Today was a day of days. Our plan was to run 100 miles to Georgetown, SC.  We had been calling for a week for open slips in all the marinas in Myrtle Beach but couldn’t find one with availability, one even called us back this morning just in case there were cancellations, there weren’t.   Along the way, we tried several times to contact marinas again in in the hopes of cancellations, but no such luck, so, onto Georgetown we went. This was the longest period that we were ever at the helm and the most distance we ever covered.

Our plan was to leave at 7 am, however, a friend on “Favorite Child” was having an inverter issue, so John went over to see if he could help. We left Southport NC at 7:30 am, once again, we had to run through the dreaded inlets along the ICW.  New temporary markers identified the changes in shoaling along the way.  We picked our way through several shallow spots.  Thanks to the ‘Waterway Guide” updates and Robert’s tracks from his previous trip, we were able to make it through without incident.  That didn’t help John’s  ‘pucker factor’ of trying to pick our way through shallow water (Lol!)

Right out of Southport, we went through Oak Island, a very populated area of the ICW. 

Soon thereafter, we crossed over into South Carolina at Day Marker “116″!  Once we hit South Carolina, the water depths improved and John was able to exhale.

The water today looked pretty but looking at our wake, it was actually brown! Yuk!

There were also a variety of boats floating and not.

We got stuck 3 boats behind a dredge in the “Rock Pile” a stretch of the ICW that has a very narrow channel with rock ledges along both sides of the channel , so going slow (which means navigation is limited) was not ideal.

After finally going around the dredge, we passed some interesting sights along the way.  Again, million-dollar homes, and not-so-many dollar homes.

After making it through the multi-million dollar homes, we came to a stretch of water called the Waccamaw River.  We’ve seen skinny water, shallow water, beach water, industrial water and Richie Rich water, but we’ve never seen a stretch of water as beautiful as the Waccamaw.  It was pristine, beautiful and deep, perfectly ideal.  Just a beautiful peaceful waterway with trees on the shores. 

Of course, no day is without incident.  We were coming down the home stretch of the Waccamaw when John lost all steering on the upper helm and the boat heeled over hard to port.  It took a few minutes to determine that John had accidently touched the auto pilot on the screen while adjusting the throttles.  The boat decided to cut off the steering and head back to Maryland.  Luckily, it didn’t take too long to figure out what had happened and correct the mistake.

We made it to Harbourwalk Marina in Georgetown, SC at at 6 pm.  A long day on the water.  After a day like that, it was time to find a local watering hole and relax. Buzz’s Roost fit the bill!

We stayed two nights here to relax and check out the sights.

Georgetown is a very quaint little town and I would not mind stopping here again. Tomorrow, though, we are off to Charleston, SC.