March 27, 28

This morning I left Georgetown after spending a couple of days there. Yesterday I washed Shorty down and did my laundry. Those are always two of the things that are waiting when I have time. This morning I left Georgetown around 8:00 AM and for once I hit the waterway when the tide was slack and not running either direction so I let Shorty go on the Waccamaw River and we traveled up toward Myrtle Beach area. The river is a broad expanse and we started out with the typical marsh but with more trees than usual. Then another change took place on the river and we were now in a cypress swamp type area with trees growing right down to the channel of the waterway. This was an exciting change for me as we now did not have a lot of crab traps any more and I was traveling through a large area designated as a National Wildlife Refuge. The Osprey were now nesting in dead tree tops and on the markers in the waterway and a couple of times I saw some small ones peeping out of the nests as I went by. The waterway now became much narrower than it had been since I got on it. There is just about room for another boat or barge to pass if both take it slow. I had it all to myself this morning so I could commune with nature as I went along. It was very fitting for me to be traveling alone because a friend of mine passed away and it gave me the time to reflect on our friendship though it was very short. I met John Parker at a time in his life when it was very difficult for him. I always wished that I had known him sooner because he was a very kind and funny man who had come along during the years when it was tough to make a living. His illness made him do things that made it difficult for others but on his good days he was the nicest person to be around. Even not knowing him for very long I will miss him dearly when I get home. Bentley likes to go over and play with his and Dorothy’s two West Highland Terriers and he loved to watch them even though he did not say much; you would always see him smiling out of the corner of your eye.

Then I reached an area known as the rock pile and the channel got even narrower and if there was a barge coming you would have to turn around and wait for him downstream at another place where the waterway widens out. The currents here made it tougher to stay in mid channel because now the tide was going out when I got close to Myrtle Beach. I am now in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and that puts me pretty close to the North Carolina border and I just figured out my miles and Shorty and I have now traveled 1050 miles and everything is still hanging together. Sometime in the next forty miles we will be crossing the border into North Carolina. We still have a long way to go and many nights to sleep before we hang our hats on the wall. Now the only palms and palmettos are there for landscape unless I run up on them again in North Carolina. I am still limiting myself to 50-80 miles a day until the whole country is in Springtime. The dogwoods were blooming in a few places. Another thing I noticed today is not all the homes are McMansions but are getting down to workable size most of the time. Of course the Myrtle Beach area is another condo area but there are not as many viewable from the waterway. But there are enough to let you know there are more you just can't see them because they are toward the beach on the Atlantic. I also passed a couple of Swing bridges where I lower my radio antenna and I can then get under without the bridge tender having to open them.

I walked out of Dock Holiday’s Marina up to the main road and asked how far to the grocery store at a golf cart store on the main highway which was only a couple of blocks from the marina. Well the man in the store just handed me the keys to his pickup and said its down there a ways at the first traffic light. I said no but he insisted so I took it down and back and it sure made that chore go a lot better. My eyes in the store are always bigger than the boats storage compartments so I will work on that directly when I finish writing this. I have met so many kind people on the trip that I hope I can keep up with when the trip is over. I can’t remember all their names but I certainly can remember the name of the boat.

The only photo I took today was of the beautiful sunrise this morning. I will have to listen to the weather again but I think it is supposed to be another north east wind which does not bother me in the waterway but I think I have a little open water at the end of the trip. So I better get on the charts for tomorrow and see what is going to be happening up the way