A Walk on Sandy Island
Thursday November 19, 2020
When we came to haul up the anchor at Bull Creek this morning the current was ripping at 2.2 knots. The recommendation for all anchorages in the Waccamaw River is to use a trip line in case the anchor should get caught on debris on the river bottom (so many trees in this area). Trying to snag the trip line float and then pull it on board seemed to take all of Mike’s strength. There is no way I could have done that anchor retrieval without his help. The swift flow of the creek was carrying us rapidly down stream. We had talked about needing to avoid the tree-stump that we had passed when going upstream but it was no longer visible above the water despite being low tide. We were trying to re-trace our GPS track into the creek but we either weren’t precise enough or the tree had been pushed aside by the current. In any event, and we failed to see the ripples that indicated its location in enough time to move over and we bumped into it pretty hard. There seems to have been no damage to the boat, just to our confidence.
Rejoining the ICW we headed south to Thoroughfare Creek a distance of about 8 miles. By consultation with the blog, we were able to determine that we stayed in Thoroughfare Creek in 2013 on our way north. Mike has a photo on an alligator taken from the sandy beach opposite the anchorage. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t go to shore on our last visit to this location. Today, it seemed so warm and lovely (and no alligators could be seen basking on the beach) and I travelled to shore with Mike. We found a map detailing a two-mile trail around Sandy Island. It was a lovely walk through different types of vegetation. Most remarkable was the higher areas where longleaf pine forest predominated. We scanned the trees for red-cockaded woodpeckers without success. (Red-cockaded woodpeckers are endangered and only nest in mature longleaf pine trees). In fact, we saw only a handful of birds: cardinal, eastern towhee, red-breasted nuthatch, golden-crowned kinglet, red-bellied woodpecker and belted kingfisher. We heard the Carolina chickadee but didn’t see it. Despite our lack of bird sightings, it was a lovely walk, so nice to get off the boat and step out. We are trying to decide if we will spend another night here or move on in the morning.
Gloria
33 30.930 N, 79 08.635 W
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