The Lowland marshes of South Carolina

The Lowland marshes of South Carolina   …   Sunday 28th April 2013

We pulled up the anchor at Charleston at 7.30 this morning to start our journey back up the Intracoastal Waterway. The  timing was important because we needed to arrive at the Ben Sawyer bridge at 9am for the first scheduled hourly opening of the day. We knew we would be fighting against current to cover the 6 miles to the bridge but we weren't sure how much, so we left a little extra time. As it happened we arrived with time to spare and had to go really slow for the last mile. Once through the bridge we headed on through many miles of marshes. On a sunny day this area can look very beautiful, but today was overcast and grey and it didn't look so inviting. Nonetheless it does have quite an atmosphere, not dissimilar form the Norfolk Broads in England. We saw loads of birds including a bald eagle, lots of oyster catchers, literally thousands of black bellied plover, osprey, turns, egrets and ibis. Apparently this section of the ICW is dredged from time to time, but the strong currents and large amounts of sediment mean that the channel is always silting up. In the last hour of our journey, as we approached McClellanville, we were close to high tide but still seeing depths of 8-9 feet at times, in an area that has about a 5ft tidal range. It's really spooky, you are doing your best to stay in the middle of the channel but the depth finder just keeps dropping and you literally have no idea whether to steer more to the left or right. As we make our way back northwards there is a tendency for us to stop in the places we are already familiar with. Today we took the decision to pass by Awendaw creek, where we had anchored on the way south, and head on another 5 miles to "Five Fathom Creek" just to the east of McClellanville. Anchoring was also a nerve-wracking experience as the current was flowing strongly in the opposite direction to the wind - so we bet on the current winning out and turned upstream and dropped the hook. It was impossible to back-down on the anchor because the chain ended up perpendicular to the boat! Thankfully, several hours and one tide change later we can confirm that the anchor appears to be holding. Our plans to put the outboard on the dinghy and head into the village got dropped for several reasons - concerns about the anchorage, rainy weather and Gloria had a migraine. It's now dark and actually very peaceful with just a little noise from the wind in the rigging.

33 03.976 N, 79 27.885 W

Dusk falls over the Five Fathom Creek anchorage