sail to the Sea Islands

It is mornings like this that remind me of why I want to head south.  Four inches of snow (when the forecast was for maybe one inch) and howling wind out of the north.  Enough of that stuff!

If the warm weather won't come to me, I may as well go to it.  In late February or early March, depending on weather and tides, I plan to tow SPARTINA down to Charleston, South Carolina and launch there for a sail to the Sea Islands.  

I am both excited and anxious about the trip.  Excited because I have heard for years about the beauty of the rivers and sounds of South Carolina and Georgia.  A little anxious because I am not familiar with the waterways.  I read of six and eight foot tides, and the rushing currents that come with the ebb and flow.  I hear of winding creeks, open sounds and unmarked shoaling along the way.

I have wanted to make the trip for years and I have been planning this particular trip since November.  Much of my research involves three books that include passages along this stretch of the intracoastal waterway.  The oldest book is THE BOY, ME AND THE CAT by Henry Plummer.  He and his son took their catboat from Massachusetts to Florida and back around 1912, the book includes the logs from both the south and north bound passages.  Frank Dye made a north bound passage in a Wayfarer dinghy in the late 1980s which he wrote about in SAILING TO THE EDGE OF FEAR.  And New Zealand writer Lee Hughes bought Dye's Wayfarer dinghy and passed through the same area sometime around 2000, writing a book called THE BIGGEST BOAT I COULD AFFORD.  There is valuable information in each of the books.

A digital book called ANCHORAGES ALONG THE INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY by Skipper Bob Publications will probably be my most valuable source of information.  The ebook includes the charts you see below and near the top of this post.  Zooming in on a particular chart turns into a nice detailed satellite image of the waterway.  I have the book on both my phone and my iPad.

I do not know how long the trip will take.  Going by the ICW mile markers, it is roughly 270 miles from Charleston to Jacksonville, Florida.  I have done distances like that in eight or nine days.  But with tides and narrow, winding creeks and rivers, I really have no idea about the time involved.  Maybe a couple of weeks?  I do want to build in time to explore a bit, visit a few towns and maybe just relax.  So with that in mind I'll carry about 30 days worth of food.

Winter maintenance should be done on SPARTINA in just a few days (snow days like today have slowed me down a bit).  I hope to head down to Elizabeth City soon for some day sailing, testing the new rudder and also a new downhaul for the jib.

Nothing better than having a nice little cruise to look forward to.  Over the next couple of weeks I'll do some posts about the planning, the route and reasons for decisions that I will be making.