Passage - Osprey Marina, Myrtle Beach, SC to Harborwalk Marina, Georgetown, SC
8:47 AM Underway
12:50 Docked
32 miles 5.0 engine hours

What a pretty part of the ICW is the Wacamaw River from Myrtle Beach to Georgetown. It is basically fresh water although we are starting to get to the Winyah Bay inlet. There is still lots of freshwater running into the major rivers from the flooding rains South Carolina a few weeks ago.

As we got closer to the Georgetown area we started seeing the remains of the rice plantations. I was texting Jonathan with some of the pictures although it was very hard to get everything in perspective. So vast were the abandoned rice plantations I told him it must be thousands of acres of rice fields. According to our Waterway Guide there were over 40,000 acres with 780 miles of canals through the rice fields. At one point in time this area produced over half the rice consumed in the US. Also, there were Indigo plantations that cultivated and exported the blue dye used widely in dying cotton.

Upon docking and taking a walk about I first got a well needed haircut. We saw the rice museum and the water museums and shopped some. We tried to get some of the South Carolina Yellow rice still grown on the Pee Dee River, but the general store was out of stock. We were told the rice was being harvested now and would be back in stock soon. So, pretty much the Georgetown area was all about rice.

Georgetown also has a nice waterfront board walk that has entrances to many restaurants. After our walk about we had cocktails on the fly bridge. It was so nice to have clear skies and a beautiful sunset. The boat is still very damp in places from the thunderstorms (My Facebook friends got to see a short video of the sunset from our vantage point I posted as the sun set) We walked to the River Room Restaurant. Wahoo for me and Susan had a pasta dish with shrimp and scallops. We took back leftovers as we often do. Often times we eat twice more from what we bring back from restaurants.

Today’s picture is a glance at one of the rice fields. This picture could not reproduce the vastness of the rice plantation fields. Georgetown may be a place we come back to by car for a road trip. Really a nice town.