Joys and tribulations of the Tides

Today was going to be our longest travel day at 48 miles assuming we could get through the Coosaw Cutoff. It is notorious for very low water and is impassable by 5' draft boats at low tide.

We left at a good time from Church Creek on the rising tide -- 1 hour till high. It is really nice traveling at high tide because all the warnings mean nothing when the high tide is 8' above normal. The only worry we had was FOG. We could see fog building between the trees -- ohh man I did not want to delay for fog. We left and the fog stayed over the ground and did not diminish visibility much in the ICW. We had PLENTY water. Although we had 28 miles to go till we hit the really troublesome water and that was projected to be 2 hours before low tide.

We had a very nice run with some adverse current and some advantageous current and hit the decision point for taking the normal course or the alternate course which I had never used about 11:30am. Well we were near mid tide so I took the normal course and then hit really adverse current. When we hit the Coosaw Cutoff sure enough the water was low -- mainly 8 - 10 feet with the lowest at 7.2' and this was mid tide. It was nerve wracking but we made it to the Coosaw River and thought "what a good boy I am" when I noticed my speed was now 3.7kts. I had no idea the current was that swift in the Coosaw on Ebb Tide. If you can time it better it would be best to hit the cutoff on a rising tide after mid tide and then have the favorable current up the Coosaw.

We did okay and reached the Lady's Island Bridge about 3:30pm. I called the marina and they hemmed and hawkd and found they lost me reservation!!!Aaaack. Well Steve was being as accommodating as possible and finally found a place to use -- rafted to his boat. We got the lines ready for a starboard tie and then he changed it to a port tie. Karen did not like having to shift the lines. Then he wanted us into slip and back to a starboard tie.. Karen was miffed to put it lightly.

Well we got in and tied up and then found the power pedestal did not work so I had to string my two power cords together and go to different pedestal but now we couldn't use both battery charger and AC at the same time. It was 83 so we opted for AC especially since this place is notorious for lots of bugs in the evening.

We are now cool and calm ready for a couple of nice days of not moving at the crack of dawn.