First, before anything, I have to urge you to take a look at Hayden Cochran's blog <IslandSpirit35.blogspot.com>. Hayden is a talented photographer and he was able to capture the beauty of the Waccamaw river valley remarkably well...you owe it to yourself to take a peek.
Our night at anchor in Cow House Creek was, to say the least, interesting. In the first place a reasonbly strong current runs through the creek. When we came in to anchor it was flowing against us and we lined up along the axis of the creek. Several hours later it turned, and so did we...and again several hours (about 6) it turned again. But there was also wind (even though the anchorage was reported to be "protected". There was a constant interplay through the night between the current and the wind. The result was that we rotated around the anchor, sometimes facing north, sometimes east, sometimes west and of course sometimes south. With each turning of the boat the chain would clunk up against the keel..the upshot was there was much rocking and rolling and clunking all through the night. Oh yes, did I mentioned it rained...sheets of wind driven rained banged up against the deck most of the night, adding to the clunking and the howl of the wind.
But the anchor held perfectly, we never went aground, and all was well (excelping we didn't get as much sleep as we would have liked.
We raised anchor at 8:15 and headed towards Georgetown.
The river was just as beautiful in the morning as it had been the previous afternoon but soon we came to the Laffeyette bridge that marked the end of the Waccamaw river, where it joined with the Great Pee Dee river and then merged with the mighty Nynah to take us into Georgetown.
As we approached the bridge we saw a catamaran right next to the bridge, and looking closer we saw someone at the very top of the mast...This catamaran had a very tall mast, the river was high, with all the rain we'd been having, and the crew of that boat was worried they wouldnt fit under the bridge...They drew close to the bridge, and sure enough the man at the top was higher than the bridge. Hopefully they'll make it through at low tide, but with all the rain even low tide isn't all that low.
We arrived at Georgetown in a downpour but nicely made it to our slip, only 3 and 1/2 hour after raising anchor.
After tidying up the boat we went for a brief walk about town, but the rains came back and we went back to the boat.
Hayden and Radeen invited us to dinner on their boat...it was wonderful.
The next day (today, Wednesday, started out rainy but by noon the rains had eased and we ventured back into town.
Downtown Georgetown is about 4 blocks long qwith several restaurnat, clothing stores, candy and ice cream stores, a department store, a general store a maritime museum and a rice museum.
We visited the Rice museum and got a wonderful history of Georgetown, which at one time - before the Civil war - was the rice captial of the worlk...they shipped more rice than any port in the world. But that industry was built on slave labor and with the civil war, and the emancipation proclamation, the rice industry in Georgetown collapsed. They still talk about that "damned Lincoln" in Georgetown.
In between touring the town and avoiding the rain, we refueled the boat and refilled the water tank.
This evening we had a fantastic dinner at the TownHouse restaurant which far exceeded expectations. We insisted on having the chef come out so we could thank him and praise his abililties. He was surprisingly very modest.
Tomorrow we head towards Charleston, but will anchor just short of that, so we can cross a shallow area on a rising tide Friday morning.
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