November 8, 2009.

After a good nights rest we were both up and ready to go at 0600. Immediately after leaving the anchorage southbound boats have to negotiate the Wapoo Creek lift bridge. It’s a pain in the ass because it stays in the down position from 0600 until 0900 for rush hour. Unless of course it’s Sunday. Guess what?; woooohooooo it’s Sunday. So once through the bridge we settled in for the 60 mile trip to Beaufort, SC.

Things really lined up nicely for us as we rode the tide southward. Several times we had a push of over a knot and a half as the current swept us along. It was a really nice trip and we were pleasantly surprised to find that several trouble spots had been dredged since we were last here.

The only real potential for excitement was an encounter with a procession of tugboats towing a huge dredge and all its associated support equipment. It was a tug with the dredge, a tug with a barge and 3 tugs with the lengthy pieces of pipe. We were one of 3 sailboats along with a trawler that had to stop off to the side as this mile long parade of big heavy machinery plodded northward through a high rise bridge. Fortunately, there was enough water for us to all get outside the channel as we backed and filled while the tugs crept past. It was kind of nerve racking as we had over a knot of current pushing us down onto the bridge while we all held position. It was a really tight spot and there were crab pot floats as well so the thought of snapping a few pictures never entered our minds. It all went as well as if we had spent time choreographing this maneuver. Once clear of the tugs and their charges we were all underway unscathed.

So now we sit in the protected stream known as Factory Creek. We’ll do some food shopping and await the remnants of Ida. The river is narrow so I don’t have as much scope out as I’d like but there
is no fetch at all so sea state won’t become an issue. The forecast as of right now has Ida dumping some rain on us and perhaps 30 knots of wind. We’ll have to see.