Myrtle Beach, SC and Sourthport, NC

North Myrtle Beach, SC

Barefoot Marina

April 27-29, 2012

We left Georgetown on Friday morning bright and early heading for North Myrtle Beach.  The trip was uneventful, the weather was good and we docked at a slip off of the ICW.  We stayed at Barefoot Marina which is across the river from town but it was a very nice marina with an OK restaurant and a pool.  We got 50% off coupons for the restaurant so we ate there on Friday.  I wanted to see Myrtle Beach so I rented a car on Saturday.  Enterprise could not pick me up on Saturday so I rode the bike about 2 miles across the bridge and down Highway 17.  Enterprise is not open on Sunday and they don't allow drop off at this location so I needed to keep the car until Monday morning at 8 which was fine with me.  When I picked up the car there was another person dropping off a car and needed a ride back to his condo.  He didn't realize that they don't do drop off on Saturday so I said I would give him a ride.  He said he was in a hurry because his son was hoping to get drafted by the NFL in one of the later rounds and he wanted to listen on the radio.  Anyway he was a nice guy and told me about a festival in town called the SOS.  I didn't have a clue what he was talking about but I knew it was on Main Street.  When I got back to the boat we loaded up in the car with "Passport" and headed to guess where, WalMart.  We did some shopping and got back to the boat before noon.  We asked Mary and John if they wanted to go to the festival and they said sure.  We drove to Main Street and parked in a parking lot about 1/2 mile from the beach.  There were a ton of cars with signs on them and a lot of golf carts.  We were told there was going to be a parade and it was called the Shag Parade.  It turns out that SOS stands for Society of Shagers  The shag is a dance that was invented in North Myrtle Beach according to the water tower.  There are groups of Shagers all over the South and they converge on North Myrtle Beach each year for a big party.  I heard someone call it spring break for adults. We had lunch at a local place that was crowded and for good reason.  After lunch we watched the parade and then walked to the beach.  The beach was packed with people.  We went back to the boat late in the afternoon and had happy hour and dinner on the boat.  We met several of the locals and another couple on "Irish Rover".  "Passport" left early Sunday morning for Southport and Ginny and I drove around Myrtle Beach and went shopping for a couple of hours.  We just kicked back the rest of day and watched the traffic on the ICW.  Sunday night we ate on the boat again, watched a little TV and went to bed.

 Leaving Georgetown, SC

 Another sunrise

This gondola takes golfers across the ICW from the parking lot to the golf course

 Barefoot Marina looking South from the bridge

 Getting ready for the parade

 Good lunch at a reasonable price

The water tower says it all

 The other side of the tower

 Gilligan's Island Float

 Many different Shag clubs all over

 One of our favorite floats

 A bar along the street (Notice the Buckeye Banner)

 Crowded Beach

 These were everywhere on the beach - Ouch

 Fog rolled in on Sunday morning at the marina

 Huey, Duey and Luey

The Sky Wheel at Myrtle Beach

Southport, NC

South Harbor Village Marina

April 30, 2012

On Monday morning I got up and took the car back to Enterprise and they gave me a ride back to the boat.  We left about 8:30.  Right after you leave Barefoot marina there is a swing bridge and just North of the bridge there is a stretch of water called the "Rock Pile".  It is a very narrow part of the ICW that has rock ledges on both sides so you need to stay in the middle of the channel and you should not pass anyone in either direction.  When I was about to get to the "Rock Pile" I did a Securite call on the channel 16 which goes like "Securite, Securite, Securite, this is the motor vessel Brown Eyed Girl heading North and entering the Rock Pile, all concerned traffic respond on channel 16".  This means that if you are coming South then let me know so I can wait.  Nobody called at first and then all of a sudden a tow calls and says he is heading South and there was not enough room to pass.  He heard my call but was not familiar with the area so he didn't know what the "Rock Pile" was.  We turned around and went back to the dock to wait for him to come under the bridge.  It took about 45 minutes so we didn't get started until about 9:30.  I did another Securite call and nobody answered so we proceeded North.  It was low tide so you could really see the rock ledges and it was pretty scary.  We were going to stop for fuel at a cheap place but it was not open on Monday's so we kept going to Southport.  It was another very windy day and not looking forward to docking but the wind was in our face and we docked on a long face dock with plenty of room so it was fine.  The actual city of Southport is a few miles away so we probably won't get to see it but there is supposed to be a couple of very good restaurants on site so we will see.  We are headed to Surf City tomorrow.

