4/21/15 - We departed the Carolina Beach anchorage at 0900 and entered Snow's Cut which brought us out to the Cape Fear River. Nothing to fear here. We crossed the river and headed downstream. About half way down we had to wait while two tugs brought out a tanker and turned it to begin it's journey out to the ocean. As the tanker got under way the narrow river got crowded with the departure of the tugs and the arrival of a Coast Guard cutter. We held our ground (so to speak) and waited for things to clear out before proceeding onto Southport where we continued south on the ICW. This day we passed through or under six bridges, a signature of traveling on the ICW. We came through a small fishing village where shrimp boats were tied up and saw the remains of what appeared to be hurricane damage from last season. We crossed into South Carolina (mile 340.9) where a large cruise ship entered behind us from the ocean, apparently returning from a gambling cruise off shore. We had hoped to anchor for the night at the Calabash River but found it already crowded when we arrived so we continued on with the cruise ship slowly gaining on us. We called ahead to a marina and made arrangements to stay there. As we approached the marina the cruise ship turned off behind us and docked, ending our worries about providing room enough for him to pass. We had tried contacting him several times on VHF to allow him to pass us but he never responded, apparently knowing his stop was coming up soon. We tied up at the fuel dock at Cricket Cove Marina (mile 345.1) which is right on the ICW. This is a nice marina with complete service facilities and a decent restaurant where we ended up for dinner, each having Grouper. Mmmmm, mmm, good!
4/22/15 - We headed out around 0900 (apparently the best we can do) and entered Pine Island Cut, a 28 mile land cut. When this was built in the 1930's by the Army Corp of Engineers they encountered a stretch of hard rock 2.4 miles in length which took them two years to blast through. Because of the difficulty they had this stretch is much narrower than the rest of the muddy bottomed cut and has become known as "The Rock Pile". It's only wide enough for one boat at a time and you're supposed to announce your intentions on the VHF before entering. Since we were running early in the cruisers season we didn't encounter a lot of traffic through this part. This is the Myrtle Beach area and we passed through and under a total of twelve bridges this day. Once through the cut we entered a beautiful cyprus swamp where we saw numerous Bald Eagles and their nests. We anchored on Bull Creek (mile 381.0) in 15' depth, way back off the ICW and about 50 yards from an Eagle's nest. This was one of the nicest anchorages we had on the entire trip with total seclusion from any sign of man, completely surrounded by the beauty of nature. At night the only light was from the stars above and once my eyes adjusted to it I found that was enough to make out the trees on the shoreline.
We had been in touch with friends Pete and Sharon (m/v Emerald Lady) who were heading north on the ICW after spending the winter in the Bahamas. The plan was to meet up with them in Georgetown, just 21 miles to the south of us. If it wasn't for that we would have stayed longer at Bull Creek. We got underway at 0930 and meandered through the cyprus swamp before passing under Lafayette Bridge and entering Georgetown Harbor in the early afternoon. We had reservations at Harborwalk Marina, just walking distance from the historic downtown part of the city. Pete and Sharon met us on the dock and we got together on their boat for drinks before heading into town for dinner. We ended up at "700" on the advice of a local and weren't disappointed. The food was excellent and we had a good time catching up with old friends.
Emerald Lady departed the next day but we stayed on to take in the sights. We walked down Front Street and checked out all the shops before heading over to get groceries at the Piggly Wiggly, a mile and a half away. We walked back through the old residential part of town in the shade of the old oak trees lining the streets. Georgetown has a lot of history going back to 1526 when the Spanish attempted a colony here. In the Revolutionary War two signers of the Declaration of Independence came from Georgetown as did the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, originator of guerrilla warfare. By 1840 Georgetown was the largest rice-exporting port in the world and there was considerable wealth in the area with many of the fine homes remaining to this day. Throughout the next hundred years Georgetown hosted the largest lumber mill on the East Coast and the largest paper mill in the world. The town suffered major damage in 1989 from Hurricane Hugo but on our walk through the neighborhoods it appeared to be completely restored. Visiting Georgetown was one of the highlights of our trip down the ICW.
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