Ten Days on the Road, er, Creek

[Hilde’s log]

Never underestimate the value of dry, clean sheets! After ten days "on the road" we pulled into Harborwalk Marina in Georgetown, SC, plugged into the AC, and stripped every bit of cloth from the boat. Five loads of laundry and four hours later, we sank gratefully onto the settees and gloried in cool, dry air, clean bodies, and dry bedding. Ahhhh. We sure enjoy being plugged in when it happens.

Since Beaufort, we've traveled ten days straight without coming in to land, with the exception of a brief stop at Isle of Palms for diesel and water. Raven chugged right by Charleston without any desire to stop. We were there two weeks ten years ago, and although we have fond memories of the old city, weren't tempted to stop this time.

Instead, we kept going and pulled out to anchor in Whiteside Creek, north of the city. Another on our list of beautiful places, we ended up staying two nights.

Glamor shot of me filling the water tank. We stopped at the fuel dock at Isle of Palms, just north of Charleston, for diesel and water and potato chips. The essentials.

Sunrise, Whiteside Creek, our first anchorage north of Charleston.

On lazy mornings, when the tide doesn't rise until noon, David gets a much better breakfast!

We spent the whole day at anchor, again seduced by the still beauty all around us, broken by the occasional deer fly, bent on a quick snack. SWAT. The next morning we motored another 15 miles to Awendaw Creek.

Anchorage at Whiteside Creek

Our next stop found Raven floating at anchor about as close to the Atlantic as you can get, without being actually out in the Atlantic, in Awendaw Creek. Just across the marsh and nestled in among the trees, I could see a few houses, but if I looked in the other direction, all I could see was the slim outline of some barrier marshes and the sparkle of light on the water. If you have followed the “breadcrumb trail”, you will have seen this place, where it looks as though we were anchored in the ocean.

Both days of travel north from Charleston were marked by a parade of Hatteras fishing boats. These are high dollar fishing vessels, and we were passed by at least ten of them, coming in clumps down the ICW, throwing high wake to either side of the canal. All were well-captained and obligingly slowed down as they went past. We just scratched our heads at the sheer numbers. Headed south for a boat show? Fishing tournament? Breeding season? Who knows.

One of the Hatteras boats that passed us. These bad boys cost about $1 million per boat... Also, what is the plural of Hatteras? Hatteri?

Awendaw Creek stuck in our minds as one of the memorable anchorages from our trip south a decade ago. We anchored here in December, and I remembered the oyster reefs where we tentatively went ashore to pee our schnauzer, Schnitzel, me keeping a wary eye out for alligators even in that cold air. The water was looking-glass still at night, and I remember the carpet of stars above us, shards of twinkling glass in that clear, cold sky, all of which were reflected in every detail in the black, still water around us. It was like floating free in a star field.

Awendaw Creek is a wide-open anchorage.

The view was totally different this time. We were surrounded by green marsh grass and trees in full leaf. The wind kicked up, and Raven danced at anchor the whole time we were there.

Looking across the marshes from Awendaw Creek, you can see houses peeking through the trees.

An egret looks for lunch amid the oyster beds. This is what we waded through to take the dog ashore all those years ago.

With high winds forecast, I did not feel at ease with so much open space around us, so after only one night we moved on to Minim Creek, motoring by the Francis Marion National Forest and the Santee Coastal Reserve, wilderness on both sides of the canal. (see below)

The rain that had been dogging us for a week finally caught us at Minim Creek. David did manage to rig the sail kit on our dinghy and puttered around the creek, but later in the afternoon the clouds closed in and we sat through about 24 hours of heavy showers. The mosquitoes were out in force, and somehow found ways in through our screens. We carried several of the big, black, toothy insects with us all the way up Winyah Bay to Georgetown.

Coming out into Winyah Bay

If you turn right, you head out into the Atlantic

Technology has changed so much about cruising in the last ten years. We've had cell phone access in almost every anchorage (not Minim Creek, where we really wanted to know when the rain would clear out). Internet access has taken much of the mystery of traveling with the tides and gives us instant access to weather and wind strength along the way. Instead of consulting a battered tide book to determine when to travel up or down a river, or over shallow spots in the ICW, we have instruments on board that show us exactly where we are in the tide cycle at our present position.

I can upload photos and post the blog almost anywhere, instead of having to wait to hook up to a marina’s questionable wi-fi, or having to lug the computer to the local library for internet access. In most areas we can make and receive telephone calls with ease, even video-calls.

We can watch TV on our phones almost every night, if we want to, not to mention calling ahead to make reservations at upcoming marinas or to alert fuel docks that we are approaching. It’s a lot less like traveling by covered wagon, and a whole lot more like driving an RV along a highway through a national park, although the views on the water remain unsurpassed.

Nice improvements! Now, if I could just figure out how to keep the sheets from getting soggy.

