Charleston, South Carolina

December 3-4, 2006

We woke up on Sunday morning (yes, still in the same place with no anchor dragging), to drizzle, fog and overall unpleasant weather. We spent the morning cleaning Whisper and trying to reorganize some of the contents of her lockers to distribute the weight more evenly.
Cleaning out the cockpit lockers

We went ashore around 1:30 and met Don and Deedie Rose, Whisper’s previous owners. They took us to “Fleet Landing,” a restaurant located in an old Navy headquarters. We talked about Whisper, sailing, Charleston, etc. They are a fun couple and it was great to meet some of Whisper’s old friends.
We were invited to an impromptu dinner on Zen with Michele & Monique from Quebec and we had a lively discussion about the American Dream, politics, sailing (of course), and other such topics. They have college-aged kids in Canada so are taking a short 8-month cruise to Belize & Mexico while the kids are in college for the year.

We spent Monday touring around Charleston, which is a really beautiful city. Lots of grand houses with multiple level porches, Spanish moss, and a slow-paced easy way of life.
Kite shop in Charleston where Kristen's sister, Angela. bought a kite on a family vacation to Charleston almost 17 years ago.







Many of the streets in the historic distric have their names imprinted in the sidewalks.



After an hour city bus ride to the main post office, along with an exercise in customer service (or lack thereof), we were picked up by Cedric, a fellow Vega owner who lives on his Vega in Charleston with his wife, Melissa. After talking with Cedric about Vega improvements and renovations, it appears that there are people who have done more work on their Vega than we have! We went to a great Mexican restaurant and talked all things sailing and Vega-related, then went for a quick dinghy ride over to Whisper so they could check out what we’ve done. They’ll be off to the Caribbean in 2 years time—maybe we’ll meet up in Trinidad!
Cedric & Melissa

Georgetown to Charleston, South Carolina

December 2, 2006

Although the majority of people will contend that tides and currents are a matter of science, on this trip down the ICW we’ve found that they’re purely a matter of luck. Usually, we’re unlucky and have the current against us, whether the tide is going in or out. But, for the trip from Georgetown to Charleston, we got lucky and had the current with us the whole way. We were able to motor for 11 straight hours and go 70 miles—at one point we were speeding along at 9.1 miles per hour.
Along the way we saw various kinds of wild fowl, including snowy egrets and pelicans, as well as Santa Claus on a flying inflatable dinghy! You wouldn’t believe it if we didn’t have the pictures, right?
A snowy egret on the banks of the ICW
Pelicans
Santa on his sled
Santa landing his "sled"

Anchoring in Charleston was a little tricky since the depth was 25 feet and the current ran in and out of the river at over 1.5 knots. We set two anchors on a Bahamian mooring for the first time, which inevitably ended up with some midnight (or was it 2AM) modifications to stop the clanging on the hull and to keep the level of paranoia at a minimum for Whisper’s crew members. We’re a little on the conservative side when it comes to anchoring and although we’ve never dragged an anchor before, we are both hyper-sensitive to the fact that it could happen. Some say imagination is a good thing, although at 2AM it’s best left for kids playing in forts in the woods.



A boat in Charleston all decked out for Christmas

Traffic stopped as the bridge opens for us to pass.

Georgetown, SC Part II

December 1, 2006

We’re at anchor in Georgetown, SC, a town of about 10,000 with a large steel mill and a large paper plant. We’re waiting for some boat supplies to come via UPS so we’ll probably push off tomorrow morning. It’s really windy today anyway (about 20 knots on the water), so it’s just as well that we’re staying put for the day. It was nice to sleep in this morning (until 7:30) and have some pancakes for breakfast. Our friendly neighbors from Quebec dragged anchor this morning, so we put out a second anchor just to be sure. The cold front should pass through in a couple hours and the wind is forecasted to subside later this afternoon. We did laundry yesterday afternoon and I took a very cold shower this morning on deck so I’m feeling clean which is a nice change! We’re anchored right next to the Independent Seafood Fish Dock. Last night we had shrimp, pimiento cheese & crackers for appetizers, followed by fried flounder, mashed potatoes and carrots for dinner. Hans talked with the captain of one of the shrimp boats to see if he could go shrimping with them today, but unfortunately they’re not going out today because of the weather and the next time they go out (probably Monday) they’ll be gone for 3-4 days. We rowed over a shared some wine with the Quebecois. They are on their way to Mexico, Belize & Guatemala. Since they’re Canadian, they’re stopping over at Cuba on the way down. I’ll go ashore later today and take some pictures of Georgetown for the next post.


