Monday, September 23, 2013

South Carolina

After leaving the marina at Little River we made our way down the ICW through the famous "rock pile" with no issues whatsoever!  Thank goodness for that - I'm just sorry that Rick did all that worrying and lost sleep anticipating it to be bad!  All of our sailing friends who are reading this know exactly what I'm talking about but for the rest of you I'll briefly explain.  Apparently, when the ICW was made (back in the 1800's) there was a substantial amount of rock that had to be blasted out to form "the ditch" through several miles of the waterway through the Myrtle Beach area.  It's not very wide through there and boaters are warned to use extreme caution when meeting other large boats because you do not want to get close to any of the rocks.  We were advised to go through at lowtide so we could actually see where the rocks were.  We did and yes, we could see them but neither of us thought they looked as menacing as we had expected - however, we sure wouldn't want to have gotten close!  Fortunately, there was little to no traffic on the morning that we went through!

We spent a couple of days in Georgetown.  What a pretty little waterfront town!  They've built a very nice boardwalk along the water in front of the shops and restaurants where boaters can tie up for free during the daytime.  We spent most of a day walking around the town, visiting the maritime museum, shopping and eating lunch.  I had a very interesting and delicious item for lunch called "Oyster Bar Trash"!  I love all types of seafood and with a name like that I just had to try it - especially after our waitress told me that she doesn't eat oysters but her mama does and she loves it!  It was a combination of shrimp, oysters, scallops and flounder chopped, stirred and blackened - yummy!  Never saw it on a menu before and may never again so, here's a picture of the interesting place where I ate it.


Here are a few more pictures we took aournd Georgetown.







We've visited Charleston many times (by car) and it's a wonderful place but arriving there by boat is so totally different it's hard to describe!  First of all we got to be dazzled by all the gorgeous homes on the Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island before we entered the very large Charleston Harbour and port shipping channels!  What a sight to see the huge suspension bridge over the Cooper River from the water!
We also go the best view of Ft. Sumter we've ever had because it sits so far out of the harbour near the ocean and a different view of the lovely old homes along the Battery.



I'm having a problem uploading some of the Charleston pictures - sorry! 

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Taking a brief break from sailing

Sorry for the long delay but the last few weeks have been very busy as we have been visiting with various friends and family members along the way and we have been off of the boat during much of that time.  We really enjoyed a relaxing time with Rick's mother, brother, brother-in-law and an aunt for 4 days at Holden Beach.  We used to go there all the time but haven't been in many years due to sailing and it was great to go back and to see how much some things have changed yet others are exactly the same.  We also enjoyed a surprise visit with Rick's cousin's son, wife and two children who were vacationing on Oak Island.

Leaving Holden we motored on down by Ocean Isle Beach, Sunset Beach and Calabash to Little River where we were fortunate to have the offer of a free slip (by a friend of Rick's from Wake Forest) in a beautiful townhome community marina.  Hooked up with friends and family there also and got to eat some of that famous Calabash seafood for the first time in quite a few years!

Here's a picture of Carolina Moon in the slip where she stayed for a week while we vacationed with my parents in North Myrtle Beach.


We had a great time staying at the beautiful Wyndham Ocean Blvd. resort in Ocean Drive just as the SOS Fall Migration was gearing up.  Relaxing on the beautiful beach and swimming in the ocean was great fun and a real treat because even though we're on the water all the time - we are rarely at a beach!  Hopefully, that will begin to change as we continue heading further south.  Here are a few pictures I took from the balcony of our condo.