Day 16 – N 32° 46.538’ W 79° 56.982’ Charleston, SC

We spent a nice Sunday afternoon in and around Beaufort, SC with our friends Bill and Cheryl Mote. After ice cream cones and a walk by the downtown waterfront, Cheryl, Peter and Lyn drove to the nature preserve in Port Royal.

We saw dozens of egrets, storks and other birds all roosting and nesting in the same area.  It was quite a sight as the male egrets were spreading their feathers to attract the females. Then Bill joined us and we drove over to Lady’s Island and then to St. Helena island where we walked around the ruins of Fort Fremont built for the Spanish American war, but never actually saw any action.

That evening we said goodbye to Bill and Cheryl and prepared for an early start the next morning. We were hoping to make it to Charleston by evening via the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) – a section we had never previously traveled.  We knew we would have to wait for the bridge in Beaufort to open at 09:00 since it was closed to boat traffic until after the auto traffic rush hour. We arrived at the bridge with a few minutes to spare. The weather was warm and mostly sunny with only a few light showers, and this time we had wind from the west or the south to speed us along northward. We had our head sail up almost all day, and frequently adjusted it for optimum speed as we motor-sailed through the various rivers and connecting cuts that make up the ICW. Between the sailing and the favorable currents, we were making great headway. We hardly saw any other boats all day and enjoyed the scenery of marshes and trees that characterize the South Carolina low lands. At one we point saw eagles flying and even saw one catch a fish quite near our boat.  Unfortunately Lyn missed capturing that with the camera.

As the sun was getting low, we knew we were close enough to Charleston to make it, so we called the city marina on the radio and reserved a slip.  We were tied up at the dock by 19:15 and more than ready for dinner after a long, but successful trip of 60 miles. We plan to spend tomorrow and perhaps the next day in Charleston, a place we visited by boat several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed exploring.  This is the farthest north we have ever taken Kite, so when we leave here it will all be new territory for us.