2023: Waccamaw River SC

 9 April 2023

Depart: Butler Island SC anchorage 11:30

Arrive: Enterprise Oxbow anchorage SC 3:00

Distance: 19 nm

Conditions: Cold 55 degrees, cloudy, winds gusting to 30 mph

We had a windy night last night. I could hear the wind howling, and the boat was bucking a bit on the line. When I mentioned something about it to Clark this morning, he said, "Well it was no where near as bad as some of the nights we had in the slip at Marlin Bay." 

Clark did not plan to travel very far today, so we got a leisurely start. I got some pictures of the anchorage while I waited for our day to begin.

As we travel from place to place, we collect boat cards (equivalent of business cards) from the folks we meet along the way. The picture below shows the cards we collected just this season. We have a binder where we store the cards for reference. Our card collection dates back to 2015 when we navigated the Great Loop.

Just one season's worth!

On the ICW today, we came upon a ferry dock with a very unusual ferry belonging to the SC Public School system.

SC Public School Bus - Ferry

Tour Boat
"Tours de Sandy Island"

Ferry Dock

Most of our voyage today was under cloudy skies. The Waccamaw River is not at its best with overcast skies. Everything appeared quite drab until the sun made a momentary appearance. 

Little white caps on the waves in the river

For today's agenda, Clark decided that we should get fuel. He found a good price at the Wacca Wache Marina (love that name) and thought it best to get fuel now instead of waiting for prices to go up. The fuel pump was a slow one today. We spent a little less than an hour taking on fuel and pumping out the holding tank.

We passed many familiar sights today.

Buckport Marina

Buckport Marina

Along the Waccamaw River ...

With the dismal, cold weather today, we saw very few boats out on the waterway with us. I worried that our chosen anchorage might be where folks were hanging out, and found numerous boats in the limited space of the oxbow anchorage.

Besides all the boats in the curved anchorage, we had an area of heavy weeds to make things interesting.

We got some "help" from the other boaters in the anchorage. One sailboat told us where we could find his anchor so we would not drop ours on top of his. Another radios that the tug-type boat had no one onboard and was dragging anchor. 

Potentially dragging anchor

We first dropped our anchor near the river in front of these two sailboats but found ourselves sticking out into the river itself. We decided to pull up and try again.

We finally decided to drop anchor behind the weeds and in front of the potentially-dragging tug. If the boat dragged, it would wander away from us not towards us, so Clark figured it was safe. 

When we woke in the morning, the tug was directly behind us. It did not appear to have moved / dragged at all. Although it was a tight fit, we had no issues here overnight. All was well.

View from our cockpit the next morning