DAY 86 - HARBOUR VILLAGE MARINA, TOPSAIL BEACH

DAY 86 - HARBOUR VILLAGE MARINA, TOPSAIL BEACH

Saturday, July 29, 2017 ~  We were woken at 5:20 am by heavy rain, loud thunder and an amazing lightening show.  It did not last very long but when we got up in the morning there were dark clouds overhead and it rained again.  Upon checking our GPS we made the decision to stay another night.  It was a wise decision because we had intermittent heavy rain until 3:00 pm.  Finally the sun came out and it looks good for tomorrow.  This was a beautiful marina to spend another day.  The marina was renovated in 2012 to include splinter free docks and floating piers.  

This is a very friendly dock and we met a few couples and had some drinks with them in the evening.  Two of those couples had Sea Ray’s ~ A  50’ Sun Dancer and an identical 48’ like ours but 1999.  The property around the complex is immaculately maintained.  

The Harbour Village Marina, Topsail Beach, NC

The grounds around the marina.

One of the beautiful homes surrounding the marina.

DAY 85 - MYRTLE BEACH, SC TO TOPSAIL BEACH, NC (79.2 Mi.)

DAY 85 - MYRTLE BEACH, SC TO TOPSAIL BEACH, NC 

(79.2 Mi.) (Mi. 346 to Mi. 267)

Friday, July 28, 2017 ~ It was another late morning start, leaving the dock at 9:25 am with the tide up 1.5 feet.  We cruised through a few tranquil man-made cuts, but three quarters of the cruise was at no wake with the shores lined with homes, docks and marinas.  In these slow areas we only managed to go a distance of 10 miles in one hour.  There are numerous inlets in this area with access to the Atlantic Ocean.  All of these inlets had beautiful sand beaches with a lot of boats and people enjoying the water.  After seven hours (4:20 pm) it was nice to pull into the Harbour Village Marina, Topsail Beach, North Carolina.  

A Casino Boat in North Myrtle Beach - Look at the
fun we missed yesterday!

Typical Homes and docks on the north side of the channel
in the NO WAKE ZONES.

Holden Beach Hwy. Bridge with an old sinking boat on the left.

Lockwood Folly Inlet at mile 320 where you can see the
beach and the waves coming in from the Atlantic Ocean.

Friday, July 28, 2017, Hot and Humid
and on the right hand corner you can see
the Nor'easter storm that we got on Saturday.

DAY 84 - MCCLELLANVILLE TO MYRTLE BEACH (85.5 mi.)

DAY 84 - MCCLELLANVILLE TO MYRTLE BEACH (85.5 mi.) (Mi. 430 to Mi. 346)

Thursday, July 27, 2017 ~ We are up early waiting for the tide to come up.  At 8:50 am we leave the dock with the tide up 2 feet.  We cruise by sand dunes, salt marshes, beaches and forested areas.  We enter the Waccamaw River were the water is the colour of dark tea at about mile 402.  This winding stretch of water which continues to mile 375 is bordered by swamps, cypress trees and oaks dripped with Spanish moss.  This is one of the most scenic areas on the ICW.  Further north there are more residential areas with beautiful homes and landscaping as we get closer to Myrtle Beach.  We pass at least a dozen golf courses along the channel.  We arrive at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club fuel dock at 3:20 pm.  Our transient slip gives us access to the yacht club dining room which was a good choice for dinner.  

A secluded anchorage on the Waccamaw River.

A divided channel.  Follow your charts to navagate
in the correct one.

One of the many golf courses along the coast in the
Myrtle Beach area.

Beautiful coastal homes with amazing landscape wall.

Little River Bridge in North Myrtle Beach with a
vertical clearance of only 7 feet.

DAY 83 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA TO MCCLELLANVILLE (39.9 mi.)

