We left Hilton Head, and all of us could hardly breath it was so hot. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it was seriously hard to breathe. The strangest thing was that there were people running in that heat, I am pretty sure that is not advisable.
We have decided that we prefer to anchor, in addition to the price tag, when we are at a dock there is a lot of stuff to do. We end up spending the time doing laundry, getting to the store, and usually spend a half a day thoroughly cleaning the boat. When we are at anchor we read, eat, and sleep!
When we left Hilton Head we had planned on going a few miles and anchoring. Once we set out, we decided to go off shore, we had a good forecast for wind and water so we went for it. Once out there, we had great weather, and decide to do our first overnight.
Everything was going great. I woke up around midnight to give Chris a break, and I was surprised by how dark it was. I know, silly, but there was barely a moon, and no light pollution, so it was very dark. I was only on watch for maybe a half an hour before Dahlia woke up. Poor Chris was back on watch until I could get her to sleep. I came back up at 2:30. The seas were calm, and there was about 5 knots of wind, there was some lightning off in the distance, but it seemed very far off. About 20 minutes go by, and the wind starts to pick up to 10 knots, 15 knots, 20 knots, at that point I was uncomfortable and decided to wake Chris again. The weather report was still calling for variable winds 5-10 knots, and seas 1-2ft. I am not sure where they were getting their information, but we were in 5-6ft seas, and 20-30 knots of wind for the whole night. We must have just been on the outside of that storm and was suffering from its wake...the whole night. Yet, the weather channel was still insisting it was good conditions.
The worst part about the whole night was the wave slap that the choppy seas create. It is when the water is forced between the two hulls and slaps the underside of the boat. It doesn't cause any damage, but it sure sounds like the boat is going to come apart. For Dahlia, being a light sleeper, it was torture. She tossed and turned and fussed all night long. Chris ended up on watch all night getting sprayed with salt water, and riding the mechanical bull that was now our boat.
By morning we had abandoned our way point of Cape Fear, NC, and decided to turn in and head for Georgetown, SC. We were 20 miles off shore so that wasn't just a quick stop off either, but it was the closest inlet for us at that point without turning around and heading back south.
We got to the anchorage in Georgetown, it was about 8 miles inland, so it took a little while to get here once in the inlet. On our way we saw an alligator, a real alligator, in the ICW. He wasn't a little alligator either, he was big and we were close enough to see his orange eyes as we went past him. I now have a new thing to fear when I go swimming, we clearly won't be swimming here.
Georgetown is quaint, the anchorage is right off the harbor walk, as you can see from the picture with our boat in the back ground. It is all "mom and pop" stores too, a great little book store, and tons of restaurants. The only down side to this anchorage is it right next to the steel mill that runs 24hrs/day. At various points through out the day it smells like burnt mushroom pizza???? Overall, a pretty good anchorage!
P.S. No more overnights for us until Dahlia proves to be a better sleeper!
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