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We went thru Elliot Cut from the Stono River and that put us in the Downtown Charleston Harbor. We did get a few pictures and headed out into Charleston Bay to the northbound ICW, about 6 miles away.
We did not have the recreational boaters today but there was a lot of northbound traffic with both power cruisers and sailboats moving north. Lots of chatter on the VHF radio and no real Coast Guard on the radio today.
We did hear Terrapin on the radio and they were ahead of us. We have not seen them since the river system last fall. They are a 46′ DeFever Pilothouse that moves pretty slow, like a turtle, and he does not make any apologies for that. We did not talk to them and they are staying in Georgetown at a different marina. We will catch up with them later on the route north. They are from Duncan Bay Michigan.
Last year we were invaded by large flies in the Low Country south of Georgetown. At times there were probably 10 to 15 on the boat and we solved the problem by going faster. This year we had a couple of flies but they were not a problem. At most there were 3 in the cockpit at once.
We had a sport fisherman come up on us on plane on the ICW and he slowed down when he got right on our stern. I slowed down and we did a nice slow pass. About 2 hours later there is a large boat coming up on us on plane and I slow down hoping he gets the hint. Well it was the same sport fisherman. I do not know where they stopped, but they must have found a place for lunch or fuel.
As we were cruising along I heard a lot of seagulls behind us and I looked around. There must have been 20 seagulls flying around following us on the ICW. They must have followed us for 10 miles. Sometimes they would fall back and some times they would be close. I guess we got them to their territorial limits and they went back to home base.
We arrived in Georgetown and we are curious to see the Downtown. They had a major fire last September and lost eight businesses/buildings along the harbor walk. The buildings were totally consumed but the boardwalk next to the harbor is still intact so you can walk all the way around the fire site. They have just finished up the cleanup because there was asbestos in the buildings so that had to be dealt with. No word yet on rebuilding efforts by the building owners. These buildings only represents maybe 10% to 15% of the downtown businesses so while it is unfortunate, it could have been a lot worse.
Lenore remembers a couple of the shops she visited last year so we will stay here a couple of nights so she can revisit the shops and we can catch our breath a little.