The beast beneath the berth

I freely admit it, I enjoyed our Wappoo Creek anchorage. A lot. It’s true that the direction of the strong current seemed to change every couple of hours and we were tucked behind a small semi colon of an island that turned out to be a bed of reeds, allowing the ICW traffic to wake us without mercy. It was as if EV slowly spun around her anchor, in a circle with the tide, threatening to drag but seemingly always to return to her original position.

The estates gathered around the island were strictly old money and absolutely beautiful. They knew what they had.

We arrived mid afternoon with no one else here and my first thought was that they are going to kick us out of here, in spite of being marked as an official anchorage in the charts.

The following day the parade of party boats started to raft up and everyone was having fun on the water, over the weekend. The boat closest to us looked like a bridesmaid party was going on. It drew a lot of attention.

At sunset older couples would get in small runabouts from the boat houses that surrounded us, and wave or ask us if we’d like a glass of wine as they putted by.

With the weather settling down we set about finding a way to fix the autopilot ram. After researching the autopilot problem, including generous detailed help from the previous owners, Marce, head of research, found a hydraulic repair shop across the street from a marina 100 miles North in Little River, South Carolina! Nice band too.

We really had some distance to cover. It didn’t look like much on the charts but the remoteness was quite beautiful and almost spooky. We rarely had cellphone coverage and our anchorage was tucked behind a copse of trees, just off the ICW, buggy and not a place to research our plan to repair the autopilot.

After a hard run through creeks rain, and cypress swamps civilization started to intrude in the form of several swing bridges about which the guide books only said “slow to respond” and McMansion developments.

Finally we tied up at Coquina Yacht Club, I pulled the lump out from under our berth, it was rebuilt and I installed it in one day, amazing.

Next stop is Southport, North Carolina, where Marce says there are shops that we need and it’s close to Masonboro Inlet, where we will await our next adventure into the bounding Main.

Wappoo Creek, Charleston S. Carolina

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The view from the back porch, Little River, South Carolina.

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One Response to The beast beneath the berth

  1. Renie

    Gorgeous sunset!

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