March 26, 2007

As of two o’clock today I am sitting at the dock in Georgetown, SC where I am catching up a little on posting of expenses for the trip. This morning when I started out in Charleston, SC it was very cloudy and the winds were very gusty and there were small craft warnings up. I knew that I would have to see what Shorty could handle in the way of bad weather. The visibility was so low that I could not see the next marker from where I was. I know that may be scary to some but the chartplotter almost puts you on top of the marker and you see it well before you get there. The waves were probably 3-4 feet in height because when I would hit one it would bury the nose of the boat ever so often. The waves were also extremely choppy because we had an east wind coming right up the channel toward the city and the tide was going the opposite direction. As long as I kept the speed down to five knots we did fine and I have stuff sitting around the boat and it did not fall on the floor. The charts were on the table and they did not fall off either. The microwave has taken it in stride so far. The only boats out were me and one Coast Guard boat. I got just to the entrance to the waterway and I was passed by another big cruiser that has passed me a lot of times on the trip and they were going to Myrtle Beach, SC before they stopped for the day. I was very pleased with the way the boat took on the conditions this morning and did not hiccup once because more than likely we will encounter those conditions many times before the trip is over. I won’t take those conditions on again on purpose but if I get caught out on a large body of water I have to know the boat can handle it. In the midst of all the conditions I also came very close to Fort Sumter but it was too foggy and in those conditions I could not get a photograph of it. It sets in the middle of the harbor entrance as near as I could tell and that meant it would have done a good job of protecting the bay.

I also noticed in my travels today that the trees and marshes have changed from what they were in Charleston area. There are now more trees and an embankment along the waterway and it has narrowed except where I am now on Winyah Bay in Georgetown. This morning, with the overcast and strong winds all the birds including the pelicans were sitting on the high ground instead hunting as usual. The thrill I get from seeing the new things around each corner and being able to sit inside in bad weather makes this one really enjoyable journey. While there is a bit of a breeze I am going to walk the eight blocks from here to downtown Georgetown and see what I can find there. I will probably stay here a couple of days and do laundry and such and I need to scrub Shorty down and get rid of his salt bath of today.

I completed my journey downtown to see what Georgetown is all about. While I was downtown I met a fellow who said he had seen me on the waterway in Shorty a number of times. I am sure that we will cross paths again before his journey to the Chesapeake Bay is completed. Shorty is definitely looked over in every port and this morning the captain of the big trawler in front of me came down and asked if he could help do my lines when I got ready to pull out. The marina people drove down in their cart to the end of the dock this morning to see how Shorty would take the high wind and waves and they had said if it didn’t work or anything happened to just call and they would send a boat out to help me back. Back to Georgetown, it is a beautiful place and about the size of my hometown in Iowa. The homes are as pretty as in Charleston and some are smaller. The churches are all still established in the early 1700’s and this time there was a black church that was started back then. They also had a cotton exchange here where they bought and sold cotton and other products grown on the plantations back then. It surprised me that this little town has two big plants which require ocean-going vessels to enter it as a port so they also have the regular buoy systems and the intracoastal markers. They even have a Coast Guard Station here with a one boat presence. There is a large contingent of Sport Fishing boats at this marina because it is close to the Atlantic and an exhibit of a record sailfish that was caught in Georgetown Canyon in the Atlantic at the entrance to Winyah Bay on the Waccamaw River.
I must go for now, the sun is setting and it feels like it will be a chilly night here in Georgetown. It won’t be freezing though but different from the 80 degree day on Sunday in Charleston