2025 November: Charleston SC

 4 November 2025

Depart: Enterprise Oxbow, SC anchorage 7:10

Arrive: Stono River anchorage near Charleston, SC 5:35

Distance: ~85 nm

Having awoken before the sun, I walked out onto the cockpit for a look around and got to see early morning reflections of the trees around the anchorage. Beautiful!

Fall colors caught by the rising sun

Sailboat in the anchorage with us

We got underway and continued our travels on the ICW through this very pretty section of South Carolina.

We saw some work going on with a backhoe. 

Right where there is a warning sign for pipes.

We passed the Wacca Wache Marina.

We saw a number of bridges today.

Bridge Repair underway

Caution Floating Swing Bridge

Basically a boat that pivots to 
become a bridge.

Side opposite floating bridge

"Miss Ellie" "bridge"

We saw lots of trees / bushes and not very much boater traffic. 

Up in the trees I saw what I believe was a pair of eagles. 

Eagles?

The only boat we saw for miles was one with folks fishing from it close to the shore.

A while later we saw some men on the back of a trawler at dock cleaning up after a trip out this morning.

After that what we saw was a lot of low water and mud. Floating docks sat on the mud.

The boat shown below is sitting in mud. The man who came with the boat was out in the marshes working a backhoe. I hope he had enough water to get going at the end of his work day.

We saw a boat Clark says we have seen before also sitting in the mud.

Not so pretty at low tide here

Shortly thereafter Clark pointed out a barge sitting in the marshes high and dry.

Barge sitting in the marshes

Next we saw another boat no longer floating in water.

Beached boat

Early afternoon, we had a decision to make. Clark had identified Dewees Creek as our intended anchorage for tonight. If we dropped anchor there, we would be done with our travels by mid-afternoon. We talked about it, and after doing some mileage calculations, decided we could go further. We continued on now targeting an anchorage just beyond Charleston and allowing us to take advantage of a fast current through the Charleston area.

As the day wore on, we did encounter some boat traffic, but anything with a deeper draft than us would not be able to travel today at the time we traversed this area. At one point Clark saw less than a foot of water under our keel. He watched the charts and navigated this way and that to stay in "deeper" water.

It became real challenging to watch the depth and the water for oncoming traffic or obstacles as the sun shown brightly in our eyes.

The pictures below show our view going towards a couple of bridges and

then a picture looking back at one of those bridges. Blinding one way and beautiful the other!

Fortunately we did not need this swing bridge opened as we could easily clear.

Next up on the areas of interest was our arrival at the outskirts of Charleston, SC with an iconic bridge that can be seen for miles.

Fire boat on a lift

We saw an old bridge that has been converted to a fishing pier. A couple stood at the end enjoying the day.

Others were walking the bridge.

As we got closer to Charleston the bridge was easier to see and we noted some local boat traffic at the bridge.

Next we spied Fort Sumter where the Civil War began.

We saw a couple of large USCG ships - one in the anchorage for commercial vessels and

the other docked at the USCG station in Charleston.

I took some pictures of the city as we sped by at almost 10 knots due to the current rushing through here.

A pirate ship went by as well as

a "Salt Water Tours" boat with a paddle wheel.

We had a lot of difficulty seeing our way ahead as we traveled directly into the sun frequently.  We were grateful when the sun got lower in the sky.

Sun behind the bridge made the tower look to be on fire

The anchorage Clark decided on for tonight was on the far side of Elliot Cut. 

Elliot Cut coming up 

The current carried us along through Elliot Cut, so we were in and out of this narrow passageway in a hurry.

Looking back at the "Beaver Moon" 
while traversing Elliot Cut

We anchored in the Stono River on the starboard side immediately after exiting Elliot Cut. A couple of sailboats were anchored there already when we arrived. We had a view of the moon from our bow and the sailboat surrounded by sunset glow to our stern.