Saturday, October 23, 2010 – Bull Creek, SC (ICW mile 565.5)

 
Sometimes our dirt dwelling friends ask us, “What do you do all day?” Check out that first photo of us enjoying our morning coffee on the front deck. It would be nice if it really was like that all of the time – and we know we experience more than our share – but we truly do savor these wonderful moments.

Since we were in such a lovely anchorage and the guys were enjoying the fishing so much, we decided to stay right where we were for another day. A few more redfish were caught, a few more pages in our books were read, we watched a little TV toward evening and relaxed the day away.

 
 

Friday, October 22, 2010 – Bull Creek, SC (ICW mile 565.5)

 
 
 
 
At 8:45 am we had the anchor up and were waiting for the 9 am bridge opening. We cruised by L2S and spoke briefly with Todd to let him know we would look for them along the waterway and meet up at the anchorage later this afternoon. Todd and Gale were both hoping for some good fishing in Bull Creek.

Just before we arrived at the turn off into the creek, L2S passed us and led the way in. Both boats were anchored at 1:15 pm and after a quick lunch, Gale and Todd were in their dinghies and heading towards a small floating dock on shore. Within moments, the ladies could here whooping and hollering that made them believe the fish were biting! Todd caught a nice flounder right off the bat and Gale was into the redfish or red drum. It wasn’t looking like we would need the chicken and potatoes set aside for our evening meal. Gale brought home about eight nice-sized redfish.

Late in the afternoon, a local fisherman stopped by L2S to see if any of us would be interested in some nice fresh shrimp for $5 a pound. We ended up with two pounds of the biggest shrimp we’d ever seen! Gale pinched off the shrimp heads, filleted the fish and we washed and packaged our catch for later.

Imagine this meal: stuffed flounder, redfish fillets, and shrimp all caught today and grilled slowly on the back of the boat with a side of long-grain wild rice and a nice lettuce salad. Mmmmm…..

Thursday, October 21, 2010 – Factory Creek, Beaufort, SC (ICW mile 535.9)

 
 
The destination of the day was Beaufort (say: “Byou-fert”), South Carolina. We had invited Todd and Brenda over for hors d’oeuvres; however, we just missed the 4 pm opening of the bridge at Beaufort and ended up anchoring in Factory Creek below the bridge. During the week, the bridge has restricted openings for the morning and evening rush hours, so it would not be opening again until 6 pm. L2S was already tucked in above the bridge and even though we weren’t that far apart, we decided to do our own things that evening and plan to get together at tomorrow night’s anchorage.
 


We were anxious to see the town of Beaufort, so since we weren’t having guests, we took the dinghy into the town dock to see what we could see. We walked into the parking lot and found a couple of horse-drawn carriage tours waiting to take their last spin around town. We had a lovely tour of the city and our guide had a real knack of giving us the history of the area with a lot of her own personality thrown in.
 
 
 

After some photo opps with the horse guide, Doc, we enjoyed a good meal at Luther’s on the waterfront before heading back to Blue Heron for the evening.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 – Tom Point Creek, SC (ICW mile 495.7)

 
As we came into the Charleston City Marina yesterday, Todd of Life’s 2 Short hailed us on the VHF radio. They had just left Charleston and were heading for an anchorage at Tom Point Creek where they planned to stay a couple of nights. Our plan was to join them there so at 9:30 am we began the 15-mile journey to meet them. By noon we were anchored a couple of miles up the creek and after a little lunch, both Todd and Gale were out in the dinghies seeing what kind of damage they could do the fish population of Tom Point Creek. It turned out that the fish were not in too much danger that afternoon.

That evening, we joined Todd and Brenda on their boat for drinks, dinner and a round of “Think While You Drink.”

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 – John’s Island, SC (ICW mile 480)

 
 
We had an early start to the morning and were off by 7 am. At 1:30 pm we stopped at the Charleston City Marina where we could tie up to their dock for $5 an hour. Since all we really needed was to pick up our mail, we paid for two hours, walked up to the shops near the marina and picked up some wine and rum for our stores. We were very happy both envelopes of mail and all of our packages (including the replacement control for the windlass) had arrived before us.

On our way again at 3:30 pm, we found a nice anchorage near John’s island and set the hook. Gale wanted to see if he could do any good fishing, but didn’t have a lot of luck.

Monday, October 18, 2010 – McClellanville, SC, Five Fathoms Creek (ICW mile 430)

Another ten hours of travel brought us to McClellanville where we fueled up at the end of the day at Leland Oil and then anchored in Five Fathoms Creek on the other side of the intracoastal waterway. We had difficulty finding a good place to anchor due to the narrowness of the channel and poor holding. After trying three different spots and two or three times in each spot, we finally settled in next to another catamaran that had come in about the same time we had. We were concerned that there would be heavy commercial fishing traffic during the night as per the guidebook, but found that not to be the case.

Sunday, October 17, 2010 – Waccamaw River, SC (ICW mile 375.0)

It was a beautiful day to cover 80 miles. We left Carolina Beach just before sunrise and traveled nearly twelve hours before anchoring in the Waccamaw River. Four bridges had to be opened for us along the way.