Honey Queen Adventures

Today, we slept in (a little) in Southport, as it was such a cool little town. Amanda wanted to sell the boat and buy a house here. Can’t say I blame her, but I was able to convince her to at least finish the trip with me before we invested in any more real estate. Here are a few pictures revealing the charm we so enjoyed.

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We stayed in an anchorage known as Banks Channel in Wrightsville. We were surrounded by many like-minded folks who enjoying being on the “hook” and staying somewhere for free. We were protected on the north, east, and west, so the mild breeze provided our air conditioning, the natural way. Wrightsville, as you know, is known for taking serious hits during the hurricanes. I often wondered why people continue to leave themselves so exposed to the elements. After being here for a few hours, I can understand their temporary insanity becoming permanent. This is what we woke up to on Wednesday morning.

Our 42 mile northward trek today carried us to Southport, North Carolina. A quaint fishing town of approximately 3,000 people had the feel of small town USA. We had contacted Robert and Kay, who are harbor host for The Great Loop in this area. That turned out to be a home run for us. He told us about a free dockage, directly in front of The Provision restaurant. He met us at the dock to point us in the right direction into the slip, and had us over a visit on his front porch overlooking the basin.

He told us that each evening at 6 pm a local does a weather/navigating class for Northbound cruisers. That 1 1/2 hour session provided us with so much detail and peace of mind about our next leg of the journey. Such a valuable resource we stumbled upon. As a bonus, we met 2 other cruising couples who are also doing The Loop. Ate dinner with them and then walked 50 feet back to the boat.

The winds finally died down in our anchorage last night and the oxbow became lake calm. We rose around 6:00, our new body alarm time, it seems, and headed north 15 miles to the Marina at Grande Dunes. The cruising experts tell us we need a day or 2 per week off the water just as a stress reliever. Yes, I know most think this is stress free living, but we have found that is not totally the case. The need for constant awareness of surroundings, current, weather, systems on the boat, navigating, avoiding shoals, etc. has a certain level angst about it that merits a little break by being tied up at a marina.

As mentioned already, laundry, reprovisioning, and the other routine tasks of living can be accomplished while in the marina, so there’s still a little normal living routine required.

Sunday morning, we watched Compassion Church service on the app, walked to the beach, took a little snooze there, and walked back to the grocery store to restock. Our stroll back to the boat, loaded down with groceries, was a less than fond memory made. No matter how pitiful of a face I made as cars rode by, no one offered to pick up the 2 homeless looking people walking with 40 pounds of bags hanging down at our sides. I asked Amanda to start crying, but she wouldn’t stoop that far. I need to work on my “look” or get a cart!

The Georgetown anchorage was very well protected, so we made this our home last night, instead of moving. We left at 7 am, keeping our eye on the weather.

The landscape made a significant change today, north of Georgetown. Having seen only marsh grass for the last 5 days, today it looked like we got planted in the bottom of Dorcheat’s cypress swamps. It looks like home to this Louisiana boy.

The weather plan for arriving in a marina late this morning changed, as conditions got much better. So we cancelled our marina reservation and proceeded northerly another 20 miles. We hunkered down in an oxbow on the Waccamaw River, near 2 other boats. Wind forecasts were in the upper teens till about 7 pm, then dropping temps into the 50’s. Another good night of sleep is my forecast.

Tomorrow morning, we execute our game plan of being in the marina early enough to avoid the weekend boaters. Laundry, fuel, fitness center, and restocking the little refrigerator are our plans for the weekend, while people that are younger, and still employed, enjoy what is forecasted to be a beautiful day on the water.

Our stay at Awendaw Creek, which is the inlet to the Harbor River was uneventful. We saw NOBODY, no boat, nothing but sea gulls and pelicans. from 2 pm yesterday until 8 am this morning. Virtually no current and plenty of water at low tide, made this an ideal anchorage. It is fairly exposed, so had there been any significant wind, it may not have been so ideal, but this night was like being on a cove at Narrows (family understands).

These two guys have been escorting us since Savannah. It has to be the same 2, because they always act like they know us. I decided to name them Mike and Gabe, as the only 2 angels (Michael & Gabriel) named in scripture. They have been our guardian angels, making sure I didn’t do anything stupid.