 This was the tow we waited for

The South Harbor Village Marina and one of the restaurants in the background

Beaufort, Charleston and Georgetown

Beaufort, SC

Beaufort Downtown Marina

April 21-22, 2012

We left Savannah on Saturday morning at 6:30 A.M. because we had 54 miles to go and the weather was turning so we wanted to get in before it got bad.  The trip was fine and the water depths were good.  It was quite windy when we arrived and we needed a pump out so they put us on the fuel dock for the pump out and then moved us up on the dock for the next couple of days.  It was a little rocky on the dock and the weather was rainy.  The town of Beaufort is right on the water so we did get to see quite a lot of it between rain showers but I didn't get many pictures.  We had a good dinner at Plums with John and Mary from "Passport".

All the houses seemed to have trees in front but you get the idea

A very nice corner lot

One of the original churches

A swing bridge in the open position

And now here it is closed

Charleston, SC

Charleston City Marina

April 23-25, 2012

On Monday morning we again left at 6:30 A.M.  This is getting to be a habit but actually I kind of like it because I am up anyway and we get to our destination pretty early if we still want to do something.  I am pretty sure that John on "Passport" likes it but not so sure about Mary but I can tell you that she is always up and ready so I would say we are pretty good travel partners.  When we got to the marina it was very windy and the dock master said we should go inside of the Mega Dock and all the way to the end.  There are boats and by boats I mean large yachts on each side of the fairway.  Ginny not only had to negotiate a very long stretch of this but then had to dock between two boats in the strong current and wind.  I told her she could do it and she did it perfectly.  When I threw the bow line to the dock hand it landed in the water (my first time I swear) so I had to hurry up and do it again.  I got it this time but it was over the bow railing so if he had tied it off the railing would have been ruined.  I moved the line while the dock hand waited patiently and we got tied up.  All was well except that unless we wanted to back up down that same fairway we were pointed in the wrong direction.  On Wednesday morning while the current and wind were low we turned to boat around so we were pointed in the right direction.  Once we were docked, we went to a local restaurant for lunch and then hung out on the boat the rest of the day.  On Tuesday we went to town on the free marina shuttle at 9:00.  The first thing we did was take a 90 minute tour of the town on a mini bus.  This approach works well for us because we get to see the city while the driver narrates.  We also get a chance to look a the the city map and decide what areas we want to explore further.   We got off the bus in the market district and explored from there.  We had lunch at a nice little Italian place and got back to the boat late in the day.  We thought that this would be the last night with "Passport" because they were probably going to leave on Wednesday so we had dinner with them at the Hominy Grill.  We had a great dinner and some good wine.  Ginny and I were going to stay on Wednesday and it turned out that "Passport" stayed in port also which was nice.  We liked Charleston and would like to go back by car someday.

Sunrise leaving Beaufort

I don't know why these gulls were following us - it was annoying.

Our dock in Charleston

One of the many large yachts in Charleston

The Mega Dock

A replica of the Hunley - a Confederate submarine

A view of the Fort Sumter from the Battery in Charleston

The Market District

Real cobblestone steets

The Father of our country

The aircraft carrier USS York

Georgetown, SC

Harborwalk Marina

April 26, 2012

We left Charleston on Thursday morning at about 6:45 A.M.  It was windy but Ginny did a great job of getting down the fairway and into the harbor.  We did not visit Fort Sumter but we were going to go within 1/2 mile by boat so I got to see it pretty well.  We had intended to stop at Leeland Oil Marina in McClelanville which was only 40 miles but when we got there we decided to continue to Georgetown with "Passport" which was another 28 miles.  We got to Georgetown and  the Harborwalk Marina about 2:00 and docked behind "Passport" on a long wall.  We walked around town, bought some clothes and yarn and then had an ice cold beer at a local bar.  There are a lot of restaurants in the city but we decided to eat on the boat.  We had a good happy hour with "Passport", a couple (Laura and Ross) from another Looper boat "The Zone" that we just met  and the couple from the boat docked behind us.  Tomorrow we are off to Myrtle Beach bright and early.

