The ICW Day 2

Karma Daze
Chris and Penny Manley
Fri 16 Sep 2016 22:51

“33:22N 079:16W”

When we got up on Wednesday 14th September, the sky was overcast and looking very threatening.  We got a weather forecast and were perturbed to see that Tropical Storm Julia was heading towards Georgia and South Carolina so we decided to get a move on and come straight to a marina in Georgetown.

Getting out of the anchorage wasn’t a problem and we set off. Parts of the ICW are a bit convoluted,  and some are narrow; also the depth which is supposed to be 12 feet is less than that in many places.  We have a draught of 6ft 4 ins so should have plenty of water, but the depth meter kept reading zero, and in several places we touched the bottom.  The worse one was when we came out of a cut from the Santee river and had to do a dog leg across to the next section of the ICW – we lurched our way across and were fortunate we didn’t come to a complete stop.

The weather was also absolutely awful.  We had already had a squall go over with torrential rain making it difficult to see the buoys marking the ICW channel, and from then on it rained continuously.  When we at last got to the Winyah river, the rain was heavy again, but we only had a few more miles to the marina.

We arrived at Georgetown Landing Marina, chosen as it is straight up the Winyah bay and easy to moor.  The marina guys came out to help, which we were very grateful for.  By this time haven’t spent seven and a half hours in the rain we were wet, the boat was wet but very clean; found a couple of leaks we didn’t know we had! 

The first thing we did after changing into dry clothes and having a cup of tea was to check in with the Custom and Border Protection guys by phone so we didn’t contravene any rules again!  Then off to the bar for a couple of gin and tonics at Happy Hour.

The forecast for the next few days is not wonderful, and there seems some uncertainty about where TS Julia will go next so we will stay here for a few days....