Friday, October 17, 2014

Charleston Maritime Center - at a dock

It's a small marina - but a great location
We had intended to anchor at the halfway point, Awendaw Creek but we reached the anchorage a little before 11:00 and then decided to go on to Charleston. Earlier that day they had a cancellation and we took advantage of that for one of their limited supply of docks. It's a very small marina, only a dozen or so slips but it's very convenient to downtown Charleston, within walking distance and it has a great grocery store - Harris Tetter.

However, getting there involved transiting some of the most shallow areas of the ICW at low tide! There were long stretches of 5 to 6 ft depths and that was with a 1.0 foot plus tide! We don't draw much, only 4 feet, 9 inches but that's too skinny for even us at a dead low tide. But with the 1.0 foot tide, we made it through, barely. It is inconceivable how irresponsible the government is in not providing the funding for maintaining a public trust. The answer is always the same from the Army Corps of Engineers - there's no funding for dredging. And yet just think of all the billions of dollars spent on frivolous projects benefiting a few people in a congressman's district!  It's really sad.

We found our old friend from Maine - Roseway
Regardless, we finally made it through and we're both exhausted from the tension of transiting shallow water, it takes it out of you. So we did make it to Charleston and we're going to celebrate with three days of rest and exploring of downtown before resuming our trek south on Monday (through more shallow water! - Florida and North Carolina dredge, South Carolina and Georgia don't give a dam-)

0 comments: