Chapter 49: Charleston to Georgetown

Log 49
Charleston to Georgetown, SC.

5:30 AM
Monday, May 22, 2000
Harborwalk Marina
Georgetown, SC

Day 50

I woke up before the alarm this morning. I’m not sure why, because we are in no hurry this morning, but I guess I had just had enough sleep.
I did this morning, what I do the first thing every morning I’m on the boat, and that is to turn on the weather channel (then I put on the coffee). Today is the first time in a long time that the weather doesn’t look good where we’re heading. In fact the radar shows that there is rain all around us, and not moving very quickly either. But you if you didn’t have the weather channel, you’d think the world was pretty cool, because outside, although it is still dark, it is a mostly clear sky, and it is 75 degrees. Since we have left home in September, I have only driven the boat from the lower station twice because of rain, so I guess we’ll just have to see if we end up in these storms, or not.

Yesterday…

I sent the e-mail about 7:00, and we left Charleston about 7:30. It was a beautiful morning, although a little cloudy. The guidebook says the miles we traveled were some of the most beautiful of the Intracoastal. I don’t know…… it was pretty in some places, but some of the most beautiful? I’m not sure, but maybe it was because we were spending our time dealing with all of the flies. They were awful. Every one of the boats we passed was swatting them, and not only that, they were biting as well. We had to go fast just to be able to deal with them.
Because we had to go fast, we made the short 67 miles by about lunchtime, and by 12:45 we were tied up in Georgetown for the night. My plan was to stop here, because the Waterway guide said this was a neat stop, (plus the picture of downtown looked great) and the grocery store was a good one, and they would come to your boat to pick you up. As we were coming into the harbor I thought I’d gone to the wrong place. The picture in the book showed this quaint small town with a boardwalk that looked like something out of a movie set of the Wild West. What we saw was a small group of docks with shrimp boats tied up to all of them, and at the end of the waterway was a coal factory spewing out coal smoke. The Harbortown Marina consisted on two small docks the have certainly been here a while. I think they took a few liberties with this one. We said, “Oh well, we’re here, lets stay”. And we did.
After washing the boat, and getting things organized, Deb and Chris went to the store. (No pickup on Sunday, so they either had to walk…….2 blocks up---and 12 blocks over…….or get a taxi. You got it. Taxi) I wasn’t there but the conversation over dinner about what the shopping experience was like was very entertaining. Two things come to mind this morning as I recall the discussion. First was the girls filled up a shopping cart full of beer, only to be told they don’t sell beer on Sunday. (Chris thought she’d try and negotiate this point because after all “we” were from Illinois, not South Carolina) The other thing that we laughed about was Chris saying it was like shopping in the Middle East. (And, to my knowledge, she’s never been to the Middle East. Wait a minute….I guess South Carolina is in the middle part of the East Coast) Anyway, you get the picture. We are in a small rural town.
The rest of the afternoon was spent putting stuff away, and relaxing. Deb and Chris got to read a little, and Steve and I watched the rest of the Nascar race we taped the night before. For dinner we cooked pork chops on the grill, and laughed about the shopping trip.

Side note: We have been seeing several of the same boats, as we make our way north. Some travel fast, then stop. Others travel slow, but put in long days, and they make their time that way. Last night we met a guy, and his friend/captain, who was taking his boat to New York. We shared some boating stories for a while, (he was about the 20th person to tell me that I was very smart to make this trip while I could, and I’m am definitely starting to agree with them) and as soon as I finish this I need to go over to his boat to get some places to stop, and great restaurants along the way.

Today…..
Depending on how the rain treats us, we are planning on getting to Myrtle Beach. Easy trip. Only 55 miles. I remember part of this leg from our trip in 92. We stopped along the way, in the middle of nowhere, at Bucksport Marina, and had a “Bucksport Belly Buster Burger”. (I’m sure if you think for just a minute, you can picture this place)
Who knows maybe we’ll stop there today.

I’ll keep you posted.

BK.