We pulled into a marina in Brunswick, Ga to take care of a few misc projects. Thankfully, nothing serious.

Its been three weeks since we got underway from Va. We’ve made a few outside hops but with steady southerly winds, most of the 700 miles we’ve travelled so far has been through the ICW.

The few marinas we’ve stopped at all say that the cruiser migration season has had a slow start this year, because of the weather.

We left Va concerned about hazardous navigation conditions of the waters heading south, in the wake of Hurricanes Florence & Michael, both offshore and in the ICW. From what we have observed the hardest hit areas have been the New Bern, NC and the Waccamaw River near Conway, SC.

Here are a few of our observations;

- Beaufort to Wrightsville: ICW unknown but Masonboro Inlet untouched and in good shape. We entered at 0400 with no problems.
- ICW to Carolina Beach was good and we did it at low tide.
- Carolina Beach State Park Marina: A shoal to 7’ at entrance marks @ high tide & shoal to 5’ in marina basin at low tide.
- Cape Fear River: It’s always a sleigh ride with the current.
- Southport to Little River: ICW unknown. Little River Inlet in good shape.
- Bird Island: The anchorage has good holding but bumpy in a NE wind.
- Calabash Crossing to Osprey Marina, including “Rock Pile”: The water is much higher than normal.
- Osprey Marina & Waccamaw River: This area suffered extreme flooding after Florence & the houses along the banks show signs of high water inside them. The river crested 13’ over flood stage! We were told that of the three marinas in the area only Osprey survived. When we passed Bucksport Marina it looked uninhabited. The other, Waca Wachee Marina, had people & boats around but we saw no one on fuel dock.
- Georgetown: We didn’t go there.
- ICW to Charleston: The same problem areas of McClellanville and between high rise bridge and Ben Sawyer Bridge, at least half tide is needed.
- Charleston: We didn’t stop this trip.
- Charleston to Beaufort: Ashepoo-Coosaw cutoff dredged but tricky. We did at low tide almost touched twice but evasive actions on the part of helms woman avoided grounding.
- Beaufort to Hilton Head: We saw no problems. Lots of derelict boats in the marsh grass. Lady’s Island Bridge still on the hour.
- Hilton Head to Thunderbolt: The skull creek trickery but doable.
- Thunderbolt to Brunswick: Skidaway Narrows shoal in spots but we did it at low tide. We went through Hell’s Gate at half tide, shallowest 8.3’. We went through Little Mud River 30 minutes before high, shallowest was 7.5’.

Hope this helps!

Fair Winds and Quiet Anchorages,
Jeff & Wendy