Skull Creek Marina on Hilton Head island - on their damaged docks

Of all things, a sunrise, we do occasionally get up early 

The advantage of  B and B Seafood other than the fresh shrimp is that it's right before the Ashepoo Coosaw cut off. It remains one of the shallowest stretches of the ICW. The shallowest part of the route was right at the southern exit, it dipped to 4.9 MLW just before deepening into the bay. Inside the cut off it was down to 5.1 MLW in places. There's more detail in my Active Captain post. One more thing, I always reduce my numbers to MLW by taking the nearest tide station and adjusting the depths as if I came through at a 0.0 tide. So if you come through when the nearest tide station shows 2.0 ft above low, then you can add 2 ft to all of the MLW readings.

No height boards at McTeer bridge with 2.6 ft of tide

I see some postings that say they came through at low tide and saw, for example, 6 ft of water. How can they see 6 ft when I see 4.9 ft? Well, looking at the date of their passage I looked up the tide that day and found that the low tide of the day was still 1.0 above a 0.0 tide. So just saying, "I came through at low tide and saw XX" isn't enough. The low tide for that day could even be a drain tide below datum! All depths should be reduced to MLW (which is really MLLW but that's another story)  by adjusting the depths for the soundings per the nearest tide station. Knowing the MLW reading, you can adjust what you expect to see by adding the tide level yourself.

You would think that concrete docks would be pretty durable, not in a hurricane. Note the foam interior

We're at Skull Creek Marina tonight. They sustained extensive damage from Matthew and lost their entire fuel dock, the one by the office that usually docked the transient boats. They had room for us but our dock had no power. They had concrete docks that didn't survive any better than the wooden ones. We passed under the McTeer bridge but they had no height boards, six fender boards were showing with a 2.6 ft tide.

On Friday we hope to make the passage through Hell Gate and find a spot later that afternoon, perhaps Kilkenny Marina which is not much but is a stop over halfway to Jekyll Island. We'd like to make it all the way to the Wahoo River anchorage but that's over 60 Nm, a bit much, Kilkenny is closer.

B and B Seafood - at anchor

A sea of grass, that's B and B Seafood's shrimp boat on the way in

We had intended anchoring out at Steamboat Creek but we found ourselves at the entrance by 12:30 and so why not go farther. We reached the north entrance to Dawho River with a rising tide of 1.0 ft so we soldiered on. I saw one reading of 5.6 MLW between G115 and R116 with the rest of the way being much better. The way through mostly followed the ICW line but I'll add more details in my Active Captain post.

Watts Cut wasn't as bad with the lowest reading being a brief 6.1 MLW flash between G143 and G141.  It was mostly 7 to 10 MLW all the way. For those following bridge heights: Limehouse Bridge read 69 ft with a 1.9 tide, MnKinley Washington Jr bridge read 69 ft with a 1.2 ft tide.

Nothing like having your own shrimp boat, cannot be fresher!

We like to stop at B and B Seafood since they have their own shrimp boat which brings in fresh shrimp everyday. However, today their docks were already taken, I guess the good news spreads too quickly - I've got to stop writing about all the special stops I guess - but I won't. I tell all. There is an anchorage just around the bend beyond B and B that was plenty big enough for us so we dropped anchor there and I dinghyed to their docks. I bought a pound of fresh shrimp and we had it for supper, cannot be beat!

Sunset over a sea of grass and hammocks in the distance

We are now in the grasses of the ICW. As far as the eye can see, a sea of grass occasionally broken up by a hammock, a relatively high spot (a few feet) populated by trees. We have to pick our anchorages carefully to find a spot for Hoolie, most anchorages have no shore access. The weather continues to be outstanding for traveling south with temps in the 70's, no rain, full sun, and little wind. We will continue onward Thursday to reach either Isle of Hope Marina or Kilkenny Marina. We are rushing south!

Tolers Cove Marina at Charleston - We provision and do laundry

I have no idea what that duck is, never saw one with a crown of feathers

We are now on a bee line for Titusville. The weather is predicted to be excellent for making good time. The only problem is that we'll hit all the shallow spots at mostly dead low tide. Of course that provides some of the entertainment of traveling the ICW but I would prefer it to be just a little duller in that respect. If all goes according to plan, we'll be in Titusville on November 3 (where have you heard that before - if everything goes according to plan...)

Ann enjoys Harris Teeter supermarkets!

Regardless, we're out of here Wednesday morning and plan on anchoring at Steamboat Creek. In fact we're in the part of the trip now where we're anchoring the rest of the way. There are good anchorages along this stretch of the ICW and you can get to shore without the fear of alligators. We plan on ignoring the time change by not setting our clocks back November 1. From past experience, if we converted to standard time from daylight savings time, then my nightly trips with Hoolie to shore would take place in the dark. I rather not do that.

Last sunset at Tolers Cove Marina

The marina here provides free trips to the local supermarkets which in our case is Harris Teeter and even a trip to the laundromat. Both are less than 5 min away. It's more convenient than having a car. The marina is home to a fleet of fishing boats, large Viking boats and a few other makes. When in season, like in the spring, they will leave in the early morning hours before daylight, waking everyone up if they're on a boat. This time of the year they are not active in the mornings, thankfully. It will be a later start then usual since the Wappoo Creek bridge doesn't open for boaters until after 9:00 am.

Tolers Marina - Really shallow water, really

Ann placed Fleetwing into a very tight space, boats in front and behind, she's good!

This looks very close from the helm!

Low tide today was at 10:30 so we left the dock at 7:30 am to catch as much of it as we could. The modest tide (1.1 ft) helped  out some through Minum Creek but then the tide continued to fall and when we reached McClellanville, the tide was at its lowest but still no lower than 0.5 ft above datum. Based on my route last spring where I found 6.1 MLW I didn't think I would have a problem (Wrong!)

