Sunday April 28: Beaufort, SC

The birds in the creek were up and fishing long before the sun was up. The tide was rising again (after having fallen at 3 am) - time to go!

The plan was to catch the current - seems like this is a reoccurring theme - coming in major sound about 5 miles north of us. It contained the last notorious shallow spot in Georgia: Hell Gate! What a name. And probably pretty accurate but it was no issue with a tide that was 2 feet up and rising. So it was breakfast on the flybridge - coffee and oatmeal.

Somebody asked how we find an anchorage that is suitable. Well, two ways. We check ActiveCaptain for suggestions from other boaters and then we look at the chart and see what seems to be a good place given the wind/weather conditions.

At left is a picture of the chart we used yesterday. The red line is a distance of 5 miles to give you some perspective on the size of the rivers in Georgia. This sound (St. Catherine's) is one of the smaller ones.

Anyway, Steve thought the Big Tom Creek looked good so we checked it out and like it. (Where we anchored is circled in red.) This must have been a good place because 2 sailboats pulled in and spent the night as well. Fortunately we were up and moving before them so I didn't have to pass them again (as I had earlier in the day).

It was a really pretty morning - forecast to be cloudy all day. Mmmm ... guess the forecasters missed it again! Ok by me.

We passed a couple of other boats that we've seen traveling over the past couple of days. Both had also pulled over in a small creek right off of the main Intercoastal route.

The bottom is mostly mud so the anchor tends to stick pretty well. Besides, it's hard to get into TOO much trouble when you're in a creek that is maybe 200 feet wide and 15 feet deep even with tide swings of 8 feet and current that is always running - either in or out at a pretty good clip.

You can tell it's calm out when you're not sure where the real post ends and the water begins :-)


It was crazy bright this morning as we head east into the sun. This was approaching Hell Gate - good thing this was a wide open area as it is very difficult to look into this reflected sunshine and then try  to read the gps and depth finder.

Never did rain today. Steve even put ALL of the flybridge enclosure up as it was in theory going to rain at some point ... maybe saving it for tonight.

Regardless, it was a good 74 mile day (10 hours) and we are tied tonight at a marina (Port Royal Landing Marina) just south of Beaufort, SC. I'm not exactly sure when we left Georgia though - most likely on one of the sound crossings.

Plan for tomorrow: leave here at 11 am (gotta catch the current!) and head to Edisto Island to visit Jim and Linda Murray. I'm sure it will be great to see them again - last time we were there was at Thanksgiving when they graciously invited us to celebrate the holiday with them and their family.