St James Plantation Marina - we brave the Rock Pile, Shallotte, and Lockwoods Folly, now at a dock

 

This was near Socastee, want to buy a house here for 1.6 million? (do you like high water...?)

The weather was beautiful for us but in the last several days some strong storms have come up during the afternoon. They all missed us but some of the northern migration crowd saw one inch hail and 40 kt winds. 

"I don't understand, the consultant said they would sell like hotcakes!"

We passed by Barefoot Landing and sadly saw the new docks they put in. No longer are any docks available for us boaters transiting the ICW, they are all devoted to small powerboats supposedly for the day crowd to visit the "many" attractions of Barefoot Landing. You can see from the photo just how popular their new dock design is on a Friday afternoon. 

Stay inside those daymarks!

One can only imagine the conversation with a "consulant" on what they should do with their docks. Do you think a consulant would ever say, "Naw, what you have in place is better than anything I can come up with, bye". Synomonus with "consulatant" is "do it differently, do it my way and here's my fee"  (if I just said keep it the way it is, I wouldn't get paid...) The amazing thing is that people actually fall for this line (I used to work in manufacturing, the consultants would come around periodically, hired by upper management in the hope of finding "a better way". They never did).

The rocks in the Rock Pile are fascinating - but they are all outside the channel

Oh well, onwward to the Rock Pile which is no challenge at all with the USACE survey show exactly where the deep water is and where the rocks are not. The B423 track goes right down the middle. 

Entering St James Plantation Marina

Shallotte and Lockwoods Folly was no challenge either, both have been dredged and the B423 track once again goes down the middle, oh hum. We were behind one boat that suddenly veered off to the right at Little River where it splits with the ICW. He was headed out the inlet to sea. Pretty soon we saw him turn around, head back at us, then turn into the ICW. He mistook the red marker for the inlet as an ICW red marker - an all too common mistake I've seen before. He obviously was not following the B423 track.

St James Plantation Marina is one of our favorite places. The marina is protected by a 12 ft high berm on which sits three story houses. It is very protected and one year we sat out hurricane Matthew here as the eye passed over us. We came out to look when in the eye, very eerie. We'll stay here another day and then move again on Sunday to Harbor Village. A day of rest is fine with us.