13 April, 2021. Long day in South Carolina

62 SM; 9.2 hours

Relatively quiet night at anchor.  Winds less than 10 and no noticeable wakes so a decent sleep.  Good anchor set so Serenity stayed put in the tidal swings.  There is an approaching cold front arriving sometime late Wednesday evening.  Today we are going to put some miles on and get to a hopefully protected anchorage.  Quick breakfast, recheck weather, route and boat we were good to raise anchor.  Underway at 0730 we made our way north then east out of Hilton Head.  Couple of highlights for me today was cruising past MCRD Paris Island and MCAS Beaufot, SC.  While I could not see the air station, we remained under the sound of freedom noise of the F-35s coming and going.

Approaching MCRD on Beauford river

MCRD from the water

There were dolphins all day.  Some very playful near the boat.  Dolphin play

Experienced the strongest tidal currents ever.  Fought flood tides most of the day—3-3.5 knot current—4.5 speed over ground for over an hour.  It is hard to really plan the day's route and tide/current considerations due to numerous creeks, rivers and little cuts back to ocean.  One mile we are cruising with a push the next bucking the current.  Still in an area where there are over seven foot tide changes.  Pretty impressive.

In one very long nine mile stretch of open water travel we were fortunate to have the winds and current in agreement and it was not a bad section.  Met an up bound tow pushing a fuel barge maybe headed for the fuel dock at the air station.

Tow in St. Helena Sound

Several very shallow man-made cuts today.  Transited one at low tide; thank goodness we only draft 3 feet.  

Anchored in steamboat creek abeam historic steamboat landing.  1630 at slack low tide in 10 feet.  Will be easy 17+ feet at high tide. (map) Took Kaos to the steamboat landing small boat ramp and pier.  

Kaos floating easy in pretty smooth water

Steamboat boat landing small boat ramp/dock

Stretched our legs but the no-see’ems and mosquitoes were intense, two hours before sunset.  Too windy to grill, instead pan fried burger patties, steamed veggies and cottage cheese for our sunset dining.  Maybe here tomorrow.  Weather is coming and timing of the strong, gusty winds with the approaching cold front unclear. 

2984 SM traveled; 1564.2 hours hobbs