It is possible to run offshore from Charleston up to North Carolina with several places to pull back into the ICW there, however, the weather continued to not cooperate presenting us with north winds. At least the skies were sunny though.
The advantage of the ICW through this area is that it is one of the prettiest sections of the ICW, winding up through the Waccamaw River.
The first leg of the 3 day trip passes through a canal section from Charleston to the Waccamaw River up near Georgetown. There is a great anchorage area halfway up the canal on Awendaw Creek heading out to the ocean. We have anchored here many times and enjoyed some ideal conditions again on this trip.
A new issue that we encountered anchoring in Georgia and South Carolina, I expect associated with the timing of our transit, was that every morning I would have to clean the "bugs" out of our speedometer unit. These bugs are not as big as they look in the photo, there would be 20-30 of them packed into the speedometer housing with its paddlewheel that sticks out the hull into the passing water. This space is less than a half inch wide and one inch deep. Every night for about a week, they would be packed in there, I suppose for safety from other predators. Some of them were baby shrimps and others were these guys.
North of Georgetown you enter the scenic section of the Waccamaw winding its way up towards Myrtle Beach. It is a beautiful river bordered by cypress and pine trees with scattered sweetgums.
In the Waccamaw we normally anchor in Cowhouse Creek off of Wacca Wache, just south of Myrtle Beach.
This time of year there were noisy airboat tours and lots of recreation boats cutting through the Creek, but all that traffic stops at sunset.
An airboat tour coming through. We could hear these guys winding their way through the small creeks, behing the trees, surrounding us.
The third night before arriving at Holden beach, we stop at our frequent anchorage at Calabash Creek along the SC/NC border at Calabash. The creek is actually much narrower than it looks in this photo. There is just a little bit of room between the shore and the channel where lots of fishing boats pass transiting between the ocean inlet and marinas up the creek.
Our great weather continued to hold, although the cold north winds also continued.
