Lady Island Marina at Beaufort - at a dock

Lady Island Marina - nice place

This morning we said goodbye to Chariton and headed off. It was not that cold this morning, but still a little chilly. I helped with the ropes when we released from the dock and curled them up. I did my usual work today and read some out of my book. Then I went down stairs to eat lunch and read some Calvin & Hobbles  a bit, that was very funny to read. Then I went up to go play with Hoolie, he is so cute when he curls himself up in a ball. After that a designed some dresses just for fun and checked on the clay. They are just still soft so if some one stepped on it wouldn't crumble up it would be flat like a pancake. Then we were headed to the marina passed the bridge were going to go under tomorrow. I handled the stern lines, put the step out, and curled up the ropes. It has been a routine for me so am so comfortable with it. It should be, because it has been about six weeks on the boat for me now. We took Hoolie on a walk and he made a new friend, they  were playing like crazy. We were getting bitten like food out there with all the bugs so we headed back to boat. Then we put on the AC it was very hot, then I did started the blog, the one you are reading right now. We are having pulled chicken for dinner that I can't wait to eat yummy, bye. Sarah

A famous attraction at Lady Island - The Fillin Station, $4 for a hamburger and hotdog

Today was a great day for going south. We had the tide with us and we passed through all the shallows without a problem. They were all in good shape with plenty of water, for example:

Lowest Water Seen today:

Dawho River: 6.9 MLW 

Watts Cut:  8.4 MLW 

Fenwick Cut: 7.3 MLW 

Ashepoo Cut:  5.4 MLW at southern exit, deeper inside cut

Brickyard Pt (coming into Beaufort): 4.5 MLW in spots

I updated Active Captain for all the passages. 

In general, the water depths haven't been this good in years. There was a higher than predicted tide today according to the Charleston buoy tide monitoring station by 0.8 ft. which may explain part of the increased depths, except for the unexpected shallows around Brickyard Point. We managed to hit all of the shallows with a rising tide, no sweat when you do that. 

Beaufort is at war with the boaters going south. They applied to the Coast Guard to keep the bridge closed during the day except for two openings, one at 10:00 am and one at 2:00 pm. That would have effectively killed the southern migration. They obviously care nothing around their compact with the ICW going through their town. It's all about them and what they want, nothing about their stewardship of the ICW channel running through their town. The Coast Guard controls the opening schedule of all bridges across the ICW so they had final approval rights. Unfortunately, they approved openings on top of the hour during the day and kept the restrictive closures during "rush hour(s)" of 6:00 am to 9:00 am and from 3:00 pm to 6:00  pm. All this comes even though there's another bridge 65 ft high that's always open less than 5 miles south. 

We got at 4:30 and we'll leave in the morning as soon as the bridge opens at 9:00 am, I hate to bother them but then I need to go south.