11/5/18
Charleston SC
Charleston Maritime Center
Position: 32 47.345N, 079 55.464W
Posted by Bill

The trip from Georgetown to Charleston requires special planning skills if you travel the ICW. First you have to go through McClellanville which has a nasty shoal stretch for about 3 miles…depths reported as low as 2 feet. Then there is a shoal stretch for a couple of miles along Isle of Palms, with depths reported at 3.5 feet. Then you have to get through the Ben Sawyer swing bridge, which has restricted openings on the weekends. Finally you need to arrive at any Charleston marina at slack tide (no current for you land lubbers). The ebb currents in Charleston rivers can run faster than 3.5 knots, which makes it impossible to dock a boat like ours. Our boat draws 5 feet, so we needed to time all of these factors in our passage making. We left Georgetown on the 3rd during an ebb tide. That meant we would have favorable current down Winyah Bay until we hit the ICW entrance. None of us had notes that told us if the current in the ICW would be favorable or unfavorable from the entrance to McClellanville and we figured it would best to err on the unfavorable side to calculate the timing into the shoals there. That meant we needed to be underway around 8 AM. We were, and the current was mostly favorable all the way to McClellanville (note to self…take better notes), so we took the last hour or two very slowly, arriving just after low tide. When we got to McClellanville there were already 4 boats aground through the shoal area, so we idled the boats for about an hour until we could get through. Because of the factors for the next day, we decided to get closer to Isle of Palms than originally planned and stopped at a new to us anchorage, Whiteside Creek. We anchored in position: 32 52.387N, 079 42.984W. It turned out to be a great anchorage and we all got together for dinner on Steel Away.

Whiteside Creek:

We were about 10 miles from the shoals along Isle of Palms, and again not remembering what the currents would do, we took the worse scenario, forcing us to leave at sun up. We arrived at the shoals and the swing bridge much earlier than planned which made both of them uneventful, but now had to wait 3 hours for slack tide to get into the marina. We decided to anchor across the river from the Maritime Center just off Patriots Point and just wait for the slack tide. While anchored, several large container ships slid by us…damn they are intimidating when you are this close!

Early morning motoring:

Big boys!:

We got into our slips at 12:13 and hit the town of Charleston. If you follow the blog you know this is one of our favorite cities in the US and we always have a good time. We will be here a few days enjoying the city.

11/1/18
Georgetown SC
Position: 33 21.958N, 079 17.405W
Posted by Bill

We departed on 10/30 and made a short run 35 statute miles to Calabash Creek at the Little River Inlet. We were a little late getting started as one of the boats had a starting issue. We all convened on the problem and eventually found a lose wire, and off we went. We anchored at position: 33 52.357N, 078 34.203W. It is a small anchorage and we discovered 2 boats there when we arrived. I proceeded to anchor next to a large Fleming, and immediately the guy comes out on deck and says “I have 60’ of anchor chain out. You shouldn’t anchor there because your too close to the channel, among other things.” For those of you that are not cruisers, it is good practice to discuss how much chain everyone around you has out because you will swing with current and wind and want to swing without hitting anyone around you, which is much more likely if one boat has a larger or smaller swing radius than the others. Now we have anchored in Calabash Creek several times and I have records of where we have anchored, so I am aware of the channel and what spots are safe. So I ask Mr Flemming “I am not in danger of swinging in the channel, but what ‘other things’ am I too close too?” He says “well…you are too close to me.” I am about 2 ½ boat lengths from this guy, and I am thinking about all of the anchorages in the Florida Keys and Bahamas where we have been right on top of other boats, which is very normal in crowded anchorages, and I’m thinking this guy must be new to this. I was going to ignore him and settle in where we were, but I thought…there is another spot over there that would be ok and I wouldn’t have this guy chewing on my ass all night, so we move. He suggested we go further up river, which I DID ignore. We thought about taking cocktails over to his boat and imposing happy hour along with an uncomfortable conversation, but hey, this is our first night…let’s just chill. We certainly could have talked about how you don’t come into an anchorage and take a spot that leaves multiple other spots unusable for someone else, which he did, and how the courteous thing to do is select a spot that allows as many boats as possible room to some in. He obviously didn’t want to share.

