It was time to get moving again. We left Charleston at dawn along with a whole cohort of boats that had been waiting out the weather. Most were powerboats that were faster and significantly shorter in height than us. They were already receding around the next curve in the waterway when we arrived at the first bridge. By the time it opened to let our mast through, the other boaters were well out of sight. We spent the rest of the available daylight mostly by ourselves, slowly gliding by marshland that was occasionally interrupted by a mile or so of waterfront housing, every one of which seemed to be at least a part-time Bed and Breakfast.
Day 1: Charleston to Winyah Bay (ICW mile 406)
By sunset, we had made it to Winyah Bay, just downstream of Georgetown, South Carolina. We weren’t quite fast enough to get there before the midges came out for their evening feed, though. We anchored pretty far from shore, so the situation was probably a lot better than it could have been. It would have been nice to sleep with the hatches open, but not nice to wake up covered in little, itchy bites. I guess that’s what fans are for…
Day Two (Apr 5th)
Following our pre-dawn departure, we had a very atmospheric first few hours as the flooding tide took us up the Waccamaw River from Winyah Bay. There was not a breath of wind, which made the water an upside-down version of the views above. We went through thick fog interspersed with cold, clear spots where the mists clung to the tops of cypress trees whose buttress roots splayed out before entering the mud below the water’s surface.
As the sun rose further, all of the moisture burned off and we were soon hiding from it under the bimini to keep from being cooked.
High tide arrived just as we passed the tidal border between the waters fed by the inlets for the Waccamaw and Calabash rivers. Now the ebb was helping us along. I would love to take credit for timing it that way, but we would have needed every minute of daylight anyway, so we were going to have to take whatever we got.
Day 2: Winyah Bay to Sage Island (ICW mile 329.5) - now in North Carolina
I had planned on anchoring for the night in the Calabash, right on the border between North and South Carolina. I had done it once before and really didn’t like it. There is a lot of tour boat traffic through there and they seem to take a certain pleasure in charging and then swerving to throw big wakes on the anchored boats. There is no suitable alternative nearby. With our all-day boost from the current, we had just enough time to carry on, now on the flood coming in Calabash’s inlet, to get all of the way to a very peaceful spot on the Shallotte River where it was just us and one other catamaran. That was so much better.
Day Three (Apr 6th)
As our pre-dawn-to-dusk schedule remained the same, the moon and thus the tides came later. We were starting to get out of sync, but only a little. We were doing okay until about the time we saw Lydia waving at us from Take Five at the marina in Southport. By the time we turned north to follow the Cape Fear River, the current was holding us back more and more by the minute. We got excited when it turned in our favor as we transited Snow’s Cut to the New River, but then we were right back to fighting it again. We had a nice tailwind, though, which allowed us to keep our speed where we would like it. It took us right until the last minute of daylight to get to our anchorage at Sloop Point, just out of the busy channel for all of the boats moored at the docks on Topsail Island.
As we headed northward, the houses on both sides of the ICW got more numerous and much bigger. We saw single homes that were much larger than the buildings we have seen on some small islands that house the entire government. More impressive was that since the water is so shallow and marshy, each home has a loooong railroad trestle-style pier leading from the house to the ubiquitous center-console fishing boat, jacked up on a lift at the end. Most of the piers had thick railings on each side, as well as a covered seating area by the boat. Each one looked like they took more lumber to build than the house. Out of all of the thousands that we saw, only two had someone obvious out enjoying them. I imagine that if you are lucky enough to have one of these homes, you will ironically need to spend most of your time somewhere else, working to pay for them.
Day 3: Sage Island to Sloop Point (ICW Mile 264)
Day Four (Apr 7th)
Our luck with the current finally ended. A big blow was on its way and none of the anchorages that were available in the next sixty miles offered much protection. The best plan I could think of was to continue past Beaufort, North Carolina into the more protected waters of the little creeks to the north in the section between Bogue Sound and the Neuse River. To make this work, we had to leave Sloop Creek in the last few hours of the moonless night. This synchronized us with the current, but in the wrong way. Every time we would pass an inlet, we would go from fighting the flood to fighting the brand-new ebb.
This leg of our trip started beautiful and calm with glassy water and the slightest of tailwinds, which was not enough to be worth deploying any sail for a speed boost. By afternoon, lowering clouds arrived along with a building headwind that slowed Begonia down even more. Even though it was Saturday, all of the recreational traffic quickly thinned until it was just us plodding slowly away in the channel.
By the time we made it to the Beaufort/Morehead City area, the sound of the wind through the rigging was completely droning out the engines. When we finally made it out of Bogue sound, we were better protected from the wind and waves, which helped our speed through the water, but the adverse current picked up to more than compensate for the gain. We were now fighting the building flood coming south down Adams Creek from the Neuse River.
We got to our anchorage twenty minutes after sunset. We were as far as we could get and still be protected from the building swell in the Neuse. That was a long day. Since the next day’s weather was supposed to be worsening, we knew it was also going to be a short night with an early start.
Day 4:To nowhere in particular (ICW Mile 188.5)
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