New England – Week: 02 (South Carolina)

June 8 - 14, 2026

Day 6 – Monday, June 8th, 2026 – To: Beaufort, SC
Lady’s Island Marina

Monday, we traveled from Thunderbolt, Georgia, near Savannah, to Beaufort, SC. We had to wait until after 10:00 for the tide to come up, as the first cut we had to go through, Fields Cut, just after we crossed the Savannah River, is usally very shallow at low tide. It turns out we didn’t need to worry. They are building a large shipping terminal on the South Carolina side of the river right at the corner of the cut and the river and have been dredging the area extensively. We didn’t see less than 12 feet under the boat most of the way to Hilton Head!

As we were approaching the Savannah River crossing, we saw a floating building. Actually, a large container ship slowly going upriver to the port of Savannah. It was huge! Brenda counted 20 containers across and 20 high on the back of the ship. It was beyond the crossing when we got there, so it was not an issue.

Most of the way to Hilton Head, there were dredge pumps and dredge pipes lining the waterway. They are dredging the channel along that section and pumping the dredged material over 10 miles back to the area where they are building the new shipping terminal to fill in the land. Quite the operation!

When we got to Calibogue Sound, which separates Hilton Head Island from the mainland, we were able to run fast for a while. Then, through Hilton Head, it’s a no-wake zone until you reach Port Royal Sound, which brings you past the Paris Island Marine Base and into Beaufort, South Carolina. This is a large sound open to the ocean. Usually it’s a pretty bumpy ride, but today we had smooth water all the way and again were able to run at 18 mph for most of the way.

In the past, when we stayed in Beaufort, we stayed at the Safe Harbor Marina right off downtown. This trip, we are trying new marinas. Just after downtown is a swing bridge that leads to Lady’s Island. There is a side channel right after the bridge that takes you to the Lady’s Island Marina. A couple, Mike and Ginger, we knew from Georgetown, SC, near our old home base in Murrells Inlet, moved to Beaufort and keep their boat at Lady’s Island. We’ve never stayed there, so we decided to give it a try!

The marina is small, but very well maintained, and they are upgrading the docks and marina office. Tom, the owner, and Walter (the dock dog) met us as we pulled up. While we like all the shops and restaurants of downtown Beaufort, the area around the marina on Lady’s Island has lots to offer as well. Also, they have a courtesy car if you want to go to town or provision. Downtown is only about two miles away across the bridge if we need a “city” fix!

While we were on our way, we were working with Outback Yachts and a Volvo Penta service center in Charleston to arrange a time to get our engine warranty certified. It’s something that slipped through the cracks in Fort Lauderdale with everything else going on. The issue is that once you’ve used the boat, getting a service center to certify the engines can be challenging, as they don’t want to be on the hook for someone else’s work. Outback arranged for a company in Charleston to meet us on Thursday to complete the warranty certification. We had originally planned to be in Georgetown, SC by Thursday, so while I washed down the boat, Brenda changed our reservations for next week.

With our 42-foot Beneteau, it was pretty easy to get into marinas as we fit into most slips. Once you are over 50 feet, you have to plan a bit more ahead, as slips over 50 feet are less common. So where we used to reserve a day or two ahead, now we need to reserve a week in advance. When plans change, as they frequently do, it means shifting 3-4 reservations.

As we were changing our reservations, we decided to stay at Lady’s Island for an extra day. Once the boat was rinsed down and Brenda had changed our reservations, we walked up the street to “The Fillin’g’ Station,” which is a dive bar next to the marina, for a docking beer and a snack. Then went next door to Lady’s Island Dockside, the marina restaurant, for dinner.

After dinner we sat on the back deck of the boat for a while, waving at the passing boaters, watching the local Osprey building a nest, and catching up with Bethanny and our Grand Cat Max by phone.

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Day 7 – Tuesday, June 9th, 2026 – In: Beaufort, SC

One of the final “To-Do’s” for our new Outback is having our engine warranty registered. To register the warranty, a Volvo Certified Repair Center must be involved to run tests and inspect the installation to ensure it was done correctly. When they sign off, that repair center is “on the hook” for any installation-related issues going forward. As you might expect, most repair centers are hesitant to certify someone else’s work! We’ve called several who’ve politely declined. Olson Yacht Group, which sold us the Outback, has arranged for a Volvo Repair Center in Charleston, SC, to handle the warranty certification. We’ve been working with them on scheduling the work and have had to adjust our itinerary to accommodate their availability.

