It was wonderful to spend a night on anchor again, and I loved how peaceful our little anchorage was. We got under way as the sun rose and had favorable current most of the way. This section took us through miles upon miles of untouched marshland, and I loved watching the marsh awaken. Dolphins fed throughout the river and along the edge of the marsh grass. Raptors, swallows, egrets and ibis hunted for breakfast while great blue herons hid deeper in the grass and grackles perched on washed-up branches. Squadrons of pelicans coasted by to land in their goofy, awkward way in our wake.
We were deep in low country, and until we got to Lady’s Island Bridge off of Beaufort, we didn’t see another boat under way. Another sailboat hailed the bridge for an opening ahead of us, and although we were five minutes out at the time they opened, the bridge tender was nice enough to hold the bridge open. On the other side of the bridge, we joined a parade of sailboats headed out to Port Royal Sound. Compared to our last passage through the Sound, this time it was a kitten. We had almost no wind and flat calm seas, with a fair current helping us along.
We faced foul current coming around Parris Island towards Hilton Head, but we still arrived early enough to get fuel and settle into our slip. It was really nice to have a couple shorter, relatively easy days on a beautiful section of the ICW while knocking out 70 miles in total, especially since we’ve either been offshore or making really short hops since Beaufort, NC.
