11/4/14
North Myrtle Beach, SC
Position: 33 48.102N, 78 44.816W
Posted by Bill

We broke the spell that held us at Southport and continued on today. We really like Southport and will certainly be back, probably after we are done cruising around on our boat. It was tough to leave for some reason, but we shoved off early at 6:50 AM. Now that the time has changed we need to get going earlier to make our distances by dark. Sunrise today (see Jeff Felkey, we do get up early):

One advantage of waiting in Southport for an extra day was that all of the boats in our pack heading south got ahead of us. We had a pleasant voyage without the pack of 20 sailboats at the bridges, or 15 power boats blasting by and throwing up a wake. The marine radio was very quiet for once. Good change.

We went by some ocean inlets today at Lockwoods Folley and the Little River and we had to watch for shoaling and major current action. It was pretty interesting, especially the currents. You would be traveling at 4.7 knots and suddenly going 9.1, only to be back to 5 in 15 minutes, and all of the sudden a cross current would grab the boat and pull it sideways. No lazy autopilot passages!

It was amazing to us to see the number of houses along the ICW as well as the barrier islands and beaches, and the size and expense of them. It was pretty much non-stop the entire 39 nautical miles. There is a lot of money along the water. Where do they all get the money??

Myrtle Beach Yacht Club:

Some interesting business locations along the way:

And a derelict boat that was sinking…nobody cared…

The biggest navigation challenge today was traversing The Rock Pile. It is a section of the ICW north of North Myrtle Beach where the Army Core of Engineers blasted the rock bed to cut the ICW channel. To save money, they blasted the middle of the channel but not the edges. Any tide above low tide and you cannot see the rock edges and many boats have wandered outside of the channel into doom and peril!! We arrived at low tide and stayed in the middle of the channel and survived the Rock Pile!!

As we went through the Barefoot Landing Swing Bridge, we breathed a sigh of relief and pulled into our marina.

We walked over the bridge to Hamburger Joes, one of our favorite places to eat when vacationing here. We walked the beach for a bit and then to dinner at Joes (a different place but next to Hamburger Joes). We ate at the bar and struck up a conversation with people sitting there. One lady offered to give us a ride back to our marina and we accepted! What a kind gesture. We followed it by smacking her in the head, taking her purse and her SUV. We are half way to Mexico….just kidding. People have been really nice in the Carolinas.

The beach:

Update on the alternator. On our passage to Southport the alternator performed flawlessly. Today, not so much. It never kicked in until we were 4 hours underway and then worked like a champ. I don’t know…