Ocean Avenue bridge by Georgetown with a 1.7 ft tide

I ran the same route by following the magenta line on my Garmin chartplotter but instead of getting 6.1 MLW like in the spring, today I could only find 4.4 MLW as a minimum. There were long stretches of 5 MLW. Since I still had 0.5 ft over the MLW datum, I still cleared everything with a couple of inches to spare, we never touched bottom but came awfully close with my 4 ft 9 in keel. I documented everything in more detail in the associated Active Captain post I made today. My advice for those passing through McClellanville at low tide is to first take two aspirins.

I'm convinced we are seeing the last of the ICW. There is no funding for dredging and eventually McClellanville will just be a sandbank. Boaters don't seem to be in the pipeline for funding for the waterways, very sad actually.

We made it through okay and we're now in Tolers Marina for the next two days. We'll provision at Harris Teeter and do a laundry before moving on. The weather continues to be outstanding. I guess it felt guilty for all the bad press from the hurricane and compensated with good weather for awhile.

Georgetown - at Dry Stack Marina

You had to watch out for torpedoes coming at you (partially sunk speed buoys) 

After learning the bridge was open late Saturday, we just had to leave early on Sunday morning. As you might imagine, there was a flotilla of sailboats headed south. There were five in our group and most were doing max rev, as fast as possible. We all slowed down when we approached the area of the bridge and the flooding. I did not take any pictures, I really didn't want to take photos of other people's miseries, it seemed impolite. You could see just how far up the side of the houses the flood went, at least to the windows on the first floor. For many houses, that's all there was, just one floor. The lawns were all flooded and this was after a lot of the flood waters receded.

Georgetown is a great town to walk through

Sure enough, the Socastee Swing Bridge was operating and today they had a nice lady tending the bridge, I guess the regular guy is on vacation? We were strung out a bit so she held the bridge open for all five of us to get through. The clearance at the 544 bridge was 60 feet today with a 1.2 ft tide. No other bridge had lower than the 544 bridge. Approaching the Socastee Bridge, we bucked a 2.0 to 2.5 kt current all the way. The water was surprisingly clear of debris. We only saw a few small logs here and there, mostly clear water.

Our dock at Dry Stack Marina

Once we reached farther down the river the current reversed and now were we doing 10.2 kts which is almost a 3 kt current! All the floating buoys in place for speed control were under water. Several patrol boats came by in the opposite direction, one was a Coast Guard  boat, checking to be sure we were not producing a wake in the critical areas. We slowed down in all those places anyway.

And, of course, the sunset (over the paper mill)

We are now ensconced at Dry Stack Marina in Georgetown. In talking to the owner, he said they recorded a max gust of 102 kts during Matthew and the water level stretched out into the street by the office. He had a temporary office set up where I paid my bill. We took an evening walk through town and it looked untouched but the water was still high although not over the walkway. There were a lot of sandbags around but by now they were not doing anything, the water had receded from the max height.

Our plan is to reach Tolers Cove Marina Monday night and provision and do a laundry (isn't that fun...) They have a service where they will take you to the nearest supermarket and even a laundromat at no cost, nice folks. The marina is just on the south side of the Ben Sawyer Bridge. We will be going through all the shallow spots at dead low tide just to add to the excitement, wouldn't want things to start getting dull.

Marina Inn at Grande Dunes - The bridge is open!!!!

Why does anyone need four outboards?

We were sitting on the back of our boat this afternoon when the newly arrived boaters next to us returned from an outing. They announced that they heard the Socastee Swing Bridge was resuming normal operations! Great news! The previous news was that that the repair was going to take two weeks. In retrospect what I think happened was that the bridge operator, who is a real curmudgeon, didn't want to bother answering calls on the bridge status so he gave an outlandish date for resuming operation with the note not to call until sometime next week. I'm sure he's justified in his own head regardless of all the wrong decisions he caused up the line on boats coming down the ICW, he doesn't care. It made his job easier.

We haven't seen debris in the ICW but we're getting some in the marina

So with the new news, we'll head out Sunday morning for Georgetown. We will be on a quick trip south with no extended stops so we can reach Titusville as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we will be  completely out of sync with the tides and will hit every shallow spot exactly at low tide, such is boating.

I took on water tonight and we'll be up early Sunday for shoving off. We are bow into a slip with a good 1 to 2 kt current pushing us into the slip from the flood water. The fun Sunday will be how to back out of the slip. Should  we back out and then put the boat in forward and hope we'll clear what we just left or just back out all the way. I think we'll chose the latter option. Once you have steerage, why give it up in close quarters. I'll take a photo of the bridge for everyone.

Marina Inn at Grand Dunes - NEWS FLASH - Socastee Bridge now operational!!

An overview of the Marina Inn at Grand Dunes

We had a confirmed reservation for a car this morning but to no avail. Apparently they didn't tell their internet page that they had no cars. So I made another reservation for Monday and was told that was approved, so far. There is a Lowes Foods store across the street and even a CVS so we are fixed for essentials. This marina is fine for long term stays but it's a desert for anything to do.

I was asked why don't boaters just go outside to Winyah Bay? Well, many have done just that. It's a 67 Nm trip to Georgetown going outside if you overnight first at Calabash Creek which is just by the Little River inlet. It's far from a class A inlet but doable for a sailboat if you're careful. We chose not to do that so we'll wait for the Socastee bridge to be repaired.

I'll still take the sunset photos, always nice

We are due for a car Monday morning and if that holds up we'll visit the Socastee bridge and take photos and perhaps see first hand what the status is on the opening date. After that we'll just explore the area and provision for the rest of the trip. We've already written off getting to Titusville in time for our slip on 11/1/2016. We will still get there, just not on 11/1.