Charleston - at the Charleston Maritime Center at a dock

Many large ships come through here - but the bridge is higher!

We had intended anchoring out at Awendaw Creek, one of our favorite anchorages but the tides were favorable for an afternoon run to Charleston so we pressed on. The route from Georgetown to Charleston is one of the most shallow on the ICW. It's okay for the most part but the 3 miles just before the Ben Sawyer bridge is in need of dredging in the worst way. We were down to 3.7 ft at low tide but since we were passing through with a three foot tide, we had enough at 6.7 ft for our 5 ft keel. However, it was real nervous time waiting to see if you were going to hit bottom or not!

Right next door, a schooner for charter

Eventually we made it through and beat the 4:00 closing of the Ben Sawyer bridge (it doesn't open between 4:00 pm and 6:00 pm). A couple in a boat that we passed missed the last opening by 10 minutes and had to wait 2 hours for the next opening!

We are here now in Charleston Maritime Center at one of their docks. It's not very big but we like it due to the proximity to downtown and most importantly, a good Harris Teeter supermarket within walking distance. The marina here also has free laundry machines so we'll make good use of that tomorrow. We plan on spending three days here which lets the tides slide further into the afternoon so the high tides will be more favorably placed later in the day for the skinny waters to come. You have to plan ahead for tides when going down the ICW nowadays.