We pulled out at 9:15 and drove North about 32 miles to downtown Georgetown. The public day docks, advertised as free, would not handle a boat our size, so we anchored in the bay and puttered to the public dock in our dinghy. Found the restaurant shown by my own “Vanna” and ate a great lunch. Georgetown is a quaint little town, clean as a pin, with a significant number of restaurants and shops. We needed to run to the Post Office, so we decided the exercise would be good for us. A 2-mile walk along a major highway got us to the post office, but we opted to catch a Lyft back, as we were in boat shoes, and valued our lives more than we valued the exercise. Best $7.10 I’ve spent on the trip thus far.

We pulled out of Wappoo Creek Anchorage in Charleston this morning and negotiated the Charleston Harbor. Though not too precarious, the channel markers were difficult to pick up in the expanse. Didn’t help that our virtually brand new binoculars have fogged up, making spotting the channel markers quite challenging.  A return trip to the next available West Marine is in my near future.

We watched 2 bridge openings from behind us as sailboats needed them to pass through. Our 22′ clearance with the antennas down gets us through some of the lower bridges without requesting openings.

Our 2 pm arrival in Awendaw Creek  allowed our first afternoon of just chillin’ out in the sunshine. Though pretty breezy, the sun was warm and kind. We listened to Ed Sheeran and James Taylor, looked at the distant lighthouse at Cape Romain, and watched another gorgeous sunset. This anchorage makes us feel like we are the only people on the face of the earth. But we still can sneak a peak at Wheel and Jeopardy with our little TV. Got to monitor how many million James will win.

A little weather is forecasted for Friday so we plan to get close to a marina Thursday evening, anchor out, and then check in Friday morning, giving us safety and comfort from the elements, not to mention a shower large enough to accommodate the opportunity to bend over and pick up the dropped bar of soap as needed.

Rising early today, well rested, we watched and listened to the creatures around us. Fish jumping, sea gulls cawing back and forth just made us all the more grateful to be out of the rat race and soaking up serenity of the moment. Of course, South Carolina sand gnats have the same fangs as do those from Georgia, so we stayed nestled in the salon until the sun was well up.

A third straight glorious beautiful day allowed us to press a little further than we had planned. We arrive in Charleston about 3 pm and had thought we would anchor in front of the city Marina. However, after feeling like I was going to be mooring in the median of the intersection of I-95 & I-16, I told Amanda this was not my idea of a vacation. We backtracked a mile or so to an anchorage called an oxbow, which is basically a small body of water separated from the ICW by a small island. We’re looking out our boat windows at gorgeous homes, just South of downtown Charleston, with the rumble of vehicles crossing a bridge in the background.

We ate seafood at the Charleston Crabshack, who had a dinghy dock on the ICW. Good food and a nice little ride in our 9′ raft, a boat I am much more comfortable and experienced handling than our 36,000 pound beast, the Honey Queen. All is good and we are still pinching ourselves that we are getting to have this experience at this point in our lives.

Left Skull Creek, eyelids dragging, but I did remember to pull up the anchor, so the boat did fine. We traveled about 17 miles to Beaufort’s City Marina. Had our first experience tying to a mooring ball. There were no pictures and non witnesses, thankfully, as we didn’t exactly tackle that one with gracefulness. We lunched at the Blackstone Cafe and enjoyed the best fries, which weren’t fried, but baked. Very crispy and grease-less. Awesome.

Covered another 20 miles after lunch and anchored at Rock Creek. The cut was narrow and shallow at low tide, but we neither saw or heard from anyone one passing by until 8 or so the next morning. We were dead tired and were in bed by 9 pm, sleeping like a college freshman who just finished rush. Amanda did wake me up about midnight to witness the almost full moon rising up over the marsh in a ball of fire that took our breath away. A nice reminder that our God never slumbers, nor sleeps. But having that peace of mind, I quickly continued mine.

We got away from Savannah a little later than we intended, after enjoying a wonderful Easter Service at our home church, Compassion Christian and having lunch with Clint, Mali, and Stella. They brought us to Morningstar Marina for the official send off.

Our progress was a little delayed at Fields Cut just after getting into South Carolina because we saw 2 boats sitting on shoals at low tide. After watching for an hour, dead low tide was on us, so I made the decision to attempt to creep by them, since water was only going to be rising, right? As we approached, even with my rookie navigator eyes, I saw they had approached the markers from the wrong side. We slipped by them (by maybe 30 feet) and never touched bottom. Got lucky. Hopefully, we didn’t use all that up on the first day.