[Hilde’s log]
Our path from
Beaufort took us from the Beaufort River north up the Coosaw River,
across St. Helena Sound, then through the Ashepoo-Coosaw cutoff
(where we stopped short to avoid being creamed by a giant container
ship) to the Ashapoo River. Angling through the Fenwick Cut, we
anchored in about 20 feet of water in the South Edisto River, beside
Fenwick Island. I keep these details because, although we know we
came down this way ten years ago, I have absolutely no memory of the
area, other than one or two anchorages that have stuck in my head. So
this time I am keeping track. Off Fenwick Island, we anchored next to friends Ann and Tony
on Stella Maris. The next morning, they set off for
Charleston, but the area was so incredibly calm and beautiful we
couldn’t bear to leave, so we spent a lovely day floating alone,
marshes and woodlands on either side of the wide expanse of water.
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| The birds in the trees sang all day. |
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| A glorious break of day. |
This whole area is
gorgeous and makes the trip worthwhile. As a refugee from a
metropolitan area of over 12 million, and as a life-time reluctant
city dweller, I delight in the absence of human buildup. There are
houses scattered over these islands, but they are not, for the most
part, intrusive, and many areas seem deserted (I know they aren’t,
but I pretend).
Anchoring in a
remote area is so restful to the soul. My favorite time of day is the
early morning, when the soft, cool morning air is filled with
birdsong from the neighboring trees and the only other sound is the
gurgle of the current against Raven’s hull, the slap of
waves on the nearby shore, and the croak of the occasional frog. Air
that has only been breathed by trees and the sea is simply
intoxicating, like a crisp chardonnay for the lungs. The absence of
all sounds of mechanization makes me go limp with relief. We can
usually enjoy about two hours of “silence” before the fishing
boats break into our little cocoon of quiet. I am ridiculously
territorial, resenting any intrusion by anyone into our solitude.
The next leg of the
trip took us from the South Edisto River through Watts Cut to the
Dawho River, which spills into the North Edisto River. That turns
into Wadmalaw Sound, and we turned off there to anchor in Church
Creek. As we left our anchorage across from Fenwick Island, we
noticed quite a build up of black clouds to the west. A check of the
radar revealed a nasty little clump of rain cells that was passing us
to the north and west. It dogged us all day, sometimes nearer,
sometimes farther away. Only one shower found us, but I couldn’t
believe the rainstorm was moving as slowly as we were. There was no
lightening, so it wasn’t scary – in fact, made for pretty good
pictures!
I should mention
here that David is our resident photographer. If you see a good
photo, he’s usually the one who took it. I get lucky sometimes, but
often steal his shots as they are usually better than mine. Credit
where credit is due! Also maybe this will poke him to do a blog
entry. (Ahem.)
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| Typical pose of our resident photo-guru. |
Today as I write
this, we are at anchor in Church Creek, one of seven boats who chose
to spend the night here. Yeah, crowded. Sigh. You will see how silly
I am when you see how far the other boats are from us, but still. We
are waiting for the tide to rise, as some of these cuts are
notoriously shallow – so why stress?
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| Our "crowded" anchorage in Church Creek. We were one of seven boats. |
This morning as we
had our tea on deck, we think we heard a loon call. Google informed
us that yes, there are loons as far as South Carolina in May. I was
amazed; I thought they stayed in the far north. Other informative
tidbits: they are a very large bird (5 foot wingspan), are not
related to ducks, have solid bones, and have been around for about 65
million years.
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| Morning tea. Side order of foot, optional. |
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