A Twisty Little Maze of Passages All Alike

South Carolina
N 32 06.717 W 080 53.824

We're back in from the sea. Actually, we are in a huge salt marsh cris-crossed with countless little creeks and rivers running in every direction. It's like a little twisty maze of passages all alike. Now is the time to pay very close attention to the charts to follow the one true path. Otherwise, we'd soon be lost in the maze of twisty little passages all alike.

Actually, it's very beautiful. I'm glad we came in here. This is the only part of the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW) that we never saw before. I heard one cruiser before remark that it is the most beautiful section. Now I understand what he meant. There is wildlife everywhere we look. There are very few buildings of any type visible in the distance. Yet, last night we enjoyed a fireworks show about 10 miles distant.

Before getting here though, we had to navigate 5 miles of approach to the Savannah River plus 5 miles of the river. There is lots of ship traffic on this river so it makes us nervous. We encountered a huge LNG tanker doing 17 knots. That's enough to scare anyone. It's also a place full of hazards. Somewhere nearby is the Savannah River Project site where they made plutonium for America's nuclear weapons for many years. The site is still full of very hazardous radioactive waste. Also, obviously,
there must be an LNG terminal near by too. In case of accident, LNG is capable of causing enormous explosions.

Yesterday afternoon I was agonizing about the decision to come in here instead of remaining at sea. We had to motor 20 of the past 24 hours because of no wind. I hate motoring at sea. However, true to Murphy's Law, as soon as we reached the first buoy of the Savannah River entrance, a nice wind came up. It blew nicely for the next 5 hours until sunset. Damn I thought, if we stayed at sea, we could be another 100 miles north by tomorrow and avoid 5 days of motoring on the ICW. Such decisions
always agonize me, because Murphy's Law seems to apply always. In reality, that nice wind stopped at sunset and hasn't come back yet. We made the right decision.

Tonight, we'll stay in Beaufort. They say that is a very nice city and fun to visit. Good. We'll let you know how it turns out. All we have to do is to find our way there in this little maze of twisty passages all alike.