Sunrise at our anchorage at Thoroughfare Creek, South Carolina (near Bucksport, SC)

Kristen pulling up anchor at Thoroughfare Creek. Kristen's been doing the majority of anchor dropping and weighing since Hans is having some aches in his left shoulder.

Georgetown, South Carolina

November 30, 2006
written at Thoroughfare Creek, SC (near Bucksport, SC)

Old houses in Southport, SC

Kristen eating ice cream in Southport, SC

Hans at the computer in Southport


SC/NC border

An inlet to the Atlantic.

We’re anchored tonight in the most undeveloped section of the ICW that we’ve come across in the past 2 weeks. Granted, we had to motor through hours upon hours of sprawl (see development blog entry) before getting here, but it’s well worth it. It is completely silent, except for the birds and mosquitoes, and we were able to go ashore to Sandy Island to hike around, which is co-owned by the SC Department of Transportation and the Nature Conservancy. Our neighbors tonight are a couple from Quebec on a 40 foot steel sloop. The woman mentioned that she was having trouble with her English and her ability to understand the bridge tenders over the VHF, but Kristen reassured that we’re all having problems understanding the bridge tenders who speak fast and with a rather heavy southern accent that is often hard to decipher over the radio.

Hans motoring through a bridge.

The only pontoon bridge left on the ICW.



Yesterday we had an unintended short day of only 30 miles. Whisper and Boris are capable of getting us over 50 miles in the daylight, but we’re having trouble contending with opposing tides which set our speed down at least 2 miles an hour (about 25% reduction in speed!). We also lose some time waiting for bridge openings. But, at least we’re not racing with anyone. We anchored last night in Little River, off the town of Callabash, SC (or is it NC, it is hard to tell on the chart). We went exploring in the nearby salt marshes and then made our way to town. It is an interesting place with some derlict tourist fishing boats tied up to rickety piers and about 10 restaurants in a matter of one mile. We may have stumbled upon South Carolina’s biggest deep fried tourist trap. We didn’t succumb, and dinghied back to Whisper to cook up some shrimp and grits. Fabulous.

We left the anchorage at dawn and spent the morning motoring through patchy fog until the sun came out in full force around 9:30AM. We’ve been waking up at 6:15AM or so and are generally moving before 7AM. The majority of the morning was spent passing housing developments, both new and old.

aerial tramway traveersing the ICW.

Around 10AM we motored through the infamous “Rock Pile” section of the ICW which is renowned for outcroppings of rocks reaching out to the edge of the channel. It turns out, however, that it was mostly hype, and while there were indeed rocks bordering the ICW, you would have to be half drunk to run your boat into them.





Kitkat spent the whole morning in the sun before retreating to the clothes locker to rest after her hard morning.
Around 11AM, shorts were dug out of the recesses of the clothes locker and we fully enjoyed the 75 degree weather post-Thanksgiving!




We entered the Waccamaw River this afternoon which was a welcome change after the Myrtle Beach area. The Waccamaw is almost completely undeveloped marsh and mangrove land with a couple marinas here and there, but mainly just oaks with Spanish moss.

We arrived at our anchorage around 4:30PM and after exploring, had a dinner of bacon spaghetti (some may call it spaghetti carbonara), red wine and truffles.



Tomorrow we’ll head to Georgetown to pick up some mail and then we’ll be off towards Charleston.

"The Grand Strand," South Carolina (Myrtle Beach area)

November 29, 2006
Waterway housing developments

There is an astonishing amount of housing development along the ICW. It’s easy to understand the desire to live on the water, but you have to stop and wonder about the environmental consequences. Almost every acre of land along the ICW around the Myrtle Beach area was either houses, condos, hotels, shopping malls or golf courses. Even after the devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused along the Gulf Coast, development along South Carolina’s coast appears to be continuing unabated. Here are some samples of just a few miles of the ICW.

Southport, North Carolina

November 27, 2006

We left Morehead City on Saturday morning and had a fairly short and easy day motoring down to an anchorage maintained by the Marine Corps at Camp LeJeune, Mile Hammock Bay. There is a boat landing which marines & their families use for small fishing boats, and the rest of the relatively large basin is used by passing boats. We were the second boat in and by sunset there were nine other boats. It was the first night we had to contend with mosquitos, which must be the tradeoff for warm weather.


