Along the ICW - Arrival in Charleston

Day 5 – 441 nm to go This is our fifth straight day of motoring and still no winds outside in the near forecast. Last night was the hottest and most humid yet and we both woke this morning tired and groggy. We were anchor up by 0630. We were like horses getting close to the barn. We're heading into Charleston, South Carolina today and we have a berth reserved at the Charleston Maritime Center, one of our favorite stops since we started sailing back in 2000.

We are getting into more populated areas now. There are beautiful homes set high along the riverbanks. Each seems to have its own personal long pier that stretches over the marshlands and extends out into the channel.

This area of Georgia and the Carolinas is known as “low country” for obvious reasons. Old plantation homes sit side by side with new, humongous, multi-storied, multi-million dollar homes. It's the ramshackle, old boat houses that tend to catch my camera eye though.

The locally-themed weathervanes sit atop the cupolas of the newer boathouses and are very appealing.

Today's adrenaline rush was the Elliott Cut, connecting the Stono River to the Wapoo Creek and the Ashley River. It's very narrow with a current rush up to 5 knots and shallow waters outside the channel. There's a significant amount of trust required to head into a narrow channel based on other people's information and the chartplotter. The anticipation, as is many times the case, was worse than the reality and it was a no-drama event. Thank you, Neptune.

We waited for the opening of the Wapoo Creek Bascule Bridge and glided into the traffic of the Ashley River. We rounded the point into the Cooper River, passed historic Castle Pinckney, and headed to the Charleston Maritime Center. The Charleston waterfront was a beautiful sight to see.

We slid into our berth on a long floating dock just inside the basin and opposite the fixed dock where the Spirit of South Carolina tallship was moored.

All tied up and tidied up, we took a look at the to-do list, planned our day and headed off to do laundry and take showers. We're only here for two days and we plan to make the most of it.

Just in case you thought we might have forgotten … Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there!

The Blue View - The Ditch vs Offshore

Every year there is a migration of yachties from the south to north along the U.S. Atlantic coast in the spring, and then a reverse migration in the fall. They want to get north before hurricane season starts on June 1, and then want to get south before it gets too cold at the end of the hurricane season in December. I'm guessing, but there must be thousands of boats that join this migration each year. One way of making the trek is the offshore route. When going north, a boat can use the Gulf Stream to make a quick passage. Going back south, the Gulf Stream can be avoided by keeping close to shore, well within the 100 fathom depth contour, or by heading well offshore. This path often includes a stop at Bermuda, and is a good route if the destination is the Caribbean.

The other method is to follow the Intracoastal Waterway or ICW - often referred to as the Ditch. The ICW is a series of rivers, canals, inlets and lakes that are all interconnected. A boat can travel from New Jersey to Miami and beyond, all within protected inland waters and never enter the ocean.

There are a lot of positives to using the ICW, especially if the joy is in the journey. The pace is slow, and there are new and wonderful things to see at every bend, from urban seaports to dense swamps to bucolic villages to rolling hills and pastures. We know several cruisers who sail up and down the ICW every year and never tire of the diversity of things to see along the way.

We sailed portions of the ICW during our first two years of cruising, and we found that, for us, there were several pros and cons. The pros:

• Weather. Good, accurate weather reports are always available, and while encountering a thunderstorm in the confines of a narrow channel or river is no fun, usually there is some warning and a place to hunker down and wait it out. Likewise, if the weather calls for a day or two of crappy weather, we can find a protected anchorage and wait for it to pass. Offshore, we do the best planning we can, but once out there, we have to take what we get.
• Daylight travel. It's nice to be able to stop at the end of each day, drop the hook in a quiet anchorage, and enjoy dinner together, then maybe a movie before going to bed – as opposed to the three hours on/ three hours off of our night watch schedule while on a passage.
• Repairs. If something breaks on the ICW, it is almost always possible to stop and anchor long enough to make the repair, and help, if needed, is never too far away. Repairing things at sea is always more of a challenge, especially if the boat is rolling and pitching. I've often wished for a couple more hands and a prehensile tail so that I could keep myself, my tools and the parts I'm replacing from sliding around, banging into things and/or falling into the bilge or overboard.
• Internet. I never thought I'd say this, but we do miss our internet connection while at sea. Most of the ICW has at least cellular coverage, and wifi hotspots are common.

The cons:

• Motoring. We motored most of the sections we traveled, sailing very little and using a lot of fuel.
• Depths. The controlling depths are 10 feet between Norfolk, VA and Fort Pierce, FL, but what dredging is done doesn't keep up with the shoaling that occurs. We draw 7' 2”, which is quite deep for the ICW, and we found ourselves stuck in the mud on several occasions. I had read that if you stay in the marked channel, there will be plenty of water, but I vividly remember being hard aground while being smack-dab in the middle between a red and a green channel marker. I've yet talked to a cruiser that draws more than 6 feet that didn't run aground at least once while traveling any distance on the ICW. Some of the new apps, like Active Captain help in this regard. They compile comments and notes from hundreds of other cruisers who have navigated the same waters ahead of you, providing a wealth of current local information about hazards and shoaling.

