Passage South Harbour Village Marina, South Port, NC to Barefoot Marina, Myrtle Beach, SC
10:11 AM Underway
5:02 Docked
37 miles 8.0 engine hours

Yea, we are finished with North Carolina. We love North Carolina. 314 NM or for you landlubbers 362 statute miles.

Tough unlucky day with the currents bucking our progress most of the day. Averaged 4.6 knots. If you don’t think that is slow, try driving 37 miles and taking 8 hours to do the drive.

It was a beautiful day though. Nice sunshine day. Little wind. But, yes most of the day we felt like we were going uphill.
We got past the dangerous “rock pile” section of the ICW ( http://cruisersnet.net/accident-report-from-the-rock-plie-myrtle-beach-sc-aicw-satute-mile-360-365/ ) just before Myrtle Beach. That section of the AICW looks more different than any other section of the AICW with it appears to me to be layers of slate on each side. There are markers that show really troubling areas. The worst thing can be a tug overtaking or meeting situation in this narrow area with no where to pull over out of the way. You make a call on your VHF to find out if anything big is going to transit this area. I just looked on the AIS system and could only see one boat way ahead of me. So, through the rock pile we went. With the water boiling towards us like in a Harry Potter movie - whirlpools swirling, the boat moving upstream it seemed and the Autopilot really helping me out with the quirky currents.

We got to Barefoot Marina right at going home time for the dock master’s help in tying up. He said over the radio he’d wait for us. It was impossible to calculate an ETA for him as we would be going 3.8 knots at times and almost 5 at other times. There are no really good tide / current tables that predict what you will encounter. Sometimes you get a nice current with you and sometimes it is against you.

We are going to stay at Myrtle Beach tomorrow and try to take in the Alabama Theater Christmas show tomorrow night. Anything at the Alabama Theater is top notch.

Today’s picture is from Susan. She shot this picture as we were approaching the Myrtle Beach swing bridge - sunset with very interesting clouds.