Bull Creek (N33*36.664 W079*06.156) to South Santee River, SC (N33*08.777 W079*18.951) 8:30am – 2:45pm anchored in 10 ft with .5knot current
Getting up this morning was a brisk and dewy experience. The port over the bed was doing its condensation thing over Wayne all night so we knew it was cold. Actually sticking my nose out from the covers – was all I needed to tell me that it was cold. How cold was it? I don’t know… cold. Our in-cabin thermometer always reads 80. Doesn’t matter what temperature it really is…it reads 80. I’ll have to look into that. It was pretty out though once I wiped off the ports and went topside. The trees have mostly lost all their leaves but there are patches of color here and there. I never did get to see my alligator this time in the river. I did look.
After shivering and pulling on my sweats, I made coffee and waited for Wayne to rouse himself out of bed. He wasn’t going to budge this morning. I had to bodily wake him up. He mumbled something about being dripped on all night. I told him “coffee’s on” and headed up top to look around. A beautiful little river, it meanders through swampland and cypress. The sound of owls, and waterfowl fill the air. The brown, tannin-laden water flows past the boat so that the bow looks like its pushing water but in reality we’re still at anchor. We pulled out of the anchorage around 8:30am back onto the Waccamaw River. A beautiful, wild and primitive area that still appears untouched by man. As we go down stream, it’s easy to imagine the Indians traveling up and down stream in their canoes. I can also picture the Swamp Fox ducking in and out of all the creeks and swampland, hiding from the British soldiers.
Georgetown – we bypassed it to go further south. After I was able to briefly download email, we read on the Cruiser’s Net that the Ben Sawyer Bridge will now be open until January 2010. After backing up the dates of closure from November 30th to December 1st, then December 3rd for closure until the 12th, then 13th of December they didn’t have time to replace the swing span by the 15th of December (per their contract). Soooo it’s now open (So we’re told). In any event, we’ll remain on the ICW until we reach Georgia, then we’ll go on the outside.
Two areas that I dreaded meeting again (ran aground last year) gave me no problems today. Yay! It was a peaceful day except when we approached those spots and my stomach turned to knots. We’ve seen 3 boats all day – two motor yachts that were from this area, and one other sailboat from New Hampshire. It’s beginning to feel like we’re the only boat out here even though I know we’re not. It’s getting late in the season and I think we’re the end of the parade going south, so to speak. Honk – onk… It was an eagle, egret and dolphin kind of day. While I didn’t see many boats, I saw two bald eagles, quite a few white egrets and one hardy dolphin. Can’t believe the air temperature can be in the upper 30s, and 40s and the water temperature is still 60-71. It almost makes you want to jump into the water, but then - you gotta get back out, all wet…
The area that we anchored in on the South Santee River is wide open. It crosses the Estherville Minium Creek Canal (part of the ICW we were following), and the current here runs strong at this intersection. You can look all around and only see marsh grass in every direction, no trees. The brown water flows at a fast pace past the boat carrying a lot of debris. I almost ran over two crab pot floats that were being towed under water by the current as we looked for a spot to anchor for the night.
Time to reheat the other half of the meat pie from last night, then to see if I can get online…
At twilight a catamaran pulled west into the Santee River (we’re on the east side) to anchor. A large trawler named “Got the Fever” from TN pulled into the east Santee and anchored further in behind us. Other than that, we’re alone in the world – or so it feels.
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