The warranty inspection is scheduled for Thursday of this week, so, given that we had an extra day between Beaufort and Charleston, we decided to stay at Lady’s Island Marina in Beaufort for an extra day. There is something to explore here in Beaufort, and not much to do at St. John’s Island Marina in Charleston so this was the better option.

In the morning, we went to breakfast at a local eatery, Mameem & Maudie Beaufort Cafe, a short walk from the marina. The owner suggested that we check out the “Grayco” store, just up the street. So we walked up Route 21 (the main drag in town) to the Publix (the first corner with a crosswalk) and crossed over to the south side. Route 21 connects three islands and is surprisingly busy for a rural highway. We wouldn’t want to cross without a light, and on all of Lady’s Island, there are only two! One at the Publix/Harris Teeter grocery store intersection, and one just across from the marina at the road that goes to the local high school.

Grayco is a unique store. It’s a combo of a super-sized Ace Hardware, a Home Goods, a Tractor Supply, a furniture store, a garden center, and a farm-boutique clothing store. They are a unique one-off. We went in just to look around, and ended up with a basket full of stuff! It’s in a building that looks like it was an old K-Mart store, so quite large! The staff is similar to your local Ace Hardware. Attentive, helpful, but not pushy. Grayco is the type of store that can thrive in a community with lots of rich people and their high-end vacation homes, and nowhere else. It was an experience!

After Grayco, we walked to a local Antiques Mall and browsed around. One of the benefits of being on a boat is that when you see something “interesting” (like a 3-foot-tall bear head wearing glasses), you are not tempted, as there isn’t any space to put it (saves a TON of money!).

After our morning walkabout, we went back to the boat during the heat of the day (83° and about the same humidity). I did some accounting, and Brenda worked on her journal and napped.

In the evening, we went back to The Fillin’ Station for a beer and a snack. Then we went to Q’s Chicken Shack, a local favorite. We were disappointed to find out that they close at 4:00! Lunch only! So we went back to Lady’s Island Dockside at the marina for dinner.

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Day 8 – Wednesday, June 9th, 2026 – To: St John’s Island (Charleston), SC
St. Johns Island Yacht Center

The tide on Wednesday morning was ebbing (going down), so we left Beaufort just before 8:00 to catch the last hour of the tide through the shallow creeks. When we reached the Coosaw River, our only open water section, we sped up. When you exit the river, you enter a series of very shallow creeks. We’ve touched bottom with our old boat several times in this section. We arrived there just at low tide. There are two routes that connect the Coosaw River to the Edisto River. The one we normally take, which is shallow, is about 8 miles. The alternate is 11 miles and follows the Coosaw River almost to where it meets the ocean, then follows a wider, deeper creek that meets the other route just as it enters the Edisto River.

Because it was so close to low tide, and we didn’t want to risk grounding the new boat, we decided to try the alternate route. It worked out well. Because you are in the wide, deep river, you can travel faster, so it’s about the same time as the normal route. However, it’s not a route to take on a day when the Coosaw is rough, as it’s an extra 8 miles of open exposed water. In that case, it’s better to time your transit at high tide. Plus, due to shoaling, you have to go an extra mile out at the turn to the creek, and then backtrack. (see the U-Turn on our map above)

The rest of the trip to the Charleston area was great. We saw a group of very bright pink Spoonbills feeding in the mud along the banks, and a couple of dolphins played in our wake for part of the way.

We arrived at St. John’s Yacht Center just before 2:00. St. John’s is one of our regular stops. There is nothing there aside from the marina, but they have courtesy cars, and it’s easy to get in and out of. Downtown Charleston can be very busy, and sometimes the current makes docking difficult.

We spent the rest of the day on the boat, where it was cool. I worked on the blog and a couple of boat projects, Brenda updated her journal and worked on one of her kits. In the evening, we had the take-n-bake Chicken Tetrazini that we bought at “The Kitchen” yesterday.

