Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10, 2011

Saturday:  The morning started out very warm and sunny.  By noon it was 80 degrees and very hot with out much wind.  Then, about 13:00, the wind picked up to 15 to 20 knots and the temp dropped about 20 degrees.  The forecast was supposed to be a nice, warm, day and all of a sudden they were predicting thunder storms, lightning, hail, and possible tornado's.  We had planned on a nice little anchorage but had to find a marina.  Of course we were out in the middle of nowhere.  The storm hit all around us and the worst was to the north and south.  Where we had planned to anchor looked like it got hit hard and we were glad we found the marina.  The marina was very small and in a little shrimping village called McClellanville, SC.  The good part is they had shrimp for sale at the local market.

Sunday:  Woke up to an overcast sky.  We left on slack tide and when we went by our planned anchorage for last night we were sure we did the right thing by going to a marina.  The creek was very wide, no trees, and no protection from the wind.  Up to this point, the east coast has been pretty boring; lots of marsh areas with no trees, and you could go for miles and not see anyone or thing.  After we went past Georgetown, SC, things started to change.  There were a lot of little creeks and a lot of trees.  It kind of reminded us of the Tenn-Tom Waterway.  By afternoon it had turned into a beautiful day.  We anchored in Bull Creek at Mile Marker 381.5 off the ICW.  It was the nicest anchorage we have had in a long time.  On our way into our anchorage we saw an eagles nest with the male watching over the new baby, the female must have been hunting-pretty cool.

USS Yorktown at sunrise 4-9-2011

Shrimp Boats at McClellanville, SC

Our dock at Leland Oil Co. Marina

Keith calls this a Piling Tree

CO's comments: We stopped at a little marina when it was thunder and lightning out.  We had the perfect place at the dock.  We were between a Sports Fish, with towers 15' higher than us, and behind us were shrimp boats 20' higher than us, the perfect place to be in a storm. 

Just wanted to let my friends in Red Wing know that we saw our first 2 Rinkers today since leaving Minnesota.  Below is what a floating dock should look like.

Fit and Finish; no cotton-pickin slivers