AJAYA'S CRUISE - Charleston to Beaufort S.C

Charleston to Beaufort S.C

AJAYA'S CRUISE

Phil & Nikki Hoskins

Sun 29 Nov 2009 20:16

Our departure from Charleston was delayed for some hours due to thick fog that rolled in at dawn and continued to thicken until we could barely see the boat anchored behind us. Some brave souls (or is that foolhardy perhaps) ventured out into the mire, however, radar or no radar we stayed put until things cleared enough to see a couple of miles.

An interesting sunset scene at Charleston

Brings fog the next morning ......which became worse by the minute

We now seem to be on a meandering course which the ICW takes through the more remote low-lying parts of South Carolina. Here are many rivers flowing into the Atlantic and the waterway traverses these rivers by means of man-made cuts of varying length. This means that you can be heading up one river for a few miles, then cutting through to the adjacent river and heading down for a few miles. So, currents that are favourable one minute can then be unfavourable the next. It also means that instead of heading south-west round the huge scallop of the east coast that makes up the Carolinas and Georgia we are heading in all directions. One particular day we clocked 25 miles during the day and actually made a meagre 7 miles progress southwards in latitude. Such is life. One noticeable feature is the lack of development along these rivers - we motored for mile after mile rarely seeing signs of life although we are also now actively looking for signs of the first Alligator in our southbound trip.

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day in the USA, a public holiday where Turkeys get an early taste of what Christmas will be like for them. Ironically, we spent the night anchored in Tom Point Creek on Little Britain Island with an American Island Packet yacht and a Canadian flagged British Built 'Southerly' yacht. We met for drinks aboard the 'Packet' before the crew of Ajaya returned home, cooked up 2 big bowls of popcorn and settled down to watch the movie 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles', our favourite comedy based on the main character played by Steve Martin, trying against all the odds ('helped' by John Candy along the way) to get home for Thanksgiving with his family. Great fun but a sad ending. So, that was our Thanksgiving evening - no turkey, just a small portion of Duck pate on a Ryvita during our get-together.

Off in the dinghy for Thanksgiving drinkies onboard an Island Packet 32 Low water the next day - looking for any signs of 'gators!!

Today the sky has been an unbroken blue, the west wind has blown at 10-20 knots and its been ccccold. We are told that the temperature improves in Georgia - hmm, heard that one before. But we have arrived in beautiful Beaufort South Carolina. This is pronounced differently to the Beaufort North Carolina that we passed by a week or so back and is worth a day's stopover for some sightseeing. It was the first place in the USA to banish slavery which occurred when Union forces invaded Beaufort by sea, capturing the city and freeing the slaves.Each was meant to have been given 40 acres of land and a mule. What more could any freed slave wish for.