Yet another beautiful sunset

Yet another beautiful sunset
Approaching Charleston last fall

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Wrightsville Beach SM 285 to Littler River Inlet SM341

October 28, Thursday,
More southerly winds today. Mostly motoring on the ICW, got to use the jib on some legs with wind gusting over 20 knots. We needed to time our arrival for a temporary pontoon bridge which only opens on the hour. With the current changing direction at the halfway point between gthe many inlets it made timing our arrival a challenge. We judged (read fudged) it correctly and arrived for the once hourly 6 pm opening. Only problem at low tide the pontoon bridge sometimes get stuck in the mud at the edge of the channel. So although we were on time we still had to wait another 45 minutes until the tide rose enough to allow them to move it. Which the do with anchors and whiches. So we anchored in the channel along with about 8 other boats. This had us doing the last 45 minutes in the dark again, and we are getting better at it, however, there are a number of additional markers which do not show up on my 1 year old GPS chart plotter. This puts a premium on vigilance and Jason's young eyes are very good. We entered the Calabash river adjacent to the Little River Inlet and anchored for the night in a tight squeeze between all the other boats held up by the bridge delay. We had a casino ship out of Myrtle Beach pass us just before we were making the entrance into the anchorage, another close order drill with the big boys.
We had quite a heavy thunder storm while having dinner, but at least it washed all the salt off the boat. Later in the evening I heard a band playing and got up from reading in my bunk. Just on the other side of the island we were anchored off, the lights (and they had quite a few on) of one of the casino ships were filtering thru the trees etherally appearing and disapearing in the now dark and still night with mist rising off the water. As the ship passed beyond the end of the island I could see it clearly now as it meandered down the channel with stains of "Sweet Home Alabama" wafting over us and slowing fading as the ship disappeared into the night.

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