The further south, the colder it becomes

We awoke at 09:00 (the latest we have slept). It was cold, overcast and rainy. I checked our depth as it was low tide at 09:34. We were in 6’ of water, 3’ less than the charts had indicated (all chart depths are stated for Mean Low Tide). Waiting to leave to catch the tide is frustrating but we make last minute preparations for the day. Through the mist, we can see a trawler heading our way. So we quickly lifted anchor, leaving even earlier than planned at 10:45 to follow them through the next few shoal areas (better they hit bottom first). We saw depths of 6.1' as we moved with the current at 8.4MPH…its nerve racking as you search moving side to side for deeper waters. The tides in this location are about 5' between low and high tide. We only had an extra foot of water below us being so close to low tide.

Imagine several rivers leading to and from the ocean and the ICW cuts through connecting from river to river so vessels can move on the inside down the coast.How they do this is by cutting a channel between the rivers (called ‘cuts’). As we move from river to river through the cuts, we either have the current against us or with us. It was working in our favour again today. Aside from the several power boats that passed us today, it was a pretty uneventful day. We even managed to see the odd dolphin swimming in the rivers.

We made great time and arrived in Factory Creek by Lady's Island, across from Beaufort, at 16:00. Because of the strong winds expected, we decided it was better to anchor in Factory Creek as it had good protection from the south wind that was 

Factory Creek at near low tide

to start early tomorrow morning around 04:00. The creek is fairly narrow for us so we only let out 60'of anchor rode; with depths of 20' that was only a 3:1 ratio, not the 5:1 required. However, at low tide we would be at a 5:1 ratio (length of chain to depth)…not ideal but our bad boy Rocna anchor hadn't failed us yet. With the south wind, our stern is only 20' from the shore. We called Beaufort Downtown Marina and made reservations for tomorrow, as cold weather and winds were to continue and increase.

We studied our weather tools looking for the next weather window to jump outside around Georgia…a 130 mile passage to Florida…Georgia is known for a lot of shoaling. Thursday looks like the next weather window.

It’s another cold night, so we run the genie to warm up the boat and our bones. Seeing the weather in Toronto, we keep the complaining to a minimum.