Boating with Sunset Delight: 2026 April: Long day to Waccamaw River SC

17 April 2026 - Friday

Depart: N. Edisto River anchorage SC 7:50 a.m.

Arrive: Waccamaw River anchorage SC 7:45 p.m.

Distance: 92 nm

Travel Time: 12 hours

Clark decided to target Winyah Bay area for tonight's anchorage. With that, we would not be on the ocean today, and it would be a long slog through South Carolina at low tide. Our anchor was up just before 8:00, and we passed the Edisto River inlet just after 8:00 to pick up the ICW for today's travels.

Bypassing the exit to the ocean today

Having traveled this route over the past 10 years, we saw a lot of familiar sights today. The overly long docks are a dead giveaway that we are in the Carolinas.

The marshes also give a big hint as to our approximate location.

No matter how many times we pass by these houses with mile-long docks to their homes I still am amazed.

We saw a few small boats today,

One of many in the water

and some high and dry racked and stacked.

We passed by Charleston today. I took a couple of pictures of the city framed by the bridge we passed under to get there.

First peek at Charleston, SC

Iconic Ravenel Bridge in the distance

Sunlit building near Charleston, SC

Carnival Cruise Ship in town

Buildings as we pass out of Charleston

Besides the cruise ship, we saw a few other noteworthy vessels as we passed through here.

Two large US Coast Guard vessels ...

and this interesting-looking boat. Of course Clark had to mention that he would not want to deal with bridges with all that mast structure in place.

But nothing could compare to the sight we saw as we left Charleston! Sailboats everywhere! Left of us! Right of us! In front of us! I only knew there was something interesting to look at because Clark slowed the engines way down due to the heavy volume of sailboat traffic.

I almost missed the "show" because I had decided that I could not deal with the dust and dirt in the boat a minute longer and was down below dusting and running the vacuum cleaner. Good thing I ran up to see what was up!

Further on, I saw a swing bridge ahead was open and asked Clark what the clearance was on the bridge. I thought he said, "twenty", but what he really said was, "plenty"! Big difference! Twenty we need to take action; plenty we sail through without a care. The bridge was open for a sailboat ahead of us, but closed as we approached.

We passed under that bridge, and the scenery changed.

And a while later, it changed again.

Unfortunately, today we were passing through this area at low tide. The view is quite different when the water has flowed out to sea!

Not-so-lovely muddy view

"Horne E. Goat"
sign on dock

Docks sitting on the mud

Slow speed marker in the mud

A couple of folks along here must collect fenders as they float by; otherwise, I wonder why they have so many attached to their docks.

Passing a golf course is a given in South Carolina.

And then there was this "guy" smiling at us as we went by.

Painted propane tank?

The birds seemed to enjoy the low tide as they searched the water's edge for edibles.

Egret

Tiny birds pecking at the mud

Sea gulls rushing in

Along the way, we saw a boat with two dogs and no humans and thought that was peculiar

until we got a closer look at the "dogs"!

When I saw that the one at the bow was tied on with a line, it reminded me of my friend Marcy's "dog"!

They actually more closely resembled coyotes than dogs. Either way I wonder if they are successful in keeping the birds off the boat!

We went from houses and docks to marshland again.

I always wonder about the owners of this house deep in the marshes. I can only guess they wanted to guarantee they had no neighbors!

Their closest neighbor must have left long ago as the house buried in the brush below has clearly been vacated for quite some time.

House in there somewhere!

We had reasonably cool temperatures with a steady breeze. The sky was a beautiful blue with fluffy clouds.

It would have been idyllic if not for the flying insects that wanted to chew on our arms and legs. We did not have enough wind to keep them away.

We passed a totally unusable boat ramp when it's low tide. It was a long way from our boat to the ramp.

Mud, mud, and more mud!

We heard over the VHF radio someone letting folks know that a sailboat was aground up ahead. As we motored by, it looked like the sailboat would be there for a good long time waiting for a higher tide. Also, the boat looked to be far away from the center of the channel.

Aground!

Later, we passed another sailboat. This one had an anchor down waiting for higher water before proceeding on. We had to "wiggle" by as he was anchored in the deep part of the channel.

He was not the only sailboat waiting for water to come in. McClellanville was up ahead! This is a notoriously low spot on the ICW. Clark doesn't worry much about the tides through here as, over the last 10 years with our 4' draft, we've never had to wait for more water including today. But, this probably explains why we saw no larger boats until Winyah Bay area.

A bit further on, we found another one. While Clark was watching the sailboat to be sure we cleared safely,

I had my eyes on the guy on the paddle board paddling by on our other side.

Not only are small pleasure boats grounded at low tide, but some trawlers sat on the mud as well. It made me wonder about impact to their ability to go fishing. Can they only go out to work every other week?

Trawlers with no water beneath

Dock planted on the mud

I did get to see something I had not seen here before. I said to Clark, "Is that a deer in the water?!"

Head in the water

I watched as it swam to shore. It looked really happy as it bounded out of the water to be on dry land!

Yes! It was a deer swimming to the other side!

Clark picked Minim Creek as our anchorage for tonight. We arrived there around 5:30 and tried to drop anchor. We started to drop anchor and stopped because Clark spied a fish trap too close to where we would swing. We pulled the anchor back in and looked around for a better spot.

We found something that looked workable and tried again. When we had the anchor line down, we were both unhappy with what we were looking at. Traps were still too close, but worse yet, the boat was perpendicular to the anchor line. We had wind against current. Last time we had that, our anchor line got cut by rubbing on the bottom of our boat (prop or cutter - not sure). We did not want a repeat of that!

Weighing our options, we decided to pick up and go to a different anchorage. Normally, when we bring up the anchor, Clark takes care of the anchor part and I steer the boat. Given our current situation, the roles were reversed. Maneuvering the boat was tricky and Clark dared not leave the helm.

Unfortunately, I was not at all prepared to do all the mucking about associated with cleaning the anchor as it comes in. With the chain thickly coated in black muck, I needed to operate the saltwater washdown, and basically, I failed all around.

I got the hose plugged in and water started to come out, but I did not have it in correctly, and the water soon stopped coming out of the hose and uselessly ran down the side of the boat instead. No matter what I did I could not get the water flowing down the hose again, so I totally abandoned that effort.

The chain sort of cleaned itself as it came up, but the anchor came up so coated in mud that I told Clark to lower it back down into the creek to rinse it. Fortunately, the creek did the job, and we got the anchor and chain clean enough to get it back onboard.

Then, we had to decide where we would anchor. Another anchorage nearby looked like it would have a similar wind versus current situation. Clark said that he knew that if we anchored at Butler Island, we would be good. The only problem with that, it was two hours away. We would have to get a move on because in two hours, we would be dropping anchor at sunset.

Fortunately, we had the current with us to give us a boost in the right direction. To add to that, Clark pushed the throttle up a few RPM notches to increase our speed. Doing the math, it looked like we would just about make if before the sun went down.

We passed through a canal along the way where waters were calm. . I figured the chances of running aground in the canal were minimal, so I decided to take advantage of the situation and grab a shower while underway, unusual, but I was desperate.

After my shower, I decided that I should prepare dinner while underway as well to be ahead of the game on that too. Fortunately, I had a few leftovers that I could pull together into meals for Clark and myself. I had them all set up and ready to go in the microwave as soon as the anchor was down for the night. Ten minutes after we had the boat "put to bed" for the night, we were sitting down to dinner. We were both hungry!

Figuring the sun would be set by the time we had the "boat to bed" tonight, I grabbed some sunset pictures as we approached the anchorage to be sure I got one for tonight's blog!