Journey to Florida 2014: Charlston, South Carolina

Intracoastal cut

random ICW house

Full Moon on a small river off the Atlantic

Well we are in Charleston, sec and not sure if this is right but "frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn"

Very old city, flat and many remnants and history surrounding the Civil war and the break from the Union. I believe the Civil war started here at Fort Sumter. Marina we are is is open to Charleston Bay and the waves of freighters and large ships. Tide is 6' and current about 2 knots.

This week saw us pass through Southport, Myrtle Beach and to Charlston... about 275 miles.

We had one bad storm early last week and with the high winds ... we had trouble setting the anchor... the wind, tides and current left us with a bad night, wondering if the anchor would hold... were up for an hour during the peak of the storm (4am).. Next day we had a better day, seeming to hit favoring currents and got into Southport. Next day however we slugged 60 miles seeming to hit every tide was against us as we moved down the ICW and ended up averaging 5 knots for 10 hours. This was when we traveled through Myrtle Beach. Seen several Dolphins....

Here is my story for the week. While weighing anchor in the river (picture above with full moon) at about 7:15am... I happened to glance down at the water at the side of the boat... there was this dorsal fin... grey in color.... sure did startle me as I only had a glance at it for half a second... I am presuming , take that as convincing myself , it was a dolphin... it dove under the boat , to be seen no more.

First experience with heavy shoaling at a location called Jeremy Creek, got stuck in the mud, tide was rising.. managed to get out, but waited an hour for tide to rise higher, before we ploughed through with minimal water under the keel... Jo was at the helm and I was on the bow trying to even out the weight enough to push through... we managed to push through the 200 or so yards before we were out of trouble.

Picked up my Florida C-MAP charts in Charleston ...so set for the last part of the journey.