On the 31st, we picked up Kurt and Sharon on Steel Away, motored past the flood stricken area of Socastee (what a mess it still is…those poor people), through the Waccamaw River (one of my favorite stretches of the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), and up Thoroughfare Creek to an anchorage called The Hill. We anchored in position: 33 30.905N, 079 0869W. As always, the anchorage was delightful. We all went ashore, let the dogs run, and took a dinghy ride through the canals until the sun set.

All of us at The Hill:

Island Bound anchored at the Hill:

We departed the next day and road the Waccamaw River to Georgetown. Along the way we awarded an Ass Captain Award to a boat called The Big W. We weren’t sure if the W stood for “wanker” or “weeney” or “wake”. If you are familiar with the blog, you know of the Ass Captain Award, inspired from the movie Office Space, where asshole behavior earned the label Ass Clown. We adapted it to cruising and boating asshole behavior…thus Ass Captain. This guy passed us with a huge wake, never calling on the radio to request a pass. The wake his us so bad that it rearranged the interior of our boat. Stuff went flying everywhere, even off of our secured “bar”. He must have done it to everyone ahead of us because we could hear people on the radio screaming at the asshole most of the day. We decided to stay another day here in Georgetown as there is heavy weather hitting tomorrow’s anchorage near Isle of Palms, and that anchorage is very exposed to bad weather. We will just chill and enjoy the shore line of Georgetown with bars and restaurants.

10/29/18
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

Well, we have been dirt dwellers for over a year now. We absolutely love our house and living in Southport NC. It is funny to see the drastic change from living aboard for 3 ½ years…we have fallen back into some of our old habits like watching way too much TV. We have gotten accustom to limitless running water, flushing toilets, a washer and dryer steps away, a professional kitchen with ample storage and counter space, limitless power, lightning fast internet connections, vehicle access to stores and restaurants, and especially (at least for me) our walk in shower…that thing is the bomb! The down side is, we have also spent very little time on the water and for the most part have been disconnected from nature. It was a weird transition moving everything off the boat and living on dirt again.

It has been more than 4 years since we moved everything on the boat, and we sure underestimated the level of effort to get everything back on board and stowed away. We started the process early, but we had 2 hurricanes to deal with which set us back several weeks. It has been stressful and we are exhausted, but we are ready to go. It’s funny, but we are asking ourselves “I thought we had a lot more stuff on the boat when we loaded it up 4 years ago…where is this all going to go?” Kudos to Tricia, as she is really good at finding room and organizing everything. Of course, we started our inventory spreadsheet from scratch, which is essential to finding something. The Island Packet sailboats like ours have a tremendous amount of storage scattered all over the boat and it is amazing how things get lost…even with an inventory list.

We are traveling again with Matt and Shirley on Sofia Jeanne, and our friends Larry and Dianna are coming along for the first time on At Ease. Our good friends Kurt and Sharon, formerly on Byrd Ketcher, purchased a Grand Banks trawler in Little River, SC, and they will join us as we pass them on our second day out. Tomorrow is departure day! We hope you will follow along.

10/31/17
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

Well…this has been the longest stretch of time between posts since we started cruising. A lot has been happening, but not much to report about from a cruising perspective. As we do each summer, we have settled into life in Southport, and we have been enjoying the lifestyle living here…a few trips to the beach (although we thought we would go there more than we have), taking the boat to Carolina Beach for several days, taking the dinghy to the sandbar/low tide island, participating in the Stede Bonnet pirate sailing regatta…etc…

In addition to that, we attended a wedding in Maryland and went back to Ohio for a few days to winterize our house at Lake Erie (which is for sale if anyone is interested…it just isn’t being used enough to justify keeping it). The balance of the time we have spent dealing with the building of the house here in Southport, which is about a month from being completed. We noticed that we are going through a transition from cruising to dirt dwelling.

