May 11, Day 320 – Price Creek to Thoroughfare Creek

We got up early, had a quick breakfast and raised the anchor by 7:30. It was cloudy, cool and breezy so we kept the windows on the flybridge closed up as we got underway. Within a couple of hours the sun tried to peek through and it warmed up so we opened the front panel. Today we traveled mostly in narrow winding channels. There were a few wide spots and one small sound, but we basically just “stayed in the middle” of what, in many cases, was not much wider than a canal.

The scenery did change as we headed north. Yesterday was all flat marshlands. Today we started seeing taller grasses and bushes, then a few trees and, finally by the time we stopped, the shores were lined with trees. We saw many old cypress trees with cypress knees growing directly out of the water. The stretch today was quite beautiful in spite of the cloudy skies.

We reached our anchorage, Thoroughfare Creek, around 3:30. There was one sailboat in the creek when we arrived, but we went around another bend and anchored by some sandy bluffs and lots of trees. By sunset, the sky had cleared and we enjoyed the sunset.

When we left the anchorage this morning, it was very overcast, but it had not rained

We passed what looked like a graveyard for old derelict boats

There were quite a few boats on the ICW today, most faster than us, so we were passed several times

This boat, Stately Lady, a beautiful old Trumpy yacht passed by us. There is a real art to passing boats. Usually you do what's called a "slow pass". Both boats slow down and then the overtaking boat passes either to starboard or port. The real trick for the passing boat is to slow down at the right time and then resume speed at the right time. This boat slowed down a little too late and gave us a terrible wake as it went by. Her intentions were good, but we really rocked and rolled for awhile.

The shoreline started changing -- we now had taller grasses and some trees

Coming up on the ferry -- as you can tell the trip isn't far from one side to the other

The crabbers were bringing in their catch for the day

Boy, this was a tight fit. Not sure how the boat got in there and, for that matter, how it would get out.

This is the papermill at Georgetown spewing out that "special smell" associated with this type of industry. Fortunately, we were upwind today.

While there was still plenty of marshland, we began seeing a lot more trees along the shore

Some more of the cypress trees growing along the shoreline in the water

Approaching our anchorage for the night -- a nice spot on Thoroughfare Creek

Gerry just couldn't resist getting out the fishing rod (ssshh, don't tell, he doesn't have a SC license). Didn't matter, not even a nibble.

The sandy bluff at sunset

The clouds cleared and we had a nice sunset