April 15, 2023 Georgetown to Osprey Marina

 Sat. April 15, 2023  Back to our starting point - Osprey Marina

Winding down our St. Johns River trip today with a cruise up the Waccamaw River and back to our starting point at Osprey Marina. Todays plan was leave at 9AM for a 2 hour cruise up to Wacca Wache marina to top off our tanks with diesel.  Then roughly another hour to Osprey Marina.  Anchor came up fairly easy, but the chain and anchor were covered in nasty black muck.  Lots of hosing it off as we winched it slowly up.  Our 2 hour cruise to Wacca Wache turned into almost 3 hours because of tide and current.  There seemed to be an especially strong outgoing flow dropping our speed by 2MPH.  So, our normal 10.5 mph speed was now 8.5 or less despite still running 1400 rpm.  Good thing we weren't in a big hurry.  Easy side tie docking at Wacca Wache Marina for fuel.   Based on published marina fuel pricing for the week they had the cheapest diesel on the east coast.  No reason not to top off as chances are good it will be higher rather than lower when we start moving again.  225 gallons and a pumpout later and we were back on our way.  While the lower Waccamaw is wider open water and marshy old rice fields,the river turns narrow and becomes wooded swamplands. It's a nice change of scenery after days cruising through the marshes of GA and SC. 

Waccamaw River starts transitioning from marsh to swamp

Small boat traffic started to increase dramatically. Not too surprising given it was a nice sunny 80 degree weekend day during spring break.  I normally throttle back a bit for smaller boats but today was the exception.  Just too many of them and we needed speed to maintain our own headway. We kept going at our pace as they zipped up behind us only to fly by on either side at full throttle. If heading downstream they would jump our wakes without so much as slowing down - bouncing, bashing and slamming their boats.  Nice to enter the channel leading into Osprey and get off the river. Easy pirouette and back into our slip for the next month here on C dock.  It's been a unique and enjoyable two month cruise.  Lots of nature, anchoring, great warm weather, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

Journey for April 13, 2023