Day 222: Sunday, April 14, 2013

Port to Port: Minum Creek to Little River South Carolina

Underway: 7:07 am      Motor Off: 7:35 pm      Miles Traveled: 73      Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First day over 70 miles; First cable cars passing over river (to and from a golf course near Myrtle Beach.

Mile 415 to Mile 342: Our goal was today was about 40 miles to a nice anchorage in an oxbow part off the river off the ICW. We had excellent assist from the current so we were almost done by 2 pm. Or not.

We were traveling almost 7 mph and according to the chart the next 30 miles would probably be all downhill (with the current) because there were no more openings to the ocean anywhere along this stretch. There weren’t any anchorages along this manmade channel but we decided it was worth paying to stay in a marina to keep going with the flow. So we did. We added another 30 miles on and hoped to get to the marina about 6:45 pm. Rain is forecast for tonight – 100% chance – so being as a marina would be nice. We lucked out and zoomed through several bridges without having to wait and road the current for hours. In fact, our speed went up as we got closer to the marina. Although there was a fair amount of weekend boat traffic – the most we have seen so far this stretch – it was exhilarating watching the shoreline fly by at 6.8 + mph (everythings relative). We arrived a little early, in fact, at 6:30 pm. And we kept going.

They had told us to tie up to the gas dock but this was between two noisy bridges, on the channel, by a restaurant and fairly exposed to the wind. All that for almost $40 a night. We decided to keep going a little farther to a nice protected anchorage about 4 miles away and finally stopped for the night, had cereal for dinner and read until we couldn’t keep our eyes open. A good day.