Day 228
We left our wall tie-up at Safe Harbor Beaufort Marina in Beaufort, SC, on Monday, 04/26/21, at 8:00 am. Water was mirror-smooth, with 100% clear blue skies, and only a slight breeze. We traveled north on the Beaufort River on this gorgeous day, passing Merritt Field, which is the Marine Corp Air Station, to our west. That’s where all those Blue Angel jets had been coming from. Not surprisingly, we were still surrounded by marsh, marsh and more marsh! Eventually, we transitioned onto the Coosaw River (yet another, big wide river), heading eastward, north of St. Helena Island.
Around 9:45 am, we found ourselves cruising through a very narrow and shallow cut connecting Coosaw River to Rock Creek. Steve already knew about the shallowness here, but was still a bit anxious and steering by hand to avoid running aground. Depths were only 7-feet or less underneath our keel. We found ourselves with more seagull groupies trailing behind us as we stirred up the fish in these shallow waters. The weather was just perfect so that we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise, especially once we got back into deeper waters.
Soon, we were back in another shallow waterway called Walls Cut. In addition to skinny waters, we encountered some current, which slowed us from traveling almost 9 knots an hour down to under 7 knots an hour. Our path continued on the Ashepoo River, to the South Edisto River, to the ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge on northern Edisto Island. This is an extremely isolated area with only a handful of houses in the middle of nowhere. Further north, we cruised on the Wadmalaw River, north of Wadmalaw Island, which is north of Seabrook and Kiawah Islands, SC. The Wadmalaw River gets really wide in places and looks more like a lake.
The closer we moved to Charleston, the waterfront homes increased in number and in size. The houses are set way back from the river, behind great swaths of marshland. Passing south of the Links of Stono Ferry golf course and homes, Wadmalaw Island to our south becomes John’s Island, and the river narrows considerably. The Stono River runs eastward, along the north side of John’s Island, which is west of Charleston, and boasts an eclectic mix of waterfront homes. The marshy areas here were filled with large, bright white egrets, fishing. As we cruised, I surmised that the Stono River looks like a river should (other than being flanked on both sides by so much marshland) – not too narrow, but also not too wide.
We arrived at St. John’s Yacht Harbor, just south of Charleston, at 3:00 pm that afternoon, and were assigned to slip number C17. The tie-up was a little challenging, since the dock finger was too short for our boat and was missing cleats, but we prevailed, and Legacy stayed safely put.
Position: N 32° 45.285, W 80° 00.715
Distance traveled: 64 SM
Total distance traveled: 3253 SM
Total marina nights: 205
Total nights at anchor: 22
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27