Isle of Palms to Beaufort SC — 2017

—Blogpost written by Bob

Isle of Palms to South Edisto River

We made a detailed plan for today and refined it a couple times before enacting it. Our original plan was to leave at 10 AM and catch the 11 AM opening of the Ben Sawyer Bridge. Then we would motor to Charleston, anchor, and wait for slack tide in Elliott Cut (1:10 PM), catching the 1 PM opening of the Wappoo Creek Bridge.  As the morning wore on, we got more conservative with our transit time estimates.  Before we knew it, our departure time was one hour ahead of our original plan. (I guess that is what happens when you have too much time to think!  We can calculate distances accurately but boat speeds are hard to predict.)

The Ben Sawyer Swing Bridge, just south of Isle of Palms,
opened for us and two other sailboats at 9:30 AM

A ship, Histria Prince, was anchored
in Charleston Harbor.

A view of the Charleston Waterfront
from the harbor.

We left Isle of Palms Marina at 9:00 AM. We made the 9:30 AM opening of the Ben Sawyer Swing Bridge, already 1/2-hour ahead of plan at this point. Then we motored across Charleston Harbor and made the 11 AM opening of the Wappoo Creek Bascule Bridge. We entered Elliott Cut at about 11:15 AM (2 hours ahead of slack tide) at the height of the opposing tidal flow. As we proceeded through Elliott Cut our boat speed dropped to only 2 knots at 2500 RPM engine speed—using this information we calculated that we had an opposing 4.7 knots of current! It was like motoring up river rapids. Any little slip up in steering would send the boat careening into the rocks on the sides of the cut. I used our autopilot for steering through the cut—I trusted it more than my hand steering.

Motoring through Elliott Cut at maximum opposing current was a harrowing experience—one that I will not duplicate anytime soon. Next time, I will definitely wait for slack tide.

After exiting from Elliott Cut, we still had an opposing tidal current of between one and two knots until about 12:30 PM when the direction, all of a sudden, switched. Our boat speed increased to over 8 knots. We had a beneficial current the remainder of the afternoon.

We made it to our anchorage in the South Edisto River at MM 509 by 4:45 PM.  We experienced an unusual event when anchoring tonight--our trusty Rocna Vulcan did not dig into the bottom as it normally does.  I pulled up the anchor and there was no mud on it.  Apparently it was digging into only dead leaves or another type of vegetation.  We are expecting some high winds later tonight and I will probably be up watching for a dragging anchor on the chart plotter.

We traveled  52 statute miles today and we are glad to be anchored for the night.

The view of the sunset from our 
South Edisto River anchorage.

South Edisto River to Beaufort SC

Fortunately, the high winds didn't materialize last night and we stayed put even though our anchor did not dig into the bottom very well.  I'm convinced that the bottom is fouled with some type of vegetation that prevented the anchor from digging in.  I was up a couple 

times during the night to check our position on the chart plotter.

The first hour of our day today involved transiting three man-made cuts between rivers: Fenwick Cut, and two cuts in the Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff. We timed our transit concurrent with high tide because of extensive shoaling in these areas. We didn’t have a single alarm go off on our depth sounder through these cuts—the combination of good waypoints (from our return trip last year) and high tide made this possible.

This is an image captured from my chart plotter showing the
three man-made cuts we transited today.  The
red x's are waypoints within the cuts.

The remaining two hours of the day’s journey involved the deep, wide, and windy Coosaw River to the Beaufort River. We motored upriver on the Coosaw River and downriver on the Beaufort River. At times we were moving at 7.1 knots (8.17 mph).  With about 15 knots of wind on our stern, we could have sailed or motor-sailed here but we wanted to make the 10:30 AM opening of the Ladies Island Swing Bridge--it is closed between 11 AM and 1 PM. (Sometimes I think s/v Rainy Days has become primarily a power boat, albeit a slow one.)

I think our cats associate our engine noise and vibrations
with the purring of their mothers when they
were kittens. They seem very content.

s/v Rainy Days tied up to the inside of the face
dock at Beaufort Downtown Marina.

We traveled a mere 27 statute miles today in a little over 3-1/2 hours.  After arriving in Beaufort, we went out for lunch at Plums along the waterfront and then we used the marina's courtesy car to do some grocery shopping at Publix on Ladies Island.

Stay Over Day in Beaufort SC

We planned an extra day in Beaufort SC because it is quaint, has many good restaurants, and has lots of southern charm.  This is one of the places where we would like to spend much more time.

An early morning opening of the Ladies Island
Swing Bridge on November 18.

There is quite a tidal current (up to 1.3 knots) that comes through Beaufort SC and it is salt water--not brackish water as found in some other rivers of the ICW.  The low temperature was 48 degrees F last night (glad we had heat!) and the high today was a balmy 78 degrees.

We went out for breakfast at Blackstone's
Cafe, a place where the locals eat.

We went to a Saturday-morning farmer's market in
Port Royal, just across the river from Beaufort.

We went to the local Saturday morning farmer's market with our new friend, Victoria.  We bought some English cheddar cheese, some micro greens, a small aloe vera plant for on the boat, and two crab cakes for lunch.  The crab cakes were the best we've had outside of the state of Maryland but no where close to those made almost anywhere in Maryland.  (Later in the day, I got sick from the crab cakes.)

An awesome owl at the farmer's market.

Dusk from the Beaufort Downtown
Marina on November 18

We moved our boat from the inside of the transient dock to a separate 35-foot pier so that it would be easier for us to get out early tomorrow morning.  This has been a great 2-day stop and we're looking forward to coming back and possibly staying a little longer next time. We will be leaving tomorrow morning at 7 AM and anchoring out for five nights in a row (planning our travel times around the tides) before arriving in St. Augustine on November 24, the day after Thanksgiving.  Our next blogpost will be published from St. Augustine. 


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