When we stop tonight, Friday 25 May, in our anticipated anchorage we will have travelled 161 miles since Monday. This may not seem like a lot if your thinking about doing it in a car. It also may not be much for some of our cruising friends who routinely travel 60+ miles a day while in the waterway. But, for us it's a lot.

We have been very fortunate using the tides to our advantage. We left Factory Creek,Monday, at dawn. We fought the outgoing and incoming tide most of the first four hours. How is that to our advantage?

Well, we had to go through the skinny Ashepoo-Coosaw Cut, say that three time fast! This is one of the known shallow spots in the area. By fighting the incoming tide we were able to get through without incident. Then, we were able to ride the rest of the incoming tide towards the Toogoodoo Creek, our anchorage.

While anchoring we discovered that our alternator was not charging. We did some troubleshooting and decided the problem was the alternator. The following morning we installed our spare and all was well. Glad we had it!

With the new alternator working fine we headed for Charleston. Again we rode the tides to the Wappoo Cut. The current here can run at 4+ knots at max flood. Depending on the tide and your direction it can be a sleigh ride or it can be like hitting a brick wall. 

We like to avoid this type of interesting if not dangerous experience so, by pacing ourselves we went through with about a knot of current against us. That was perfect! There is a bridge we needed to have open half way through the cut and it has restricted hours, requiring us to wait. CALYPSO is much happier idling ahead facing the bridge as apposed to turning around to head into the current to wait.  We made it to Charleston and anchored off the city marinas Mega Dock.

Yesterday we left the anchorage on and outgoing tide which scooted us along through the harbor with just our staysail up. We made such good time that we had to wait 45 minutes to get through the Ben Sawyer Bridge's morning restricted hours. 

Once through we approached another trouble spot, marker 117A. The tide was about 10 minutes from low when it happened! We touched, but slid through the soft pluff mud. We continued but touched again which we scooted through with the momentum of our 20,000 pound displacement. Then a third time and again we oozed across, just slower.

We had lost some of our momentum and when we crested the forth mud mound, we stuck. A couple vain attempts to free ourselves failed. It was dead low tide so we waited 15 minutes and tried again. Just a little lift from a little extra water was enough to free us and we were off. Last night we anchored in Minim Creek, about 11 miles south of Georgetown, SC.

This morning we transferred 15 gallons of fuel from the Jerry Jugs to our main tank and headed out at 1045. The late start was just what we needed to ride the tide to Winyah Bay, past Georgetown, and into the Waccamaw River.

We Hope to anchor around 1800 in one of our favorite spots, the Oxbow at the north end of the river. Tomorrow we will head towards N. Myrtle Beach with an ETA back at MCAS Cherry Point of early next week.

More Later,
US