Wednesday, April 29th: Anchorage at Butler Island in the Maccamaw River, South Carolina
The weather is warm and the scenery, beautiful. Through Georgia and now into South Carolina, parts of the waterway are lined with bush or stands of trees. Sometimes there is marsh land spreading from the water edge and back to meet wooded areas.
Today we are going through miles of marsh sometimes with trees in view and sometimes not. At times, rows of houses and docks appear, the docks ending in a small deck area covered by a green or peach coloured roof. Usually, there is a boat raised out of the water and sitting on a supports beside the deck. The dolphins are ever present showing a fin here and there and sometimes arching out of the water - occasionally one or two appear directly in front of the boat and then disappear under the water - sliding away from the approaching hull.
In spite of the scenery and warm temperatures, we are not so relaxed. Since our grounding, we are more keenly aware of unpleasant possibilities. During our turn at the wheel, each of us is especially vigilant to follow the deep water: staying close to the GPS magenta line indicating the centre of the channel and also noting water depths. Falling depths send an alert - magenta line or not, should we move the boat over closer to the shore? closer to the green or red marker?
This morning we were delayed by a bridge with restricted rush hour opening hours. From the marina in Charleston where we spent the night, we estimated an hour and a half to reach the bridge. To get through the bridge, we either had to arrive before 7 or after 9. Beating the 7 o'clock deadline meant starting out before the sun came up - something we perhaps should have considered more seriously since the 9 o'clock opening put us on the water well after low tide. That means that we traveled for a while through the morning and into the early afternoon on a rising tide - a good thing - but as the day has progressed, the tide had reached it's peak and begun to fall. We weren't happy to be traveling through areas of "skinny water" as the tide fell. One particularly troublesome area had 2 ranges to help navigate a narrow channel with shallow edges. For non boaters: A range consists of 2 markers, one set in front of the other - the boater is meant to steer the boat in a line running from one marker to the next. The trick is to place the boat so that you see the closest marker sitting directly in front of the one behind it. On the channel we came through, the ranges were behind us, so Bob had to turn and look back to line the markers up. I sometimes steer following a range but not this time - Bob is better at keeping his cool when the stakes are high - and the tide is low. To make it all interesting, while we were moving through a narrow part of the channel just before the range would appear, we saw the top of a tall tug around the bend. As the tug and a long train of equipment trailing behind turned the corner, we were caught in a thin strip of water between Sea Change and a green square marking the edge of deep water. Bob slowed to a crawl and as the tug and it's snaking floating cargo passed by, we watched the depth sounder fearing that we would be forced into shallow water. (It was already shallow enough.) When the last of the load passed by, we breathed a sigh of relief and then settled down to look out for the next challenge. Such experiences aren't so bad - they keep us fully engaged and prevent thoughts of stock prices and swine flu.
We were feeling so gung-ho that we bypassed our destination point (Georgetown - it was too late to go ashore for walking anyway) and continued on to an anchorage listed in Skipper Bob's book. Meanwhile I went below and got dinner ready so that we could eat soon after we anchored (a curried chicken and rice dish, vegetables, salad). Finally at almost 7, we arrived at another of those adventure experience sites - Skipper Bob's descriptions are extremely succinct and leave a lot to of decision making up to the captain - basically, anchor north or south of this island (that seems to be in the middle of nowhere) and get in close (presumably where the water is a better depth for anchoring). After we cruised up the side of Butler Island for several minutes, Bob selected a spot shown on the chart to be more shallow than surrounding water and we dropped the hook. There was no one in sight - just water and trees around. On days like this, I always feel as though we are taking a huge chance - that is until the anchor is down and all is well - as it always is.
We traveled 63 nautical miles today - a long, long way to go in a slow boat on the ICW.
Looking at Butler Island - where we anchored.
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