…WHEW!

We are 437 miles into our journey south, having arrived on Tuesday at Osprey Marina near Myrtle Beach, SC.  We had traveled on six out of seven days, for a total of 327 miles which is a fairly grueling stretch.  We’ve decide to stay here through Thanksgiving, leaving Sabrina here while we go to Greensboro for a few days for the holiday.  Even with that travel, we will have several days at the dock here to catch up on some projects.  Osprey Marina is a unique place – I hope to do a separate post on it before we go.

I mentioned earlier that travel on the ICW is an entirely different kind of boating for us.  The focus is less on wind and waves, and more on other obstacles and challenges.  These included drawbridges, larger tidal differences and stronger currents at times.  Those obstacles are increased this year in the aftermath of Hurricanes Florence and Michael.  In several places (mostly inlets where storm surge came inland and flood waters rushed out), scouring created shoals in existing channels.  The boating community has a strong communication network to keep ourselves updated on this information, and tools like Active Captain help us deal with them. In fact, one of my main projects for this break is to get to know the features of my chartplotter better.  There are ominous-sounding passages like Elliott Cut and Hell’s Gate ahead of us.

C’est la Vie stayed here until Friday but they are well on their way.  We probably won’t have a “buddy boat” until sometime after we get to Florida.

Here are some photos from the last couple of days of travel.  There are still plenty of reminders of the storms.