• Hand Steering. We are used to sailing long, offshore passages, where the autopilot does most of the steering. We still keep watch, but it usually doesn't require the same constant vigilance as hand steering along a narrow channel.
• Low Daily Distances. The pace is slow and, for the most part, traveling along the ICW is only during daylight hours. We averaged 50-60 miles a day, and typically stayed put every third or fourth day. This can a positive – who doesn't dream about taking a slow, leisurely trip along most of the eastern seaboard. On the other hand, we usually dawdle too long in whatever place we are, and end up having to rush to make up time.
• Stress. There certainly are stressful moments on an offshore passage, but if the weather is good and nothing major breaks, ocean passages are usually pretty benign. The ICW can be stressful, especially at first, from unexpected shoals, narrow bridges, cross currents, thunderstorms, tugs and barges that need almost the entire channel, power boats passing at high speed, other yachties, and the constant vigilance that is required just to keep us in the channel. I was exhausted at the end of each day until I started getting into the groove.

So what will we do? As usual, we stayed too long in Trinidad, Puerto Rico, and now St. Augustine, and we will have to make a beeline for the Chesapeake. Next fall, however, we may do a good portion of the ICW on our way south – assuming we can extricate ourselves from the charms of the Chesapeake.

Intracoastal Waterway - Day 4

Day 4 – 490 nm to go A hot and humid night with nary a breeze and little sleep to be had. We've been checking the weather daily but still no reasonable weather window to get us all the way to the Chesapeake. The winds are either 5-7 knots variable or strong winds from the north … right on the nose. We plan to continue along the ICW, at least to Charleston, SC.

It was easier to get up this morning than to lay awake in our sweaty bunk. We were anchor up by 0620 before the fiery red sun had even cleared the horizon. Another gorgeous sunrise greeted us with birds singing in the tall grass and waders plying the sandy shore. Pelicans circled, poised to plunge as soon as they sighted a possible snack. Dolphins were already making their rounds through the feeding grounds.

We've had our share of minor repair issues along the way. The tachometer has been flaky. The speed transducer hasn't been working and the wind vane direction is stuck permanently reading “N”. David wiggled wires for the tach, but it didn't do any good, so that will wait till we're in port. He has no plans to go up the mast at the moment, so we'll just check the flag to see which way the wind is blowing. He'll pull the speed transducer tonight to free it up.

The landscape is slowly changing. Instead of miles and miles of flat, grassy lowlands, we're beginning to see a background of more trees, a nice break in the scenery. We crossed Calibogue Sound and then across the Hilton Head Inlet. By 10am, we crossed into South Carolina.

One thing about the ICW that is a pain is the number of bridges we must negotiate along the way. There are some 144 bridges along the entire 1,243.8 SM (1080.8 NM) route, almost half of which were south of us in Florida. We figure we still have to negotiate 74 bridges and one set of locks. Depending on wind, current, weather and the type of bridge, this can be easy or challenging.

The fixed span bridges on the ICW are at least 65' MHHW. In other words, at the highest tide, there's still 65' from the center span of the bridge to the water. Our mast with antenna is 63', so we have 24” to spare. It never looks as if the bridge is tall enough. Tide gauge boards are usually posted on the fenders on the north and south sides of the span entrance showing the current allowable mast height.

The more challenging bridges are the opening varieties. They have varying opening times and requests for openings must be made to the local bridgemaster on a designated VHF channel (usually 09 or 13). Some bridges open on demand; others only open on the hour or half hour and sometimes not at all during heavy traffic times (0700-0900 and 1600-1800). We had downloaded a 2016 bridge list and referred to it frequently throughout our ICW passage. The timing of the bridge openings isn't the issue other than it can be inconvenient to hang out for another half hour if you've just missed a bridge opening by 3 minutes or so.

The biggest problem is that there are several different types of opening bridges and they all pose their own particular set of problems. For instance, the Causton Bluff Bridge/ aka Sam Vernadoe Bridge is a twin, double-leaf bascule bridge and the left section of the second set of leaves was not in operation, making the opening single leaf and quite a bit narrower.

The Ladies' Island Bridge is a swing bridge and when it opens, it reveals two transit lanes through the bridge. We were all lined up to go through, but mistimed how long it took the bridge to open. Another boat was just off our stern and we were too close to the bridge which hadn't fully opened. We had no room to reverse without hitting our tailgating friend. Instead, David made a last minute hard turn to port and had to turn around and get to the back of the transit line quickly in order to make it through the bridge without delay. No big deal, but it was a bit trying to the nerves.

The Sister's Creek Bridge is a bascule bridge, but a new fixed bridge was under construction directly behind it. We waited till the bascule bridge opened, then immediately went under the under-construction span. Sometimes there are cables and wires strung across as well. It's always a bit nerve-wracking; nothing major, just a bit of angst. But then what kind of an adventure would it be without a little excitement and a few complaints?

We found a pleasant anchorage near Church Creek, dropped the hook and enjoyed a calm evening.

We continue on tomorrow to one of our favorite east coast cities, Charleston, South Carolina for a welcome couple of days relaxation and Southern hospitality.