Leaving Charleston

A cargo ship leaving Charleston

The Coast Guard standing by

A view of Fort Sumter from 1/2 mile

Our marina in Georgetown

A view of the city

The Harborwalk in Georgetown

Savannah, GA

Isle of Hope, GA

Isle of Hope Marina

April 18-20, 2012

We left Jekyll Island at the crack or maybe a little before dawn.  We had 94 miles to go to Isle of Hope Marina and we wanted to get there before 5.  The water was shallow and the route was ridiculously twisted. The PC which runs the chart plotter software kept crashing at the worse possible time.  I brought up my other computer but the screen is not sunlight view-able so it was hard to see but we still had the chart plotter on the boat and the Ipad so I was not without charts but I hate it when things don't go my way (I know I am a little girl sometimes).  It turns out the problem was not with the PC but with the GPS connected so the company sold me another one that should work better.

Isle of Hope Marina is about 10 miles from Savannah so the plan was to either rent a car or use the courtesy car to visit the city. "Passport" had arrived at Isle of Hope the day before and they had a car reserved for dinner the night we arrived.  We went to dinner in Savannah with "Passport", "Mary Francis IV" and Kris from "Southern Belle".  We went to the Shrimp Factory and had a very nice dinner.  Thursday was a free day because we were going to go to Savannah on Friday.  We spent the day doing laundry and a few other boat chores.  On Thursday night there was a potluck at the marina.  As always, there was a lot of great food and we got to meet a few of the live-aboards in the marina - wonderful people.  

On Friday we loaded up the van with 7 at 8:30 A.M.  and headed to Savannah.  We parked at the trolley station and took the trolley to see the town.  Everybody got off at different stops and explored the city on their own.  Ginny and I got off near the waterfront and went from there.  The city is very well laid out and easy to get around even for me.  The weather was threatening but it did not rain.  Out tour conductor mentioned a restaurant called the Wilke's House.  It is only open 5 days a week from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M..  Ginny and I got there at 12:30 and waited for 1 hour before being seated.  They serve the food boarding house style so the tables seat 10 people and there is no menu.  When you sit down all of the food is on the table and you just start serving, passing the dishes and eating.  There were at least 20 different dishes of food plus fried chicken and biscuits.  The food was fantastic and we got to meet all of the other visitors from California, Pennsylvania and Georgia sitting with us.

That night Lyndi (Ginny's sister-in-law) and Hank (her nephew) who are now living in Vadalia came to see us.  Her brother, Fred coordinated things from LA.  Lyndi brought us real Vadalia onions and we had a great evening visiting with them on the boat and eating dinner at a nearby restaurant.  Overall we really liked Savannah and we will come back by car someday.

 Sunrise leaving Jekyll Island

 The bridge to Savannah

I think I saw Forrest Gump

 Building a new bridge on the way to Isle of Hope

Isle of Hope Marina

A pot luck at the marina

 Some old houses in Savannah

 The Westin Hotel across the river from Savannah

 Forrest Gump's Bench

The Mercer Williams House (From one of Ginny's favorite books - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)

 Where we had dinner the first night

 The Wilkes House for lunch

 Very satisfied after eating a ton of food

 Every dish had a different food

 I love Paula Deen, but Wilkes was great.  We didn't see any lines.

A statue of Johnny Mercer (he wrote the song "Moon River")

 One of the many churches in Savannah

The Six Pence Restaurant (in the movie "Something to Talk About" with Julia Roberts).