Awendaw, SC to Beaufort, SC 12-11 to 12-13, 2007

[Hilde's log]

Some places on the earth are so serene, so quiet, so still, I can hear the blood beating in my ears. It’s hard to get away from the sound of motors. Cars whosh, wires whine, lawnmowers growl, outboards putter, boats chug. On the boat, the chugging gets to me after a while, but there’s no alternative on the ICW. It’s far too narrow and far too shallow for any sailing, so we chug, chug, chug like the African Queen down the canals, watching the scenery pass by. Not that that’s unpleasant. It’s quite like sitting on your porch on a sunny fall day, as the world rolls past the steps. But the constant noise makes the silence of anchoring very, very sweet.

Four nights ago we dropped anchor in Awendaw Creek. There is an Awendaw, SC, which you can find in your atlas. The town is not far from this anchorage. You’d never know it, though. The ICW passes between two national parks right before you get to Awendaw Creek, the Frances Marion National Forest and the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, so there’s a lot of scenery blessedly empty of human construction for several hours before you turn south into the creek. The creek is the size of a river in Texas (the size of the rivers in the Carolinas continue to astonish me), maybe 400 yards wide, a crescent of blue water bordered by gold and russet marshland, opening out into an even larger body of water that looked like the sea. By the time we’d taken care of the anchoring and the trip to shore (“shore” being a euphemism for mussel shoals, gooey, sticky mud, and acres of slough grass) for the dog, it was evening, darkening into night. The shoreline was fading away into mist and fog. The air and water were so still the stars were reflected beneath us.

The stillness lingered through the morning, as the night’s fog slowly burned off under the rising sun. Raven looked like a toy boat glued to a mirror. Her mast and hull, the surrounding marshland, the deep blue sky, and the last shards of dark grey fog were reflected perfectly in the water. As we motored toward the inlet, our wake creamed the water’s reflection into rolling fragments. And then, amazingly, we turned the bend and emerged from the wilderness next to a beautiful little waterfront community, with houses, trees, boats, and a camping area. The air was as crisp and sweet as a green apple, spiced with the scent of woodsmoke from the outdoor fires at the campground. What a perfect time to be outdoors and on the move.

That perfect sunny day melted into the next as we wandered down the waterway, which was sometimes perilously shallow, sometimes amazingly wide, sometimes populated, sometimes barren. The borders of the waterway were all marsh, rough yellow grass shot through with small inlets or streams stretching back to more solid ground covered with forest. In the foreground were live oaks, their branches twisted in fantastical shapes, then palms, their fronds light green pinwheels against the darker background stands of pines.

As we approached each populated section of the ICW, houses would appear on the landward shore, each house with its own 300 foot pier, long strands of wooden walkway ending in a boat house or a gazebo or both. Some of the gazebos were furnished for the next dock party with dock boxes, hammocks, freezers, fish tubs, lawn chairs, and ice chests. Others were empty, waiting for summer to roll around again. Birds roosted everywhere, but seemed especially happy to congregate on long private piers. Segregated by species, they seemed content to sit and watch us motor by. We’d pass clusters of four or five isolated pilings, in upright groupings like candles on a drowned cake, each piling topped with its own large bird. I wondered if the piers and pilings were safer roosts for the birds than spending the nights in the wild. Surely a bird sitting in the marsh grass would tempt any predator to pounce. As we passed the curve of these waterfront communities, the piers slipped by like the fingers of a hand. Then they’d be gone, and we’d be back in the marshes.

We motored across Charleston harbor, pointing happily at the places we remembered from our two week stay two summers ago. After a night parked in front of some beautiful and very expensive homes just to the west of town we journeyed the next day through the same warm, blue sky. No one could bear to go below for more than a few minutes before popping back up for more of the heady air and clear sky.

The last few miles of our day found us creeping carefully through some pretty shallow water at dead low tide, so we were thankful to turn off the waterway at last to the deep and serene South Edisto River. Anchored in 16 feet of water, we spent another silent night under a sharp black sky studded with fiery stars. The morning brought more fog, but it burned off quickly and we were underway for Beaufort, SC by 9 a.m. today.

That day’s trip took us across an absolutely enormous river, the Combahee, which had to have been five miles across. I say that because I was at the helm for over an hour at 5 knots, our course was almost a straight line, and when I surrendered the helm to David after my hour we were still on that river. Raven sped across the blue prairie in the stiff wind while I gloried in the view. The water spread out in all directions almost to the horizon and it was all I could do to turn away from the Atlantic outlet and head toward Beaufort. It was a quick travel day. We passed under the Lady Island Bridge in Beaufort at 2:30. Three o’clock saw us anchored. We took an evening stroll down the waterfront and then spent 30 minutes on deck admiring the harbor, the lights of the city, and yet another gorgeous sunset. I am amazed at how many sunrises and sunsets I have missed in my life. I was always getting ready for work, or driving, or fixing dinner, or something, but I was not seeing the sun rise or set. On the water, I hardly ever miss either, and I remain fascinated.

Wishing you lots of sunrises and sunsets and moments to savor!