TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

5-04-08

Yesterday, we left the pristine anchorage on Bull Creek off the Wacamaw River and after about 10 miles entered what is known as the Rock Pile headed into Myrtle Beach. Talk about a contrast. We went from beautiful forested river waters, although it did have some rather large snags to avoid, into a canal-like channel with rock ledges on either side. The GPS said “Rock ledges in some of the deep water of the channel; avoid grounding.” DUH! Of course, we want to avoid grounding, but there was no clue on how to do that. The channel was shallow and a bit scary, especially as we had to wait for two swing bridges, but we did make it through to Cricket Cove Marina, which promised an onsite restaurant and newly dredged harbour. Of course, we were looking at the 1999 version of Claiborne Young’s guide. The restaurant has been closed for renovation, we are on the face dock, subject to myriads of weekend boaters ignoring the no wake zone, docked behind a casino cruise ship that constantly runs it motor and generator, but the showers are great!

We caught up with our friends from Georgetown, Jack and Dianne from Long Island (Carolyn, she grew up in Queens), and the four of us went out to dinner together to Chianti South, which was recommended by a couple of brothers on a sports cruiser from NC down for the weekend-nice guys. They had a detailed chart of high and low tides, so they knew when they could run the motor on their boat without sucking up mud from the shallow harbour. At the restaurant, the food was excellent albeit expensive and we had a good time visiting.

5-05-08

Actually, with the air conditioning running and the doors closed, the Casino boat didn’t bother us, and the traffic on the ICW was pretty much non-existent, so we had a relatively peaceful night. When we woke up (with the Sunday morning Bass Boat fishermen heading out at 6:00 a.m.), we checked the weather and decided to leave this rock ’n roll marina and head to Southport. As it turned out, the weather was fine, so we didn’t have to endure a whole day of being waked by inconsiderate boaters on the ICW. We reserved a spot at Southport Harbour Village Marina and set out. The first obstacle we encountered was a pontoon bridge, which we’d never seen before. It only opened on the hour, so we had about a 25 minute wait before it opened. By the time we could pass through, there were 8 boats waiting, quite a traffic jam. Bill tried to stay out of their way, so we were about the 7^th boat through.

The intercoastal is pretty scary over this stretch from Myrtle Beach to Southport. Depths are very shallow, especially at ocean inlets, so Bill had the helm most of the day (better for the captain to go aground than the admiral). We also had some bothersome motor boats waking us, especially one who barreled by with nary an apology. The motorboat behind him called him on Channel 16 and said, I wish you’d turn around and see what you just did to that sailboat. Bill got on the radio and said something to the effect that he wouldn’t be able to see because . . . The power boater came back with some rude comment, but we couldn’t understand him. We passed one sailboat that ran aground and was calling Tow Boat U.S. Then we approached Lockwood Inlet and Bill said “Oh, my!” (Well, he didn’t actually say THAT, but you get the idea.) The red and green buoys were approximately 20 feet apart-not a good sign. Even though I was holding my breath we bumped the bottom once, then off, then once again, before we cleared the 4 ft. reading on the depth meter. And this wasn’t even low tide! It was worrisome for the next stretch to Southport, but no 4 ft. soundings. We are now safely docked on the inside of the face dock at the marina-a very nice place where we think we’ll stay for 2 nights, so I can do laundry and we can take a break from the tension of shallow water. Our friends on String of Pearls, plus two other boats ran aground and then floated off at the same inlet-then headed back south to wait for higher water. So, I guess we were pretty lucky.

Well, I’ve done two loads of laundry and am drying the second load. We’ll eat leftovers for dinner as the restaurant and deli are closed here on Sunday. Hopefully, we’ll have an easy night and a restful day tomorrow.