OtherGoose: Friday Dec 5 MIle 416-448

Friday Dec 5

Only 19 more shopping days until Christmas!!!

We had a terrible time getting the anchor up this morning. We had set two anchors and the current was so strong, the stern anchor was jammed into the mud. It took 20 minutes to get it up, and then get the bow anchor loosened so we could turn around to get out of the creek.

We left the anchorage at Mile 416 and headed down the North Santee River and crossed into Four Mile Creek. We were slow so naturally C-Soul passed us, but by mid morning the tide had turned and we were doing 6.5 knots heading down the river. The creek crossed the South Santee River, and when we reached the junction, it was like crossing a highway!! We had to look both ways before crossing!!

We managed to maintain the speed for most of the day but as usual we were passed by several boats! One boat going the other way, the trawler Carolyn Ann had quite a conversation with us about the shallow water at low tide in McClellandville . Of course, when the tide turns it slows us right down so we didn’t make the anchorage until 4:30. C-Soul is about 4 miles ahead of us but we will catch up tomorrow. We need to stop somewhere to top our propane tanks. We still have one tank that should last for two weeks but it wouldn’t be good to run out of cooking fuel!!!

The ICW in South Carolina is very isolated. There was only one town on the waterfront today and it want really a town but a bunch of houses and docks. Ten years ago when we came up there was an abandoned estate with rice paddies all around it. This year there were a bunch of new mansions and a private marina called Heritage Mansion Marina . I bet the guy that bought that old estate and divided it up made a fortune!!! What a shame. We were looking forward to exploring it.

So we are anchored up another creek at Mile 448. It was tough getting anchored here too. We couldn’t get the stern anchor to set this time. The bottom must be hard sand. We are only 1.5 miles from the ocean. While we were trying to set the anchor, a dolphin was fishing in the turning basin and he didn’t seem to want to get out of the way. We can hear the little critters in the sea water chewing the growth off the bottom of the boat. But mostly we are listening to the wind and the current pushing us back into the channel. We are well set on the anchor so far.

So tomorrow we are going to try for Charleston but there is a two-day restricted zone in the city at the Coast Guard are where they are launching a new ship. We might have to wait and watch or we might miss it.