DAY 83 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA TO MCCLELLANVILLE (39.9 mi.) (Mi. 469.2 to Mi. 430) 

Wednesday, July 26, 2017 ~ We left the dock at 8:10 am.  It’s a cloudy overcast day.  The waterway is wide and we can cruise at a nice speed through most of the areas.  At about 10:30 am some dark clouds developed.  We were only a few miles from Leland Marina, McClellanville and decided that we should stop there to wait out the storm.  By the time we were turning into the marina channel is was pouring rain.  The dock master called us and said he would meet us on the dock.  Even with a raincoat on I got drenched, but we managed to dock safely.  The rain persisted for over an hour and so we decided to stay here the night.  McClellanville is an old-fashioned fishing village (population 475) on Jeremy Creek.  They however have beautiful floating docks.  After lunch we spent time on studying our trip for tomorrow and then we took a walk.  There was a fresh seafood store, however, the shrimp boats right now are not catching much shrimp.  A boat was out for 5 hours and just brought back ten pounds of shrimp.  There were no fresh ones to buy.

This is what happens when you get off course and hit a shoal.

A beautiful wide open area for some fast cruising.

Typical coastline structures - A long dock with a cabana on tall
pylons and then a smaller floating dock with a ramp to allow
for the tide and a place to tie up your boat.

The torrential rain in Jeremy Creek, McClellanville

Shrimp boats at McClellanville

Deerhead  Oak Tree ~ Over 1,000 years old ~  The tire swing on
the left has invited children for decades to oscillate beneath
the tree's massive boughs.

Circumference 30.6 feet
Longest limb 70 feet
Age over 1,000 years

DAY 82 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA

DAY 82 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 ~  The mechanic is on board at 9:00 am with a new starter.  It is a pretty impressive piece of equipment.  He has the new one installed by 10:00 am.  We start the engines, take the power off, untie the boat and I give the captain the all clear.  Frans tries his thrusters and they do not work.  I retie the boat and Frans calls Ron the mechanic who is not far away yet to come and take a look.  This is not his specialty and he cannot figure it out.  This all takes more time and now we cannot do the run we wanted to do to Georgetown.  So we decide to stay another night.  There is a marine repair office at the marina and at 2:00 pm we get someone to look at it.  It was a very simple fix.  A toggle switch which we never touch was some how moved into the off position.  Problem solved.  We are good to go on Wednesday.  

Novice sailors on the ICW in front of the Mark Clark
Expressway Highway Bridge

DAY 81 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA

DAY 81 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA

Monday, July 24, 2017 ~  It is overcast today with occasional rain showers this morning.  This is laundry and mechanic day.  Two mechanics arrived at 10:15 am.  Frans turned engines on and off for them for one hour.  They diagnosed that the problem was the starboard starter.  Now they have to check it there is one in stock.

Aurora, one of the mega yachts in the marina.

The Seastreak came in for fuel.  When I walked back from the
laundry the fuel pump was at $ 9,172.00 and counting.

Mussels on the cement walls of the docks.  They do not clean
them off because they are living organisms.

One of 6 diesel fuel pumps on the Mega Dock.
The fuel pump hoses are 4" in diameter.

DAY 80 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA

DAY 80 - CHARLESTON CITY MARINA

Sunday, July 23, 2017 ~ This is a sightseeing day.  We did a horse and carriage Civil War Tour in the morning.  We then walked through the huge market and had lunch at Bubba Gumps.  From there we took an Uber cab to Walmart for some provisions.  This ride took us across a bridge to James Island.  We could see the marina and Lady V.  It was a very windy afternoon when we got back to the marina.  There were wind gusts of 40 knots per hour and more.  The water in the channel was very rough.

Carson, our horse for the Civil War Carriage Tour.

A Charleston downtown street.

An original plantation house.

St. Philips Church in the background.

Part of The Market.  It was five buildings long.

DAY 79 - BEUAFORT TO CHARLESTON (70.7 mi.)

DAY 79 - BEUAFORT TO CHARLESTON CITY MARINA, CHARLESTON (70.7 mi.) (Mi. 539 to Mi. 469.2)

Saturday, July 22, 2017 ~Today we are leaving early at 6:25 am which is hi-mid-tide.  It is cooler outside but the rising sun does make navigating a bit hard on the eyes.  The ICW here is wide with good water depths and there are a lot of areas where we can do over 20 knots per hour.  We arrived at 11:20 am which was almost a 5 hour run.  Our slip at Charleston City Marina is on the Mega Dock.  This Mega Dock extends 1,530 feet and is the longest free standing, floating fuel dock in the Southeast.  There is diesel available every 300 feet along the dock.  

