Nov 17- 20  South Carolina to Charleston 

Toasting crossing into South Carolina

     We left Southport NC early and ogled fancy homes and bird-filled marshes all morning.  We crossed into South Carolina - we think - just after noon; there were no signs to tell us we were now in a different state.  However, almost immediately, we noticed differences in the ICW:  there were no longer mile markers telling us we’d traveled another five or ten miles, there were - initially - very few birds or any other wildlife, and the banks of the ICW was mostly a dense, jungly mess.  Few houses, lots of places have been badly affected during past storms, lots of erosion, and  The word ‘desolate’ comes to mind.  The ICW wasn’t clearly marked in some areas, and more than once we headed into a side creek before discovering our error.  

Erosion - it wasn't unusual to see whole trees uprooted.

     We came into North Myrtle Beach in the late afternoon, with its Disneyland of offerings displayed on faded billboards and passed under a cable car operation suspended over the waterway.  It wasn’t running.  We decided to stop for the night at Barefoot Marina, as we were overdue for laundry and hoping for internet.  This Marina boasted a pool and hot tub and “low fuel prices” among other amenities and assigned us a face dock just beyond the fuel pumps.

     Well, the wifi not only wasn’t accessible- we couldn’t find the name of it in the wifi listings offered.  The pool was closed.  The fuel prices were fifty cents a gallon more than we’d paid in Virginia.  But we got all the laundry done in one evening and we were the only ones in the hot tub.  No complaints here.

Sunset at the Barefoot Marina - looking straight down the ICW.

     Wednesday we passed through some abandoned rice fields and here we started to see a huge variety of birds, some of them new to us.  The scenery turned from jungly to quietly pretty and we could again hear the surf crashing in the distance as we traveled the waterway used by rice plantation owners in the antebellum years.  We also came upon our first dolphins!  We don’t make enough of a wake for them to leap around our bow or stern, but we will never get tired of watching them play.  We spent a very peaceful night in Schooner Creek (how could we resist anchoring in a place called that?) and Tommie thoroughly enjoyed keeping the night watch from the cabin top.

Abandoned rice fields and plantation house.

Our first dolphin!

Entrance to Schooner Creek

    Thursday dawned with gray skies and thunder.  We awoke to these birds perched on our bowsprit. 

It rained off and on all day, and the SW winds were gusty as small squalls rolled by.  We were grateful to have a pilot house.  We kept the bird book and the binoculars handy and found yet some more new-to-us birds to mark down on Dan’s lifelong bird list.  We also saw turkey vultures lining a fence, wings spread like cormorants do.  Do they dry their winds?  Were they warming themselves in the sun? Is it some kind of attraction ritual?  We don’t know, we’ve never seen this sort of thing before.  If you know what they were doing, let us know.  

Turkey vultures with wings spread.

     We dropped the hook in Dewees Creek, mile 454.9 on the ICW.   Friday was another long day, and confusing as we passed through Charleston Harbor trying to make sure we followed the correct markers for the ICW.  Charleston is a busy place, but not as busy as the narrow channel where we came across this parade of tugs and barges.  Two tugs and many, many barges, with accompanying smaller tugs helping them make the turns.  Dan slowed to an idle-stop and pulled as far to the side as possible to allow them room.  What a sight!  

The parade of tugs and barges - you can see the lead tug in white, and the long curve around to the end with the half-submerged pipes.

    We finished our day at a quiet little anchorage in the South Edisto River, just to the side of the ICW, mile 509.  We are now halfway through the ICW.