We left Port Royal on July 5 and headed offshore for Georgetown, SC.  The winds were brisk enough for the main and the genoa or the main and the staysail, so we did some good sailing.  The only bummer was that we were close hauled essentially the entire time, and we beat all day and night.

It wasn’t a hard journey, and we had no squalls or close encounters with other boats, but it felt really long.  Progress was painfully slow at times, although our overall average was 4.6 knots.  Somehow it just felt like we would never get there.

We took two hour watches except when crossing the entrance to Charleston Harbor, when we were both awake and watching for hazards.  You can see from our chart plotter how many large vessels with AIS were stacked up, and we had to cross their paths (we are the black vessel just under the 02:01:45).  Sorry about the blurry picture; it’s the best I could get.

As we entered Winyah Bay to head to Georgetown, we encountered some nasty weather.  We powered through a couple of sudden, enthusiastic rain showers but made it to the dock at Georgetown Landing Marina before anything too serious came along.  The trip was 30 hours for 140.2 nm.

I see this and am thinking, “For Pete’s sake, we’re almost there, would you give us a break?” And the answer was a resounding NO.  Shortly after taking this picture I was getting drenched on deck while staging dock lines and fenders.

Georgetown Landing Marina has a nice, long face dock for transients, and they were kind enough to put us on the very end at our request.  The current absolutely roars through that section of the Great Pee Dee River, and we don’t want to try to dock wedged between vessels.

We ended up staying in Georgetown a little longer than we anticipated thanks to Hurricane Chris and Tropical Storm Beryl.  While they weren’t directly affecting our area, they were impacting the areas north of us and offshore enough that sitting tight was the best decision.

So since we were “stuck,” we enjoyed ourselves.  We had breakfast one day and lunch another day at Thomas Café, and the Captain was able to get the best shrimp and grits in the world.  I had a grilled cheese sandwich that was to die for:  Palmetto pimento cheese and fried green tomatoes.  Seriously? Oh yes.

We did a little bit of walking around downtown and along the harborwalk and enjoyed looking at all of the old buildings.

One night we went crazy and walked into town for drinks at Big Tuna, a wonderfully eclectic and comfortable bar/restaurant.  As soon as we walked in, I saw a huge birdcage with a parrot and a lady eating at the bar with her dog quietly sitting at her side—clearly our kind of place.

We also did some boat work, of course, including polishing exterior stainless and doing research on our upcoming trip to the Western Caribbean.  It was a nice few days, but we were raring to go once the weather gave us a chance.

The area surrounding Georgetown’s “old town” is a lovely respite full of intriguing architectural details and plants.