Saturday, May 7

We left Thunderbolt, GA a little after 8 in the morning on Friday. It started out as a cold, damp trip, but the two days we lost due to the clogged fuel filters and the following day that we hung around because it was a very cold, rainy, nasty day threatens to leave us short of our destination, Annapolis, before we have to be back in NJ. We both commented that we had skipped Georgia's stretch of the ICW on our way south in 1986, and now we know why. It is a most difficult stretch of ICW - twisty, turning, confusing, and very, very slow going. Fortunately the day improved greatly from its dreary beginning, and we found a beautiful anchorage at Church Creek, SC at 6 pm. Peter would have liked to go for another hour, but there wasn't another promising anchorage that we could make before sunset, and I had threatened Peter with dire consequences if we had to suffer a bad anchorage just to get an hour further along.

There were four other boats who stopped in that anchorage, so I assume that it's in some cruising guide.

Saturday morning we left the anchorage at 7 am, planning on a 12-hour day. It was cold Friday night and for the first hours of the morning, but there was practically no wind and it was a beautiful clear, sunny day. The boat was motoring nicely - at times we were doing 14 knots at 3000 rpms - much, much better than any previous day.

Peter was disappointed that we had to stop before 6 pm, but there's not another place to stop for 40 miles, and one does not do the ICW at night, particularly the next stretch. Another calm day and anchorage, we're well situated to leave early in the morning. We are in a small offshoot of the ICW at mile 375.5, daymark 29, just before the Waccamaw River, SC.

Today's trip took us through the busy, and confusing, Charleston, SC - I love the city, and expect to stop here on our way south in the Fall. After that city, the ICW is incredibly unspoiled, with practically no houses for mile upon mile. Somehow I forgot to bring my card reader for my camera, so I can't get the photos onto the computer. With all my gadgets, I forgot the important one. The last 20 miles of today's trip are so undeveloped that there are long stretches where there's nothing on shore except trees and marshland. It is the only place on the ICW where we've seen Cigarette-type boats zooming past at top speed - there's nothing around to be bothered by them!

Tonight I decided to cook a real meal, and so we had a pork roast. I think this is the best meal I've cooked since we've been on the boat.

I've been keeping a log of our fuel consumption, miles covered, etc. Now that the mechanic tuned our engines and we have new fuel filters, we have improved our mileage from 2.31 miles/gallon to 2.88 miles/gallon. Those are not typographical errors. And we went 110 miles today. At that rate, at least 4 more days until we reach Annapolis