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Day 9 – Thursday, June 10th, 2026 – In: St John’s Island (Charleston), SC

Thursday morning, we had a great sunrise! At 9:00, Steve and Tyler, the technicians from Coastal Carolina Yacht Sales, arrived to do the warranty inspection on our engines. They spent an hour or so inspecting the installation, checking for any leaks, tightening a few clamps, then entering the data into Volvo’s system. Then they were able to download software updates for the engine computers. Once the updates were done, we took the boat out for a run up and down the river so they could record some rpm readings, pressures, and temperatures, then check for any error codes. Everything came up clean! So, we now have a Volvo warranty on the engines! Woo Hoo!

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing boat projects. One involved fixing a broken fitting in the drains for the engine room hatch. When we lifted the hatch for the engines to make the inspection easier, one of the drain fittings broke off. There are disconnects, but there was no “warning” in the engine room that you need to use the quick disconnects before opening the hatch. BRIAN! We need your AI Manual ASAP (Get it, AI AP, rather than ASAP?!!! 😂😂😂)

The engine room was still around 110° from the test run, so I lost about 5 pounds in sweat working down there! Since I was already soaked, I decided to rinse the boat down. The wind had come up and was blowing around 15 mph, so I got nice and cooled off by the backwash from the hose!

After a shower, we spent the afternoon on the boat keeping cool. The temps here in Charleston are close to 90! I received an email from Volvo saying our engines had been registered and that they needed a bunch of additional information, so I spent the afternoon filling out forms and looking up serial numbers, dates of purchase, and underwear sizes.

At one point, I walked up to the store at the marina office, and in their ice cream cooler was a frozen treat: “Not Fried Chicken”. It’s vanilla ice cream, shaped like a chicken wing drumette, covered in corn flakes. It LOOKS like a chicken wing. I brought one back to Brenda. She says that it was tasty!

In the evening, Brenda made spaghetti squash with marinara sauce and sausage for dinner, and we had a relaxing dinner on the boat, aside from all the jerks zipping by the no-wake zone and rocking the boat. We’re glad we put out extra fenders! Just as we were finishing dinner, the Charleston Harbor Hosts, Patrick and Leila from Grand Life, stopped by to say hello. We had a nice chat with them!

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Day 10 – Friday, June 12th, 2026 – To: Georgetown, SC
Harborwalk Marina

First, a bunch of Happy Birthdays to Bethanny (our daughter), Michael (our amazing mechanic at A&M), and Mendy (the guy who actually does the work at A&M)! Best wishes to you all!

The stretch of the ICW from Charleston Harbor to Winyah Bay (near Georgetown) in South Carolina is some of the shallowest at low tide on the ICW. The town in about the middle is called McClellanville. It is a small fishing village with a tide station that everyone watches. High Tide in McClellanville is at 6:10 a.m., so we decided to leave Charleston early to try to catch some water before low tide at noon. In the past, with the 3.5-foot draft on our old boat, we’ve pushed through the mud in places along this route. We keep thinking the new boat has a MUCH smaller draft, but it’s really only 6 inches, not a lot! I’m sure we will ground at some point. There is an old boating saying, “There are those who have run aground, and liars.” We’d like to delay baptizing our new boat in mud or sand (hopefully not rocks), for as long as possible!

The trip to Georgetown was fine. We left the marina and went through Elliot Cut. The current was with us, and at one point, we measured about 4.5 mph! After the cut, we crossed Charleston Harbor, which was nice and calm, then back into the ICW through Isle of Palms, which has a long no-wake zone. After Isle of Palms, the waterway opens up, and there are just tidal marshes on either side. There wasn’t much traffic, so we were able to run at around 18 mph for a while, making good time. Once we got to the more built-up areas around Awendaw, we slowed down. The tide had been steadily dropping, and we were in the shallow section, so we didn’t want to go too fast. For most of the trip, we had between 3 and 5 feet of water under the boat. Not ideal, but doable. When we got to McClellanville, where the shallowest section was, we had less than a foot under the boat. Fortunately, the bottom here is mostly soft mud, but it’s still stressful. We passed a couple of Loopers heading north like us, and lots of smaller fishing boats going in both directions. In this area, we were down to 6-8 mph, and as slow as 3 mph in places looking for deeper water.

