Day 218: Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Port to Port: Beet Island to Elliots Cut Anchorage

Underway: 7:00 am      Motor Off: 3:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 45       Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First time going 9.9 mph – wow.

Mile 516 to Mile 471: How many days in your life do you get to see dolphins gracefully cruising in glass smooth water around your boat as the sun rises over fog shrouded wetlands on a beautiful, cloudless morning? Not many, I’m sure. We are incredibly lucky to be here right now.

We started early again today to try to get a boost from the current and we lucked out again. We averaged almost 6 mph for the day with a few 7+ spurts which makes the day much more interesting than slogging along at 4 mph for long stretches. We even hit a new record speed of 9.9 mph going through Elliot’s Cut just south of Charleston – this passage is short and very narrow which speeds up the flow considerably. If the tide had been going up when we got here we would have had to wait for slack tide because Boris would not have been able to get us through. Not something you have to plan for on the freeway.

Crying babies, sirens, loud motorcycles, jet skis and lawnmowers…we are back in civilization. We are anchored less than an hour south of the Charleston marina where we are going to stay for a couple of days to restock, clean the boat and rest before continuing our northward trek. We have to time tomorrow’s arrival at slack tide so we won’t leave here until 8:30 am to make docking at the marina easier. We are excited to do some exploring (and get some nice hot showers).