Sunrise at 6:30 am leaving Beaufort.

Four boats rafted together.

Dolphins playing ahead of us.  We are always afraid
that we might hit them.

McKinley Washington Bridge with fishing boats right in
the middle of our channel.

Long docks so typical of this low country area.

Elliott Cut - A very narrow, no wake channel for .4 miles.

DAY 78 - HILTON HEAD TO BEAUFORT (25.8 mi.)

DAY 78 - HILTON HEAD TO PORT ROYAL LANDING MARINA, BEAUFORT (25.8 mi.) (Mi. 565 to Mi. 539)

Friday, July 21, 2017 ~ We spent the morning doing chores.  At 11:30 am we took the trolley to Seaport Beach on the Atlantic Ocean.  We talked along the warm waters of the very busy beach.    At 3:00 pm we left the dock and are underway.  Our first ten miles is a No Wake zone all along Hilton Head Island and we have two more patrolled wake zones.  When we left the dock we are only at a tide up of 2 feet.  The scenery that we see now is often underwater when we are at mid-tide.  

At 4:50 we are at the fuel docks of Port Royal Landing Marina, Beaufort.  The fuel docks are well marked - yellow pylons for diesel and orange pylons for gas.  We are at the same marina that we were at when we came down in 2011.  Frans and I both recognized the restaurant.

The Trolley that takes you to the beach.

Sea Port Beach on the Atlantic Ocean, Hilton Head, South Carolina

Shoals that you can see when the tide is up only 2 feet.
At high tide these would be covered by water.

Port Royal Landing Marina, Beaufort, South Carolina

Looking out at the Beaufort River Highway Bridge.

DAY 77 - HARBOUR TOWN YACHT BASIN, HILTON HEAD

DAY 77 - HARBOUR TOWN YACHT BASIN

Thursday, July 20, 2017 ~  Since we are travelling through a lot of the area that Hurricane Matthew hit I thought that I would share some information about it with you.  It became a named hurricane on September 28, 2016.  The highest wind speed was 165 mph. making it a Category 5 which is the highest possible.  There were 603 deaths ~ 546 in Haiti and 47 in the USA.  It was the 10th costliest storm in U.S. history with $15.09 billion dollars in damage.  The Harbour Town Yacht Basin is still recovering from the catastrophic damage that Matthew caused.  Docks are still being repaired and electric power rewired. The dock we are on just opened up three weeks ago.  

We managed to contact a Caterpillar dealer and they sent a mechanic out to the boat at 3:00 pm.  He believes that we have a battery issue, though both were replaced two weeks ago.  We are going to  meet him again in Charleston on Monday.

Sunset in Hilton Head looking out into Calibogue Sound.

The Harbour Town Basin Golf Course

Harbour Town Basin Club House

Liberty Oak Tree

Harbour Town Yacht Basin, Hilton Head

DAY 76 - KILKENNY MARINA TO HILTON HEAD (53.0 mi.)

DAY 76 - KILKENNY MARINA TO HARBOUR TOWN YACHT BASIN, HILTON HEAD (53.0 mi.) (Mi. 614 to Mi. 565)

Wednesday, July 19, 2017 ~ Today we waited until 3:00 pm before we could leave the dock.  We are going through Hell Gate which is one of the worse shoaling areas on the ICW so we want to be there near high tide.  On every cruise we see dolphins playing in the water.  What a wonderful sight.  Today we are meandering through Georgia to South Carolina.  We have open waters where we can go fast and also many residential areas and marinas where it is idle speed.  We docked at Harbour Town Yacht Basin, Hilton Head at 6:15 pm.  There are bands playing outside and lots of activity, stores and restaurants nearby.  What a beautiful location!  However, it is too hot to play golf.

Homes along the North shore of Burnside River.

Idle speed zone sign - Area is patrolled - Violators will receive
a 1,025.00 fine or 30 days in jail.

Wake boarder and a dolphin tail.

Meandering through the ICW in Georgia.

Harbour Town Yacht Basin, Hilton Head

LADY V at dusk docked in Hilton Head.