Leaving the Magenta Line

JAMEY'S POST:

WHERE WE STARTED:  AICW Statute Mile 501, Fishing Creek anchorage, a little west of Charleston, SC.

Mileage on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway is marked on our navigation charts with a magenta line and referenced in the cruising guide from the start at Mile Zero in Norfolk, VA to the end at Mile 1088 in Miami, FL. We felt a sense of accomplishment in passing mile 500 at the end of the day yesterday, but are still in the middle of a big push to find a sheltered spot.

An "arctic" cold front was forecast to pass through the area around midnight with 35 or 40 mile per hour winds, and low temperatures dropping into the mid 30's for two days. My hope was for a hot shower and walk on dry land.

Fishing Creek is relatively deep considering its narrow (80 meters or so) width.  The entrance to the river is straightforward, except for the fact that both the boat's chartplotter and the iPad's chartplotter showed that we were on dry land as we pulled through the mouth of the creek.  We anchored in about 24 feet of water, which means that we should have let out at least 150 feet of anchor line to be sure we would not drag.  With that much line out, we could swing around when the current changed direction and end up on the river bank at low tide.  To combat this issue, I set out a second anchor such that we would pivot around a smaller circle between the two anchors.  This style of anchoring is called "Bahamian Style"

THE OBSTACLE:  The Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff, at AICW Statute Mile 515.  The term 'cutoff' refers to a human-made dredged channel leading from one river to another.  The winding rivers in this section of our trip have many such cutoffs.  The fast current through these canals cause shallow water shoals to form quickly.  This spot was last dredged in 2011, but has already filled in to minimum low tide depths of around 4 feet in a few sections of the short channel.  With a tidal range of 8 feet, it is always possible to wait for high tide in the cutoff to lessen the chance of going aground, but we were hoping to go another 20 miles to Beaufort before the approaching cold front kicked the winds up too much.

I scanned the charts and saw that we could go the long way around the cutoff by moving out nearly into the ocean and then back up the next river.  This route looked like it would take an extra hour to go the roughly 6 miles of additional distance, but it seemed to be our best bet for a stress-free sure passage.

We double checked online and found confirmation from local sources (including Captain Constant, the dock master at the Port Royal Marina) that this route was indeed the new recommended low tide alternative. Captain Constant's advice includes helpful information about the detour, including landmarks and warnings about uncharted shoals even on this relatively "safer" route.

Here is the chart for this area, the brown dashed line shows our track, notice the jog south that I had to take to avoid the shallow shoal extending further than the chart shows.

It did take an extra hour or so to go this way, but we were confident it would work.  Unless I had the time to wait for the tide, I would choose to deviate from the ICW route in this way again. 

Of course, as we approached the exit of the Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff, a similarly sized boat had just come through with no trouble right at low tide.

WHERE WE ARE:  Lady's Island Marina, Beaufort, SC.



Lady's Island Marina is on Factory Creek near the green square marked G"3".  Nancy picked this marina because of the rave online reviews and the price.  $1.00/foot per night including free laundry!  Steve, Gloria and Will truly made our stay at this spot a special one.  They threw a "Pre-Norther Party" for the big crowd of AICW crews taking shelter that night, Gloria drove up the street to ferry our huge load of groceries back from Publix to the boat and they treated us like long lost friends with advice about what to see and where to go.

FROM THERE TO HERE: 35 miles on the ICW route, 42 miles for us.  Anchors up at 6:45 am , on the dock at 1:00 pm.  Jamey at the helm.

PROVISIONING:  We walked around a mile to the Publix.  There were drug stores, restaurants, hardware stores and many other stores along the way.