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| Well, the wildlife seems happy enough |
We felt it was time to move on this morning even with the uncertainty of the Socastee Bridge. At least we had a 6 ft tide going through the inlets which eased any apprehension. The first one was Lockwoods Folly which was pretty straightforward but you had to mind your route closely, mainly just go from red to red. I updated Active Captain with a more detailed description and also listed the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) waypoints they recommended which are the ones I followed through the inlet crossing for a minimum of 7.6 MLW.
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| Some of the trees, however, seemed less happy |
Shallotte Inlet was more challenging although not with a 6 ft tide. There's a 50 ft wide neck you have to hit to get even 6 MLW and it's not near a buoy. The best bet is to use the ACOE provided waypoints for the passage which can be downloaded in a GPX file from
here. There's more detail on Active Captain for the inlet.
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| Our next door neighbor |
The bridges all had at least 63 ft when we passed under at high tide and the bridge just before the Rock Pile had its fenders underwater! You had to be careful to center yourself in the bridge, it's never a good thing to hit bridge fenders!
For the first time we met boat traffic coming through the Rock Pile. A huge powerboat was heading north and we passed in a narrow section of the Pile with less than 10 ft between us. I was not going to get very far over and neither was he.
All the way to Barefoot we had a foul current of 2.0 to 2.8 kts! The water was just gushing out the inlets. Even with all the current, we saw very little debris except for one loose floating dock which we reported to the Coast Guard. We will be here until the Socastee Swing Bridge is repaired. It's more than just high water. The electrical box for the bridge was underwater and who knows what will have to be replaced. I heard a rumor that it might be repaired by Saturday but I'm not holding my breath. Meanwhile, we'll hole up here for awhile.
3 comments:
Hi guys,
Thanks for the trailblazing! The extra water must have felt nice at the inlets, current or no!
We had read that Barefoot Landing Marina was out of commission so am glad to hear that at least some length is operational.
Best of luck with the Socastee bridge.
Doug and Victoria
Thunderchild
Thanks for the notes on the bridge heights, that's great information for our 63ft air draft.
Carl
Doug, Barefoot Landing is only allowing transients dock on a daily basis. They expecting a crew to arrive for mayor repairs and when that happens, everybody has to get off. We took a dock down at Grand Dunes today. We talked to the maintenance guy today and they don't expect to get the swing bridge operational until sometime next week. Both the electrical box and the gears for the bridge were underwater. Once the water recedes from them, they will have to dry out for three days at least.
Carl, many of the bridges in the area of Barefoot do not have height boards! When the bridge fenders are underwater, it gives you pause if there's no height board.
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