Day 18 – N 33° 11.509’ W 79° 16.745’ Minim Creek, SC

Lyn with our next yacht

We’ve picked out our next sailboat, for the time after we get tired of Kite.  The inspiration comes from our experience at Charleston City Marina – the Megadock – which quite naturally attracts a few mega-yachts.  Pictured on the right is “Tamsen”, a Perini Navi 52 meter sailing yacht, and we want that.  (In case you’re not up to date on your metric, 52 meters is 170 feet!).  Kite was parked a few boats down the dock from “Tamsen” on the Megadock, but that meant that we were near the end of the 1100 foot dock.  Maybe we can get a good deal on “Tamsen” after the current owner puts a few dings in her finish (assuming Gerry Cooper doesn’t get to her first).

Beyond picking out our next sailboat, we found Charleston was as charming as ever.  Lyn needed a scheduled blood test, so we rode our bikes over the bridge across the Ashley River to a Quest Diagnostics lab and took care of that in the morning, then after lunch we rode downtown to the old Slave Market museum, and afterwards to Market Street.  We didn’t buy much, but enjoyed looking at all the handcrafted goods for sale there, and once again marveled at the craftsmanship in the Gullah baskets (and the high prices)!  We went into a shop we had not seen on our last visit to Charleston – The Peanut Shop.  There were dozens of different types of “coated” peanuts and free samples of all of them.  We especially liked “Cocoa Nuts”, and already wish we had bought more! We topped off the afternoon with cups of she-crab soup in a restaurant housed in a former church building complete with large stained glass windows, and then returned to Kite late in the afternoon to prepare to get underway the next day. 

Several years ago we invested in folding bicycles that we keep in handy canvas carrying bags aboard Kite.  They are very handy for days like this, as they unfold into full-size, 26” bicycles with 24 speed derailleur shifting.  When ready to pack them away, we simply unlock the folding mechanism and fold them in half so that the front wheel is beside the back wheel, take off the handle bar and tuck it between the wheels and slide them into the canvas carriers.

Gourd bird houses

Wednesday dawned cold and a little foggy, about 2 miles visibility, so we decided it would burn off soon and we left at 08:30.  The wind was strong out of the NE and we knew we would not be sailing, as we were traveling NE.  The day never really got sunny, although the fog lifted shortly after we departed, and it was cold outside in the wind.  We heard on the weather radio that the maximum temperature for the day was 64°F, but it felt colder as the wind was blowing 25 kts all day.  The ICW east of Charleston runs through a remote coastal area.  We saw no marinas and very few signs of civilization.  Much of it is bordered on one side by Romain National Wildlife Refuge, which was quite scenic with marshes and groups of trees. The live oaks of the sub-tropical south are gradually disappearing and a different type of landscape is emerging.  We did see lots of birds typical of this habitat; ospreys, eagles, cormorants, gulls, etc.  An interesting feature on the few houses along the route were these “gourd trees”, which were apparently used as birdhouses because they had small holes in the wider part of the gourd.  We speculated that they attract swallows and the owners want them to eat the bugs, which are very plentiful (but we didn’t have to deal with them because of the howling wind).

We had decided before we left that we would anchor in Minim Creek, about 10 miles before Georgetown, and when we arrived at our destination there was another boat there, but plenty of room for us, too.  Minim Creek is a little creek just off the ICW in a salt marsh, so it has no trees or other features to break up the wind.  But its small size meant that there would be no waves, even if we had to deal with the wind.  After we got settled, we got a weather forecast – increasing winds overnight with rain beginning Thursday morning, thunderstorms Thursday evening and Friday morning, and scattered t-storms Friday afternoon, oh, did I mention the strong winds throughout the period – splendid.  So we decided to stay put in our secure little anchorage on Thurday, and move after the t-storms blow past.  At the moment (09:00 on Thursday) the winds are howling at 20 -25 kts, and we’re having another brief rain shower.

Update: Friday morning, Minim Creek.

Yesterday, having planned to leave our anchorage near noon when the tidal current in nearby Winyah Bay turned northerly, we checked the weather at 11:30 and discovered that we were being attacked by a large weather system consisting of 4 hours of constant rain, which would arrive within an hour.  The wind had subsided to 15-20 kts, still not ideal.  So we decided that we would believe in the forecast of diminishing winds by evening and stay put in our anchorage.  All the other boats had left, so we had the place to ourselves, and with the poor weather it was unlikely that any other boats would be arriving.  As predicted, we got an afternoon of steady rain, but fortunately no t’storms, and the wind behaved and subsided to nearly calm by 18:00.  The cabin temperature inside Kite was 59°F-60°F, so we bundled up in our sleeping bags and read our books and took naps.  The rain stopped and we saw the sun briefly through some breaks in the clouds.  Around 18:30 we were treated to a display of pelicans and royal terns fishing in Minim Creek right next to us.  I reckoned that brown pelicans succeed in netting a fish in more than 50% of their dives.  

It looked like we would be able to make an early 06:00 departure on Friday morning.  It would be cold, around 45°F, but not very windy and not likely rainy.  In celebration of the improving weather, Lyn cooked a delicious mahi-mahi meal for supper, topped off with homemade pumpkin pie!  We went to bed in a calm anchorage with only the sounds of nature around us.

Minim Creek - our new home

Up at 05:30 to dress against the cold and get underway by 06:00, Peter checked the weather radar one last time before going out to warm up the engine.  To his surprise and great disappointment, he saw a mass of clouds and rain with imbedded t’storms that was going to be overhead within 15 minutes!  And to punctuate the shock, a flash of lightening and boom of thunder made the point.  So now we’re still safely tucked into Minim Creek, listening to the calls of red-wing blackbirds as they work the salt marshes.  The t’storm passed, followed by about 2 hours of rain, but the radar shows there may be more to come.  It is looking like we may stay another night in Minim Creek.