Day 100 – N 32° 23.706’ W 80° 40.670’ Port Royal, SC

Instead of staying at the Charleston City Marina as we did in our previous visits to Charleston, this time we tried a less expensive marina recommended by a fellow cruiser. The Charleston Maritime Center is close to the historic downtown area, and it even has free laundry machines, however the waves from the strong southerly winds kept of us rocking most of the night. We spent the next morning walking around parts of the historic district's shopping streets, treating ourselves to ice cream cones, French pastries and Starbucks coffee in that order as we came across the shops. Lyn liked the beautifully arranged flower boxes outside many of the historic residences. She photographed lots of them to help her remember the plants that grew well on the north side of the buildings so that she could copy those arrangements for our own house when we return. The afternoon was very hot, and we returned to the boat for showers, laundry and naps.  The next day we would spend motoring through the ICW toward Beaufort, SC.

I am starting to feel like this trip will soon be ended.  We are now within reach of home with a single overnight sail through the ocean.  But what really brings on this feeling is being with old friends.  After motoring all day through the ICW to Beaufort, SC, we docked in a marina at Port Royal where our friends Bill and Cheryl Mote live aboard their sailboat, Eclipse.  We arrived late, nearly 20:00, and they were out on the dock to greet us and help with our dock lines.  We last saw Bill and Cheryl in late March.  As we were travelling north, we stopped in for a few days, and we promised to return on the way back.  Bill wasn’t feeling well when we saw him in March, and I am pleased to report that he looks and feels much better now.  Cheryl just had some shoulder surgery, so she had her arm in a sling and this time, it was she that was not feeling too well.  Aging is not for the weak hearted.

We left Charleston a little late in the day, because there is a bridge just as we leave Charleston that will not open (due to rush hour auto traffic) during 06:30 to 09:00.   We left the marina a little before 08:00 and slowly motored the 4 to 5 miles around to the bridge, arriving about 10 minutes early.  We called when we arrived and were notified that the bridge would be lifted for us at 09:00, and sure enough at exactly 09:00 the bridge let us through.  This was one of two bridges we would have to cope with, the second being at the other end of the day, in Beaufort.  It would be a long day, because we had to travel 65 nautical miles through rivers and canals with a mix of favorable and unfavorable currents.  Under such conditions, we estimate our average speed to be 5 knots.  We encountered several periods of light rain, and a couple of brief thunderstorms during the day, but these were welcomed because they cooled the air on a hot day.

As mid-afternoon arrived we were coursing through some canals that pass between large rivers and as we entered the last of these, Peter noted that it was exactly low tide, and because we just had a supermoon, the tide was running 1 foot lower than normal.  We could see this in the depth of the water, and Peter was careful to stay in the middle of the channel, where it is deepest.  But the depth kept falling until we were at 4.5 feet, the depth of our keel.  We turned left, then right, but the water didn’t get deeper, it just kept getting shallower, down to 3.8 feet!  Apparently the bottom was soft mud, because at 3.8 feet we were still “floating”, able to make headway, although very slowly due to the resistance of the mud.  We figured that there was nothing to lose by pushing forward until we either stopped or broke free into deeper water.  The tidal change in this area is around 8 feet, so if we were forced to stop, we would float free in an hour anyway, but if we could keep moving, why not?  As luck would have it, after plowing through about ¼ mile of mud, we finally reached the end of the canal and as we got into the river it connects to, the depth started to increase and we were free at last.

Lady's Island Swing Bridge in Beaufort, SC

We enjoyed a nice motor-sail through the Coosaw River with favorable current for an hour or two, and then we entered the Beaufort River in which was our destination – two hours away.  This end of the Beaufort River is quite narrow, and the channel is narrower still.  We had furled the jib before entering the river, and were motoring along with favorable current, when BUMP.  We had grounded on something more solid than mud.  Peter tried forward and reverse at full throttle, but we weren’t moving.  So Lyn got on the radio to call TowboatUS, but they were not responding.  So she went below to get their phone number.  Five minutes after the BUMP, we still hadn’t reached TowboatUS and Peter tried the motor again.  This time the boat started to move, and it slowly slid off the lump of clay bottom and started floating again.  Peter found deeper water toward the left edge of the channel and we were again on our way.  After a mile of narrow channel, the river got wider and deeper and we started breathing again.

By the time we reached the Lady’s Island Bridge, rush hour restrictions were over and all we had to do was request an opening and the bridge complied.  Thirty minutes later we were safely tied up at the Port Royal Landing marina, and enjoying the company of our friends and their grandson, Dillon.