Many people write about this transition, and most find it more difficult than going from dirt dwelling to cruising/live aboard. For us…at least for now…it is a bit different, since we are not giving up totally on cruising, but plan on many more years of partial year cruising. Believe me, this helps. We have decided not to go south this winter, and take a season off. After over 3 years of traveling and living aboard, it will be nice to have the comforts of a house for a period of time. We would normally leave November 1st, and we see the transient boat traffic moving through and past the marina, making their way south. In addition, most of our friends that we met cruising, are either moving or getting ready to go. A big part of us is wishing we where going, especially when we have a couple of mornings like the last 2, where temps are below 50 degrees (not normal for here). We have been living in summer conditions for 3 1/2 years, and it will be difficult for me to deal with even the mild winter of Southport! I hate being cold!!

The transition to dirt dwelling has been interesting. For us, it started with having a car. Last summer we brought our 1994 Jeep Wrangler to Southport. After having lived here the first summer borrowing cars or riding bikes in less than desirable traffic, we realized we needed our own wheels if we were going to “park” ourselves again for a full summer. The Jeep is in good shape and is great for running around Southport/Oak Island, but it is not great for longer trips, like Wilmington or Myrtle Beach. Certainly not good for anything over a couple of hours. Having the Jeep gave us the ability to live what most would consider a more “normal” lifestyle here. We got used to driving again, which is a big transition! This year, when we decided to build the house, we figured we had better get a more practical vehicle, and bought a new Toyota Tacoma (I missed my Tundra the last couple of years…lol). This has given us more range of travel, not to mention, air conditioning…a must for summers here…and something the Jeep does not have. The introduction of each vehicle has enabled a further transition away from a true cruising lifestyle. We spend more and more time away from the dock with each transition, and working on the house as much as we have, has also resulted in less time at the water. This results in less time doing the things that we enjoyed so much in our transition to cruising…like sitting at the end of the dock each night to watch the dolphins and pelicans and watching the sunset EVERY day. Our focus and attention has shifted from nature based to mankind based. Fortunately, the boat will only be a 10 minute walk from the house, and once we get through building, I expect we will have more time to keep in tune with the natural world around us. This was one of the most stark revelations when we started cruising. In “normal” life, we spent so much time and attention to man made life, and so little time was spent immersed in the natural world. Immersion in the natural world has its challenges, but is so much better than man made, and most of the people in the US will never gain the experience to know the extent of the difference. I never want to lose sight of that again. Our transition has been gradual, but many just up and quit cruising…sell the boat and move back on land. For them, the transition is much more challenging, and I can see why so many people struggle with it.

As for the house…we are getting close. Since the last blog post, the walls are completed, the inside has been painted, we have gone through one iteration of fixing knot holes and imperfections in the wood walls, the counter tops are installed, the bathrooms have been tiled, the lot has been graded, and bushes have been planted. A brick walkway to the back of the house, and patio is being installed this week, as well as the wood floors. Appliances are on order. After the floors, the final electrical and plumbing work is completed, and we will be ready to move in. We promised our family members that we would post pictures during construction, but I want to wait a few more weeks before we post any more.

Transitions can be difficult, but at least ours has been gradual, and we are transitioning in a fantastic place to live! We absolutely love it here!!!

Here we were, anchored at Carolina Beach:

Note about the older blog posts:
I noticed that blog posts from 2014 up to 2016 have lost the links to the photos. During the first years, I tried to save money and use a free photo site to store the pics. They have since removed the ability to directly link to the pictures via a URL, thus breaking the link to the blog. Maybe over the winter I will have the time to fix those link errors. I do have each month of posts saved in printed format in PDF files. If anyone would like to see those posts with pictures, just contact me and I will send the files to you.