Charleston to Brunswick Day Three

Morning was SO quiet in our little anchorage in Bull Creek, close Hilton Head.  We got anchor up and moving at 7:05. 

ICW Smoothies for breakfast!  Mashed bananas, greek yogurt (finally available to us non-greek...love this stuff!) and juice.  No rum.  It's morning people!  No Magic Bullet blender needed, just some arm power.  Actually a good little morning workout. 

More hovels along the ICW.  It's so interesting to see all these homes from the vantage point of the waterway.

We waved hello to Tammy and Rick s/v TammyAnn as we cruised past Turner's Creek location of Sail Harbor Marine and Boatyard.  That is where we stayed last year when we had the tuna tower built/added to s/v Honey Ryder.  The high rise on the right in the picture below is where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.  The Boykin brother's told us so.  They grew up there.  Apparently all the New York, New Jersey mobsters used to come down there and hang out, including Hoffa.  It seems one evening, after closing, a huge outdoor dance floor (concrete pad) was poured overnight.  In ONE evening.  The local rumor has it that Jimmy Hoffa is six feet under that dance floor.

RIP Jimmy Hoffa

For those following along at home, the stretch through Isle of Hope was really, really thin.  And it wasn't even low tide.  Our depth alarm went off big time.  Man, is that sucker loud.  Took me a few mins to figure out how to turn it off.  We are a bit rusty at boat electronics, alarms, systems, etc...(.it's been too long since we were on s/v Honey.)  Luckily Tom was at the helm when it shrieked.  Smart husband that he is, he didn't share with his depth sensitive wife the low depths he was seeing on the depth meter prior to the alarm.  But we never touched bottom.

Sailing Chef Salad

Knowing Hell Gate has super thin water even at high tide, we pulled off on the Vernon River at Possum Pt dropped anchor and had some lunch.  After this nice break, we proceeded down to Hell Gate to find a tug coming through and then another tug pushing a barge.  The second guy asked us to wait while he came through (D-uh) so we circled.  He made it through but churned up the bottom in a spot or two.  His guess was 5'5" for depth at that time....our keel depth.  So we took a leisurely stroll back up the ICW a few markers to let the tide rise a bit more and then went for it.  I had the helm.  The wind and current coming off the sounds on each side made it tough to stay lined up.  And then the corkscrewing required between marks and worrying if I was turning too soon, too late or cutting a corner added to the fun.    I saw 8'7" at one point.  It was nerve racking but we made it through without a bump.

Funky little crab or shrimp boat

We tucked into Big Tom's Creek around 6:30.  Big thunderstorms had built by then and radar looked like we would really get hit.  The wind build up and we prepped for a bit of a blow....snarfing down leftovers, storing stuff, grabbing foulies, head lamps (it was dark by then), big spotlight, and camping out in the cockpit on anchor watch as the storms got closer and closer.  But we only got very light sprinkling and cooler temps.  Once again we watched the storms slide by which was fine by us.