Once past McClellanville, there are fewer homes and the water gets deeper again, so we were able to get back up to 16-18 mph (except when meeting boats) for the rest of the way to Winyah Bay where the ICW opens up to a wide bay where the Waccamaw River meets the Atlantic. Once in the bay, we were able to run fast the final 7 miles to Georgetown Harbor.

We cruised up the harbor to Harborwalk Marina. Our dock was an easy in on the outside face dock. We just had to swing around an 80-foot yacht docked behind us.

By the time we docked, just before 2:00, the temperature was around 93°, with almost no wind. It was HOT! We tied up and went inside to cool down. Once we had cooled down a bit, I went out and rinsed down the boat before the salt dried and crystallized. Around 3:00, we went to the office to check in. The marina staff introduced us to Gladys the Duck, who has adopted the marina as her home, and waddles up and down the docks looking for handouts. After giving Gladys some extra bread we had, we went up Main Street and explored downtown.

We’ve spent a lot of time in Georgetown, as we used to live just up the river in Murrells Inlet, and this is where our friend and mechanic, Michael, at A&M Marine is based. If you look at our older blog posts, you’ll see that I spent several weeks here in 2023 before our Second Loop Trip, while our engines were rebuilt.

Georgetown is changing and growing. Since our last visit in the fall of last year on our way back from our Triangle Loop Trip. First, one of the major industries, a Steel Mill at the end of the Harbor that closed a few years ago, is being dismantled. The plans are to make a park and large marina on the site. Also, the other major industry in town, the paper mill, has also closed and been sold to a developer. With the loss of the two major employers, you would expect the town to fade. However, happily, it’s thriving. The downtown has several new restaurants and boutiques. Many of our old favorites are still open and thriving.

We walked to one of the new restaurants, Hop Garden, with its attached brewery at the far end of Main Street. We had chicken lettuce wraps for a snack and sampled their IPA. The sky was darkening, so we decided to head back toward the boat. We made a quick stop at the Corner Tavern, my old haunt, to see how it was faring. Things haven’t changed much. It’s still pretty much a local dive bar! Then we went to SoCo Grill, one of our old favorite restaurants for dinner. SoCo is just around the corner from the marina, so if it rained, we would have a short walk.

We had a nice dinner of salads. During dinner, we had a rain shower, so we decided to stay and have dessert until it passed. We all need to make sacrifices!

We got back to the boat around 6:00, and Michael, our friend and mechanic, called to say he was going to stop by to see the new boat. Today was Michael’s birthday, so it was great that he took the time to see us! He stopped by, and we gave him a tour of the boat. Michael is a naval architect as well as a “dumb diesel mechanic” (his description, not ours!🤣🤣🤣). It was great to hear his views of the boat and its construction. We really value his opinion. And the result… “Hey Mickey! He likes it!”

By the time he left, it was after 10:00! As we were closing up for the night, Gladys waddled up looking for some more bread.

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Day 11 – Saturday, June 13th, 2026 – In: Georgetown, SC

Saturday morning I did some accounting, and Brenda made us breakfast. We had arranged to see Michael’s new house and dock with him. Around 10:00, Michael picked us up. First we went to his shop to see the flats boat he’s been restoring. It was beautiful! Then he took us to Debrideau Colony, where his old house is, and we went to lunch at the private golf club in the community. Lunch was awesome. The community has 9 restaurants and an executive chef who curates the menus.

After lunch, we drove out to his new home. The home is a three-story, plantation-style house on the North Santee River. It has a beautiful deep-water dock right on the river. When we come back through the area in the fall, we hope to stay on his dock. We visited with Shelby, his dog, who has spent time with us on our old boat, and toured the house and property. There is a several-hundred-foot-long raised walkway that connects the house to the dock over the tidal creeks and marsh that make up his backyard. In the creek are a group of nine young alligators. They were running around in the mud, catching and eating crabs.

The new house is beautiful! It will be fun to stay on his dock and enjoy the pool!

