Day 34! Sailing to the Bahamas

South Carolina 🎉🎉🎉

Starting Port: Southport, NC

Ending Port: North Myrtle, SC

Distance traveled: 42.5 nm

I can’t seem to keep the days right 😅 We’re actually 34 days into the trip and closing in on week 5

Southport so far had the best food on this trip. Noting this now for anyone finding themselves in the area and for us, on our journey back. The streets were lined with adorable homes, fully decked out for Christmas. It was extremely walkable as well as charming. A bonus weird/fun fact: our cab driver (who has lived here for 17 years) was on each season of Eastbound and Down as an extra and lots of HGTV shows (like Waterfront) were filmed here. It’s full of character and beautiful views, I get the appeal!

We waited here for the gale to pass through, which got somewhat gnarly. We experienced gusts up to 35knots and torrential down pours. At times, it really seemed like a firehose was on full blast from the sky. Luckily, no major damage to the area and no power outages. The only real down side was the interruption of finishing our wind vane. Luckily, Pete was able to glass the foam rudder the day before and hide it in the bathroom for it to cure. Besides that, we weren’t really able to make much progress. A project for another longer stop.

The currents are so tricky to figure out back here and which inlet is the controlling one. Either way, we typically leave first thing in the morning and either fight the current at the beginning of the day or towards the end. It somewhat washes itself out unless we get lucky with the tides and run with it for more than half the day.

We had two options today, whether we went outside and aimed for osprey marina, which was 57 nm. Ideally, with NW winds stronger that 10knots with seas less than 5’ or run against the current doing 30 miles on the ICW. When we checked the buoys in the morning, the wind was straight west and the seas were 3’. We didn’t want to motor against the west wind and chance the wind not shifting in our favor (which with our luck, I definitely didn’t want to press it). So, we opted for the ICW option.

The wind ended up shifted early in the afternoon and the seas weren’t aggressive. Luckily for us, we didn’t get fully slammed by the current on the ICW and were able to make good progress and go beyond the forecasted 30nm. As we kept going south our views were drastically different. Palm trees were abundant and a few spanish moss hanging on the cypress trees. Peoples homes also becoming more vibrantly colored.

To us, the aesthetic almost felt more like California now than a few miles back where it resembled more of a coastal Florida vibe. The homes that were popping up got bigger and bigger. Their private docks almost had private docks. Sadly, we didn’t see any gators lurking around this popular gator spot but we have our eyes peeled.

We past what we thought would be an incredibly peaceful anchorage. It had plenty of room and was surrounded by nature on all sides. No suburbia in sight. The sky at night would be vibrant. The boat would barely rock with the protective surroundings. We sadly had to keep going due to the milage we were aiming for. Hopefully we tuck away on one like this down the way.

As the sun was dipping, we were pulling into a lively marina in North Myrtle, South Carolina. It was a beautiful purple sunset with a waxing gibbous moon shining bright behind us. Feels good to go farther than you think and to keep inching south, day by day.

Here’s to a stretch of marina hopping down South Carolina and welcoming our 6th state of the trip!

Onward,

Sweet Rain