Intracoastal Waterway

                                                                     Wrightsville NC.

 Intracoastal Waterway

The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) runs 3,000 miles from New Jersey to Texas through a series of rivers, lakes, and man made canals provides an alternative to the North Atlantic for vessels traveling along Eastern and Southern coasts of the United States. Bad weather, contrary winds, and an opportunity to explore the natural beauty and cultural offerings of these areas are all good reasons to choose the ICW. Marine traffic,  a glacial pace and frequent shoaling are good reasons to reasons to avoid it. We had heard the it was often "white knuckle driving" on the ICW but those instances were limited to the incidents of extreme shoaling and soft groundings.

Jessica and I left Deep Point Marina in Southport, NC. on the morning of November 13th at low tide and quickly ran aground exiting the narrow channel leading out of the marina as a ferry boat approached the marina entrance. The captain of the ferry observed our situation and did 360 as we worked our way out of the mud. We were free and on our way in under two minutes with only mild embarrassment and within an hour we were in the open Atlantic and wishing for wind. A sailboat nearby went further offshore presumably to find some of the wind forecasted but the wind never materialized. After several attempts at utilizing the sails we gave up and motored toward Charleston in mostly flat seas.

We arrived in Charleston Harbor the next morning taking in Fort Sumner as we made our way toward Safe Harbor Marina.

                                                                           Fort Sumner

We took a slip on the end of the"old megadock" and had a quick breakfast and wash up before catching the daily shuttle to West Marine to pick up a spare handheld VHF radio. The dock attendants at Safe Harbor use golf carts to get around which should give you some idea of the scale implied by "megadock". Catamarans and power cruisers the size of our house adorned the docks, and the vibe was corporate but we were thankful to be so close to downtown Charleston and made use of our legs to stroll the historic district and take lunch at the Iron Rose.

Exhausted from our overnight passage we passed on the wine social at the clubhouse and were in bed by eight. Improved sleep has been one of the unexpected perks of  our new life aquatic, and we are taking full advantage of it. Saturday's winds were contrary to sailing south so we we opted for the ICW as our route to Beaufort SC. The Distance is a little over 40 NM which is doable in a day but we opted to anchor just North of Edisto Island, SC on the lovely Steamboat Creek. We were the only ones at the anchorage and enjoyed a magnificent sunset, and curious dolphins. Jessica was able entice the dolphins near the boat by tapping on the hull but we found it difficult to capture their beauty in an image. Anchoring out with noone else about is exactly what we have been dreaming of.

     Steamboat Creek Sunset

We said goodbye to our dolphin neighbors and made our way down the ICW to Lady's Island Marina just across the bridge from Beaufort SC. Some of the cuts connecting the rivers were quite silted up and we relied heavily on "Bob's 423 Tracks". This navigational aid is available on Aquamaps to help mariners avoid groundings on the ICW. The aid served us well until we reached the "cut" between the Ashepoo and Coosaw Rivers which was a maze of shoals and left us aground just at the South of the cut into the Coosaw River. The outgoing tide didn't help matters but we managed to get out of the mud by hoisting our mainsail and heeling the boat to reduce our draft.

Our docking at Lady's Island Marina was a bit with the wind and tide working against each other but the dock manager Arron was standing by to give us a hand and we managed an uneventful docking. Lady's Island Marina is more to our liking with it's down home feel, laid back staff and clientele who are a mixture of active and would be cruisers.

We explored the nearby salt marshes  in our dinghy Cockeyed Jackson, reprovisioned, attended to maintenance, and made some aquaintices during the week and got out for some lovely Low Country meals in Beaufort.

                                                            Cockeyed Jackson with electric outboard

                                                                           Enormous Flounder

We are enjoying meeting kindred spirits along our journey. The sailing community is small but far reaching and we have been fortunate enough to meet sailors from Israel, Canada, Brazil, and Scotland.  Several have been solo circumnavigators including our coach Jerome Rand who documented his adventures in Sailing into Oblivion, Bruno Baqueiro who "accidentally"circumnavigated and Daniel Pinsky, who left the Chesapeake a day before us in his newly purchased Baba 35, Exodous, to participate in the 2026 Golden Globe Race.  The Golden Globe is  a solo -circumnavigation  race  that is done in traditionally designed full keel sailboats and does not allow any electronic navigation devices. Check out his story here: https://goldengloberace.com/skippers/daniel-pinsky/

We are taking some time to visit with family during the week of Thanksgiving and the closing of our home in New Hampshire before traveling on to Savannah and enjoying some Southern hospitality.