Thursday, April 25, 2013

Barefoot Landing at Myrtle Beach - at a dock

Along the Waccamaw River
We've really had some great traveling days and today was no different. Georgetown is next to the Waccamaw River which is the way to Barefoot Landing. It is a tidal river and you do not want to try going north on a drain tide when the current can reach 2 kts! As luck would have it (since we didn't plan it this way), our departure time out of Georgetown coincided with max flood of the Waccamaw River! As anyone knows who have sailed on the Hudson River, you can carry a flood tide all the way home when going north. Likewise for us, we had a flood tide behind us all 42 miles to Barefoot Landing. The extra knot or 1.5 knots makes a big difference in arrival time (as opposed to 1.5 to 2.0 knots against you on an ebb tide).

We saw this girl paddleboarding! Now this area has lots of alligators, I wouldn't want to fall in - or be anywhere near
As I've said before, this part of the ICW is right up there as one of the most scenic. We passed osprey nests where we could see their young peeking over the edge. There were turtles and all kinds of birds. It was a cypress swamp much of the way. The one thing we didn't see were alligators - but we know they are there, we saw them just off the ICW at the rice plantation we visited the last time we came south.

Just standing on the bow - taking in the views
We met up with Marty Silverstein, he's at Barefoot Landing for the night. He has a crew he met off Sailnet and the four of them are headed outside as much as possible, depending upon the weather. For us, we'll stay inside until Cape May. The last we heard, John Kwak was still in Charleston looking for crew - but he may have moved north by now, we lost touch when we left Charleston.

Onward to Barefoot Landing - wonder what's hiding on the sides...
Barefoot Landing is a great collection of shops, restaurants, theaters and just relaxing walking around that we always enjoy. We'll stay here for three days before moving on north again.


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