From Brunswick we headed offshore again to Hilton Head for what we thought would be an overnight anchorage. Found a great little spot on Skull Creek. Tropical storm Bertha came up very quick and we decided to stay put for three days and wait while it passed north of us. We couldn’t go up the ICW because of shoaling problems and it was too rough off shore so we did boat projects while we sat and waited. Unbeknownst to us, we were being watched….
There are some beautiful homes on shore and in one of them there was a family enjoying the view of our boat. By day three they were getting concerned that we may be having problems so they looked up the boat name and came across our blog and sent us a message asking if everything was okay. Several emails ensued and the whole story came out.
It seems that Ray, aged 92, was sheltering in place with his daughters and son-in-law from the coronavirus in one of those beautiful houses. He saw our boat and informed one of his daughters that he had bought her a yacht. One day we had a sailboat anchored out with us so he informed his other daughter he had bought her a sailboat. Apparently to pass the time they made up stories about “gypsy abandoned ship vessels that had gone adrift on Skull Creek where the pirates hailed.”
Thank you Laurie, Kristin, Scott and most of all Ray for keeping an eye on us. Hope we were able to provide some entertainment in these trying times and we really did appreciate your concern.
From Hilton Head we traveled up to Winyah Bay just outside of Georgetown SC. Truthfully they should call it HorseFly Bay as we were enveloped in a cloud of them as we tried to anchor. They chased Gary off the flybridge! The next morning he refused to go back up until we were away so I was the sacrificial person who went onto the bow to release the anchor.
From Winyah Bay Myrtle Beach was up next where we anchored again just inside the channel in a very small anchorage that we shared with two other trawlers and a sailboat. With a 180 degree swing when the tide changed at 2am it made for an interesting night.
One of the fun things about traveling offshore is going in and out of the channels for anchorages. Some of the channel markers have bells inside and it’s a beautiful sound to hear. It’s also fun to see how many pelicans can fit on top of a channel marker.
Saturday we headed to the Cape Fear River and a two hour trip up to Wilmington. The Cape Fear River has to be treated with respect as the tide runs at 2-4 knots and it helps if it’s running with you rather than against you. We also wanted to reach the marina at slack tide to make docking a little easier. Everything was going smoothly until the thunder and lightening started and we managed to hit the marina in the middle of a raging storm. We waited outside the marina at the bridge for the worst of it and then finally decided we were just going to get really wet. After docking we looked like a couple of drowned rats but we’re here now, tucked up all nice and tight and will be until mid to late October.
Travels with LaaDeeDah will go on hiatus until we head south again unless something really interesting happens.