Wednesday June 3, 2026 Duck Creek to Lightkeepers Marina 71 miles and 8.2 hours
WOW!. Wild winds in the middle of the night but the anchor held steady and the breeze through the portlights kept the stateroom nice and cool. Would definitely use this anchorage again. Woke up to gorgeous blue skies and sunshine. Winds will continue from the NE but down to 10-20. With temps hitting 80, sort of a perfect day. Anchor up once again at 7AM.
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| Pelican hunting for his breakfast on a beautiful morning on Duck Creek |
Quick cruise out the balance of the protected ICW and onto Winyah Bay. Little bit of a wind driven chop on the bow but no issues for us. Catch a rising tide all the way up the bay and even most of the day up the Waccamaw River. Lower Waccamaw continues to be a favorite cruising area. Just a couple hours of cruising through tannin stained water that meanders through wooded swamp lands loaded with osprey nests on every channel marker. We made it up to WaccaWache Marina for our first stop of the day. Time to load up on diesel. Took on 400 gallons at the best price on the east coast - $4.69 /gallon!!
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| Headed up the Waccamaw River |
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| Fledgling osprey waiting for mom to return with some food |
Socastee Swing Bridge is one of only a few remaining swing bridges we need to hail for an opening, Amazing the vehicle traffic this little bridge gets considering they put high rise bridge right next to it. We have about a 10 minute wait while another boat catches up to us. "No Shoes Daze" is another looper. Big 47' Leopard power cat with a 24' beam.
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| Waiting on the Socastee Swing bridge to open |
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| No Shoes Daze is one wide bodied power catamaran |
The area north of Socastee continues to see lots of shoreside development all the way to Myrtle Beach. Sort of sad as we remember when all of this was tranquil forested shoreline. Now just one huge house next to another all with docks expecting you to idle past them. Will eventually make this a very long slow passage. One of these days the trip from Southport to Brunswick all offshore may be the way to go as long as weather will cooperate.
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| Shoreline development along "The Ditch". |
"No Shoes Daze" stayed behind us through the developed areas. We suspect they may have wanted to follow us through the "rockpile" - a narrow channel cut through solid rock. We were at high tide so only a few places showed the ledges, but depths weren't an issue for us. Made it to the other swing bridge requiring opening for us at Little River. The sailboat "Phoenix" we had met yesterday was waiting for an opening. Turned out all three of us were headed to Coquina Harbor for the night. Dockmaster Lex helped us get tied up by 4pm. We've stayed here several times and always get a warm welcoming even is only for a night. Good friend Bob Ellington on "Galiponte" had just returned from Florida so we got a chance for a quick hello and family catchups before heading back to the boat for a needed washdown to remove all that crusted salt from crossing Charleston Harbor.
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| View of Coquina Harbor. Home to Lightkeepers Marina and Myrtle Beach Yacht Club |
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| Journey for June 3, 2026 |
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