Port Royal Landing Marina in Beaufort to go shopping (Dan's last cold St Pauli Girl went down with lunch today ... leaving him just the emergency supply of canned Modelo beer hiding in the bottom of the refrigerator -- and he's not a fan of canned beer!).
Beautiful day today! Blue sky. Sunshine. 75degrees. YAH! A day to trade my long underway for a pair of shorts (of course, I had to go into long-term storage to dig out a pair of shorts!).
We've anchored early the last 2 days which gave us time to read ahead in the Waterways Guidebook, getting reacquainted with what the ICW looks like though the rest of SC and Georgia. Yuck! We remember it now ... very narrow and very shallow channels through marshland combined with several wide but shallow sounds that can be a bitch to cross if the tide and winds are against you. Names like "Mud River" sent shivers up our spines, and we're already worn out from worrying about water depth, shoaling channels, bridges, and anchorages.
Since we are riding under a trough of high pressure, the weather should stay nice and settled for the next few days, we've decided to end this journey with some high adventure by going offshore for the final stretch from Beaufort, SC to Brunswick, GA. It will be about 125 miles and take ~24 hours and get us to Brunswick 2 days earlier. No autopilot to help us along, but also no channel markers and buoys to worry about. This will be our first overnight, offshore passage with just the 2 of us ... so up another learning curve we go!
So, Beaufort SC marks our last day on the ICW. Tomorrow at high tide, we'll ride the current out the Port Royal Sound, head 10 miles offshore and take a right turn south.
That's us!
Ahh! Back in the land of live oaks and Spanish Moss. Beautiful.
Mile 538. Next stop: Mile 663
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