Pelicans and seagulls sitting on the sandbars along the edge of the ICW in the Bogue Sound.

Kitkat with her ears flat as she visually stalks the birds.


On Sunday morning we left pretty early (7 AM) and headed for Wrightsville Beach, NC. We are truly in the "ditch" of the ICW now. Each day is a pretty straight shot down the ICW, we rarely need to look at the charts since we basically just motor in between the red and green markers. Mostly there are houses of all sizes on the western edge of the ICW with piers and fishing boats, marshland to the east and in the distance we can see either large houses, condos or hotels which are built up on the edge of the ocean.

The "ditch." Houses to the west, marshland to the east.

Some of the houses on the ICW are ridiculous. One was pink with portholes for windows and a matching pink lighthouse, complete with palm trees. It's amazing how the waterside development doesn't seem to stop down the North Carolina coast. N.C. has miles upon miles of beaches and there seems to be development all along the way.

A "cottage" along the banks of the ICW in North Carolina


someone's pet giraffe

Motoring in a small saiboat is a bit of challenge as Whisper wasn't designed for motoring and every time a power boat passes us, even if they slow down, we get tossed around on their wake quite a bit. Today a large powerboat passed by very close to Whisper, going probably 20 knots and did not slow down. We turned right into the wake so we could take it on the bow and then Hans called on the radio to yell at them. Of course they didn't notice. At times you really want a red button to take care of people like that.


A tug pulling a dredging barge. One would think that the larger the boat, the bigger the wake, however that's not the case. Tugs and barges give us very little wake, while a 25 foot powerboat can really toss us around. It all depends on the speed and displacement of the powerboat.


All the southbound sailboats lined up waiting for the Wrightsville Beach Bridge's 2PM opening.


The anchorage at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina


Wrightsville Beach at sunset.


We got an early start, well earlyish, this morning, and arrived in Southport, NC, a little after noon. We anchored in a small harbor, had some sardine & tomato sandwiches for lunch and dinghied ashore to walk around town. Southport is a quaint, historic town which is capitalizing on it's history and small town charm. There are lots of antique stores, boutiques, and some toy stores. The first fort in North Carolina was built here, Fort Johnston, however all that remains is the barracks.
We stopped at a little cafe for some ice cream and, without looking at the menu, Kristen asked if she could have a single scoop strawberry ice cream. Without blinking or showing any sign of emotion, the clerk replied "No.". Kristen wasn't really sure how to respond in turn and the two spent a couple seconds just staring at each other until the clerk said "we don't have no strawberry" and pointed at the ice cream menu. Kristen got a black raspberry ice cream and Hans had a chocolate & black raspberry cone. We sat out in the sun (73 degrees today!) and ate the cones while watching the water and passing car and foot traffic.

We stopped at a seafood store in Wrightsville Beach yesterday and bought some shrimp and tuna, both local, so we'll grill up the tuna for dinner tonight.

We're still trying to figure out our best daily mileage and have come to the agreement that we really enjoy getting into port in the middle of the afternoon when there is still a couple hours of daylight left to hang out at anchor or to go ashore and explore a little. This means we'll take longer to get to Florida (and thus the Bahamas) but it gets pretty tiring to motor for 10 hours a day. We'll probably average between 30 and 40 miles a day.

Quick poll: Does anyone look at the Daily Pictures blog? It's kind of a pain to upload the pictures, but if you all are enjoying it, we'll keep it up. Leave a comment. Thanks!

Morehead City, Part II

November 24, 2006

We're still in Morehead City. We found a nice floating dock, free water and electric so we decided to hang around for a couple days extra. We'll leave tomorrow morning and anchor out tomorrow night and aim to be at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina the following night. Ruppert and Dorrie had us over for Thanksgiving dinner last night which was excellent. They even made sausage stuffing. Good Brits! Ruppert carving up the Thanksgiving bird (chicken actually).

Today we biked over to the Maritime Museum in Beaufort which has lots of displays of Maritime history including displays on Coast Guard history, fishing in North Carolina, lighthouses and some treasures taken from Blackbeard's ship, "Revenge of the Queen Anne."
Some houses in Beaufort.

The owner of the dock is very kindly lending us his truck to run to the grocery store, so here are a couple pictures of the last few days.

The pelicans drift past our boat on the current. Kitkat stalks them along the deck but they take no notice (surprise surprise).

A boat crossing under the bridge between Beaufort and Morehead City.