After Michael dropped us back off at the boat around 3:00, we went in where it was cool. The temperature was in the mid 90’s, too hot to do much outside. I worked on the blog, and Brenda updated her journal.

We were not very hungry for dinner, so we walked downtown to the Corner Tavern and had some of their famous smoked chicken wings. When we left the boat, we grabbed the umbrellas as the sky looked a bit threatening. As we were leaving, the rain started, and we were glad we thought ahead! On the way back to the boat, we stopped so Brenda could get an ice cream sundae for a virtual birthday celebration for Kathy Gilly, a member of Brenda’s gaming group at home. Lots of the group are away, so everyone got an ice cream, took a photo, and shared it with the group. It was still just light rain when we got back to the boat. Gladys was standing in the middle of the dock looking for handouts, but we didn’t have anything. We told her to stop by the boat later.

We had just gotten on the boat when the rain really started, and we had heavy rain, thunder, and lightning for about an hour. Around 8:00, the sun suddenly peeked under the clouds as it went down, and we got our first rainbow of the trip. Gladys saw us out on the back deck and waddled over for her promised treat!

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Day 12 – Sunday, June 14th, 2026 – To: Murrells Inlet, SC
Wacca Wache Marina

Sunday, we moved to Wacca Wache Marina, our old home port. From Georgetown, it’s only about 20 miles, so even at slow speeds it’s around a 2-hour trip. Check-out time at marinas is 11:00, and check-in starts at 1:00. So we slept in a bit, then walked into town for breakfast at Brewed Awakening. Since it was Sunday, several of the other downtown breakfast places were closed, so we had a bit of a wait. Breakfast was excellent! When we finished, we went back to the boat. Gladys was waiting for a parting snack, and around 10:45, we started prepping the boat for our departure.

We were in no hurry to get to Wacca Wache, so we just took our time. There was a lot of small boat traffic. Because we were in the river, we would have had to keep speeding up and slowing down, speeding up and slowing down. We set ourselves to a moderate speed of around 10 mph, where our wake wouldn’t be too annoying to smaller boats, and just stuck to that speed.

We had told the marina we would arrive between 1 and 1:30, and we got there right on time at 1:10. We went to the fuel dock first. Wacca Wache has the lowest fuel prices around. On our last fill up in Georgia, we were at $6.10 per gallon. Wacca Wache’s price was $4.68! We took on 253 gallons!

Being our old home port and having done a lot of promotion for the marina with the Looper community, we are given the VIP treatment (Thanks, Matt and Nick!). After filling up, we were given an excellent slip in the back of the marina where there are no waves from passing boats. This was one of the first back-in docks we’ve had on the trip. Somehow, I keep hitting autopilot when backing up, and it fights me as I go into the slip. As I was backing up, the boat kept trying to spin around, and I couldn’t figure out why it was behaving badly until I got an error after I kept overriding the autopilot with the wheel. I need to be more careful and keep a closer watch on the display.

Once we had settled in, we walked up to the office to check in, then went downstairs to Outriggers, the restaurant at the marina, for a snack and a docking beer. We had just sat down when we heard a clap of thunder, the wind picked up, and the sky opened up. The heavy rain and thunderstorms lasted until 5:00. Our rain gauge says we got 2.25″ of rain! We had planned for a quick snack and a beer at the dock, then coming back to the boat until dinner. We ended up staying there and having an early dinner. We didn’t get back to the boat until 5:30. It was fun to watch all the small boats scrambling at the boat launch next to the marina trying to get out of the water in the pouring rain. More than one group came into the restaurant soaked to the bone!

When the rain slowed down to a drizzle, we went back to the boat for the evening. It cleared a bit around 6:30, but another round of heavy rain and thunderstorms is predicted for this evening.

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Weekly Recap

Our second week took us out of Georgia and into South Carolina, a little over 310 miles. We stopped in Georgetown to visit with our friend and mechanic Michael, then moved up to Wacca Wache. The boat got its engine warranty certified, and we made it through the shallow sections without grounding!

Next week we are in Wacca Wache until Wednesday, then start heading through North Carolina with a stop in Holden Beach to visit our friends there.