Monday, November 30, 2009 Southport to Coquina Yacht Club - Little River, SC

Southport SC to Coquina Yacht Club - Little River, SC
33*55.031, W78* 01.672 to N33*51.855, W78* 38.306
34.5 miles

After pumping out we headed out towards Little River around 8:30am. High tide was at 5:39am and low tide is at 12:08pm. There are two areas of concern. The first one is at Lockwood’s Folly which the books always say “don’t go at low tide”. Mean low water there is 6 ft and there’s always notorious shoaling. The second area of concern is Shallotte Inlet another area that is well known for boats to run aground and it seems to me we may have run aground here last year. After much ado and concern we carefully picked our way through both areas slowly and managed to “not” run aground until we got to the Little River inlet at marker G117. We waited for the tide to rise and lift us up off the muddy bar and made it to Coquina Yacht Club entrance by 3pm. It was good to see that lighthouse standing sentinel at the entrance still. We made good time. Turning into the channel to dock, the red buoy was way in the middle of the narrow channel. I called Sandy to see if it should still be on my right because it was over so far and she said yes. I felt something go crunch under our keel and had to hang up on her. We didn’t get hung up but I did make sure to tell Sandy that it seemed like the red buoy was way over & didn’t know if we were outside the channel or not. Red right returning put us way close to the rocks, then we had to swing back towards the other buoys coming in. I remember this place from last year and Sandy & Bob. It feels good to be back again. They’re nice people and hey – you gotta love a place named after a sedimentary rock (remember – I’m a geologist/earth science teacher still – at heart).

The rock here looks more like a cretaceous limestone and marl loaded with fossils as opposed to shells cemented together but either way – I like the name Coquina :) I hope Sandy didn’t mind but I had to give her a big hug! I’m only sad to hear that Bob isn’t doing to well. She offered to run me to the store if I needed anything but I don’t think there’s anything I need yet. Decided that I’d better vacuum today while I have the chance and electricity. Yesterday after the beer, all my cleaning plans went to hell in a handbasket!

They have a nice book exchange here and I went to see if they had any more Stephanie Plum books (still looking for book 15). They didn’t but Sandy recommended another author that I’ll have to check out - Tess Gerritsen. I traded in a couple books and grabbed a couple of hers. She’s also a Stephanie Plum fan. How come it took me so long to find out about this series LOL.

I almost forgot to mention - a high-rise bridge is replacing the Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge. This is quite a unique bridge in that a cable is lowered and pulls the bridge open. Because it’s on pontoons, the bridge doesn’t open at low tide (it pretty much can’t). I saw the high rise being built over it and felt sad that this piece of history is going by the wayside. Seems a shame but I do understand. The bridge tender says they'll be closing it in May this spring so I don't know if we'll see him again or not. The end of a bygone day... the end of a long career.

They’re predicting some bad weather coming in the next couple of days so we may stay here. We’ll see what the forecast tomorrow brings. In the meantime, time to make dinner. Mahi, green beans and rolls. It just feels nice to be back here.