We left the dock at 9:10 this morning for the long trip to Georgetown, South Carolina from Charleston. To dock the boat yesterday, we practically had to do the equivalent of parallel parking. The captain of C Way, Craig, paced off the length of the space before we arrived because he heard a large boat was coming in, and he did not believe a boat our size would fit in the allotted space.
Clark used some scientific principles and physics to determine which lines to use to his advantage to move the boat out this morning. His boating skills never cease to amaze me! We pulled out of the space slick as anything.
As we headed away from the marina and back towards the ICW, we passed a dock used by the US Coast Guard.
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| USCG Cormorant |
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| Another USCG boat on the dock waiting to be launched when needed |
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| USCG Anvil |
As we left Charleston behind, we could see the silhouette of Fort Sumter in the distance.
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| Fort Sumter, South Carolina |
On route, we saw lots of things that one would consider normal, such as when we passed numerous homes sporting docks with long, and sometimes short, walkways. However, we also saw a number of bizarre things on the water today. For example, we passed what looked like a floating rock. After studying it for a while, we discovered it to be a pelican sleeping on the waterway with its head tucked under its wing.
Friends of ours, who also completed the loop, had a favorite expression ... "you never know what you'll see on the water". Well, we missed the picture on that "sleeping -pelican oddity", but we captured quite a few others throughout today's travels.
First off, as we approached a swing bridge with a 30 foot clearance allowance, it suddenly blew its bridge-opening siren. We did not need the bridge opened, and looking in every direction, we could not see any vessel coming towards the bridge that would require an opening.
I stood and watched as the gates came down, the car traffic stopped, and the bridge opened. No boats passed through the fully open bridge. Then, after a couple of minutes, the bridge closed and the gates went up so the street traffic could resume. This occurred precisely at 10:00 a.m. Neither Clark nor I have seen a bridge open for the sake of opening. Normally boat traffic is required to warrant it.
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| Perhaps this bridge opened just so we could capture a picture for the blog? |
We see some interesting water craft on our travels. Today we saw a boat that defied description.
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| Houseboat for little people? |
One boater we saw clearly wished he lived in a different century.
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| Yo-ho-ho my matey! |
Throughout the day we saw a variety of other boats. Several of those were boaters working their crab traps. One of them was very popular with the locals who clearly know the captain's regular routine.
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| Here pelicans wait patiently for the captain working his crab trap. |
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| Here they get the cue to move in ... "Okay guys, let's go!" |
The further we got from Charleston, the more desolate the terrain.
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| Marshland along the ICW in South Carolina |
In the midst of a section of uninhabited marshland, we came across this house all alone with no road access and difficult boat access.
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| No neighbors for this guy. "I vant to be alone!" |
Clark told me ahead of time that we would be traveling through shallow areas today with low tide unfortunately occurring at midday. We had to watch the depth very carefully as the water continued to go out. Since they are called "floating docks" for a reason, I was not expecting to see the floating docks sitting on top of the mud.
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| What does this owner do with the boat at low tide? |
It would seem that when you live on the mud, you make the most of it. I heard laughter, so I went to investigate and saw children wading in the mud which came up to their shins. They clearly enjoyed getting their arms and legs covered in slime. The one girl I watched (on the far left in the picture below) got her feet stuck in the mud and nearly fell over trying to extricate them. She thought it all a very fun game.
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| 3 Girls play in mud by boat ramp while a boy their age sits on dry land. |
We passed several sections of the waterway where we had to be careful to avoid crab traps. Still I was not prepared for the sight that greeted us on one stretch. Bobbing in the water was a colorful display of crab trap markers in orange, white, and blue.
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| Each floating, white and orange ball is a marker for a crab trap. Are there really that many crabs available to be caught??? |
Actually, the crab trap markers make reasonably good aids to navigation. In some cases, they almost appeared to be positioned specifically to keep boaters out of shallow water as they lined the edges of the waterway.
Due to the low water, we had to be on constant lookout for the red and green channel markers. I did not see the red ones pictured below until Clark told me to look at the docks!
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| Docks cum Aids to Navigation, i.e. Red Markers If you hit the dock, you are out of the channel! |
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| Petrified forest? No. Just nature's artwork. |
Although, to me, we seemed to be many miles from an inlet, we found numerous dolphins on route, or should I say they found us. When they heard us coming, they seemed to make a b-line to arrive at the boat for playtime.
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| Keeping up at about 10 mph. |
Later, off in the distance, we could see the evidence of a fire.
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| "Smoke, on the water, ..." |
Continuing on with today's theme of "unusual sightings", we passed by a floating swing bridge.
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| "Caution: Floating Swing Bridge" |
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| Floating swing bridge at dock. |
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| Miss Ellie |
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| Miss Ellie stern |
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| Floating swing bridge, Miss Ellie, left the dock! |
After a full day of boat travel, we entered the Georgetown area around 5:00 p.m. Here, the scenery returned to more status quo.
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| Fishing Fleet in Georgetown, SC |
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| Shrimp Dock in Georgetown, SC |
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| Another pirate? These guys should get together with the one I saw earlier today. |
After eight hours of traveling, we reached our dock and secured our lines. As we walked up to check in, I told Clark that I fancied going out for burgers tonight. When we paid for our stay, we asked the man at the desk where to go for a good burger, he told us to go to "The Old Fish House".
Not expecting to hear "fish" in the name of a good burger place, I asked him to repeat the name of the restaurant. Upon hearing the name a second time, I wondered now is that the "old fish" house or the old "fish house". Somehow the former option of intonation did not work up an appetite for me.
When we arrived at the restaurant, however, the sign outside touted the alternate name for the restaurant.
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| "Big Tuna" Restaurant and Bar aka The Old Fish House |
Outside the front door stood a three-to-four foot tall carved pelican.
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| Carved, wooden pelican at Big Tuna Restaurant |
Inside the restaurant, we found a three-foot tall bird cage with a parrot that nearly filled it due to the length of its tail feathers.
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| Long parrot in cage at restaurant in Georgetown, SC |
For a place that was clearly a seafood restaurant, the burger they served was quite tasty. While I enjoyed my burger, Clark had the fried grouper special. Afterwards, he decided to stop in for an ice cream treat on the way back to the boat.
The place we stopped at is one where we enjoyed an ice cream with my son and his wife (the two-year old, Sierra, refused to eat ice cream). I felt quite nostalgic as I remembered us all sitting there together. Since the shop had no sorbet, Clark got his alternate standard of a vanilla cone.
While he ate his cone, I studied the wall decoration and found it to be a painting commemorating the sinking of a Yankee ship during the Civil War.
Later, after finishing the ice cream, we walked down the street and the historical marker on the side of the road caught my eye. Here again was a remembrance of the USS Harvest Moon. Clark said, "Didn't we take that picture last year?" Yes, we did, but I wanted to include the narrative to go with the picture from the restaurant.
Clark said we had to walk fast to get back to the shelter of the boat. Because the day approached twilight, the gnats were out in force. In fact, he took tonight's sunset picture from inside the boat to avoid confronting the nasty, little creatures waiting outside.
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| Sunset in Georgetown, SC with Paper Mill in background |
Unfortunately, the internet at the Harborwalk Marina has proven itself to be painfully slow. Since this blog entry had so many pictures to upload, this is the only accomplishment I managed to complete after dinner.
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