Charleston Chews
May 14, 2019 Tuesday Wadmalaw Island, SC to Harbor Marina, Georgetown, SC 71.3 nautical miles.
33°21’51.9″N 79°16’56.1″W
33.364414, -79.282244
Elevation: 0 ft Tide: 7.4 ft
Will you still need me? Will you still feed me when I’m 63? Another successful trip around the sun for Mary.
Along the Way
We are still pushing our way through vast salt swamps with occasional signs of human life and towns. Once again we had to retreat to the lower helm to pilot because of the horse flies. I’m a little surprised at all the dolphins and crab traps we see along the entire Atlantic ICW.
Charleston – Home of the Charleston Chew. It’s definitely different seeing Charleston by sea. Last time we saw it, we saw it land.
Dredging – We went through several sections of waterway today that badly needed dredging. We bottomed out and plowed mud a couple of times even at mid to high tide.
The sailboat in the below picture is glued to the bottom with a draft of 4.3. We made it through at 3.6.
dredged stuff piled along the edge
Houses
apartments
If there were gold medals for Olympic dock building these two would be gold medal contenders.
Surveillance – dilapidated observation towers
lighthouse
Look at me. Look at me. LOOK AT ME! How can you NOT see me? I am 45 feet long, 17 feet high, 14 feet wide and 40 feet off your bow!!!!! We had our third near miss today from an inattentive skipper.
Neighbors
We tried anchoring in Georgetown harbor three times before we gave up and went into a marina. There are a lot of derelict boats anchored in this snug little harbor. We could get the anchor to stick no problem but with the scope required and the current swing we were only in 1 fathom of water at high tide. If we stayed on the hooked we’d have bottomed out at low tide due to the 4 foot tide.
Floccinaucinihilipilification
Georgia peach? South Carolina produces more peaches than Georgia does.
Actually the Charleston Chew was named for the Charleston dance. The Charleston is a dance named for the harbor city of Charleston, SC.
Nauti Words
Fathom/Fathom that – to figure something out, fathom it or get to the bottom of it.
Origin: A nautical measure equal to six feet, used to measure the depth of water at sea. The word was also as a verb to measure, “to fathom” something.