Awendaw to Charleston

We stopped to anchor on the Awendaw River in the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, 64,000 acres of wilderness that is mostly inaccessible because of the wetlands and dense undergrowth. We can attest to that. Its quite a relief from the noise of the mill in Georgetown. The trip here was the thinnest water yet. Many times we turned up enough silt to render our depth-finder useless because of the false readings. It is also a waning moon so the negative tide is 1 foot below average.

North

East

This is our view of the wildlife refuge.  Tomorrow we plan to leave on the high tide in order to be on the low end at Charleston thirty miles away. This will also help us dock since the Cooper River will be at slack at about noonish.



Well, having writen the above we found the trip into Charleston to be a bit more intense.  There were areas of swift currents from different rivers that pushed us sideways in several narrow passages.  We also met a couple tugs pushing barges northward straining to keep in the channels too. 

As the tide fell it went below normal by a foot or more creating long stretches of 7 foot water.  We officially draft 6 foot 10 inches and have water tanks and fuel at about 2/3 full.  The boat slugged through the bottom muck and drug three times nearly stopping us.  It wasn't until the broad Cooper River in Charleston did we feel free of the bottom.

We delayed our entry into the Charleston Maritime Center for 1 1/2 hours until the three knot current abated.  It was still a rough docking, but we'll be here for a while to attend to family matters and some repairs.  That will be all for now.

Tom and MaryLou
S/V Dalmatian