On the Water with As You Wish: June 13 Tom Point Creek anchorage

June 13

Today was our last full day of traveling (just a short run tomorrow morning to cross our wake) and it looked like it would be a challenge. This section of the ICW takes you on a variety of marsh and semi wooded back rivers connected by man-made cuts. There were 3 narrow cuts that we needed to transit and there are all sorts of warnings about shoaling and shallow water. They are the Ashepoo-Coosaw cut, Fenwick cut and Watts cut. The entrance to the first one from the southern end supposedly is the shallowest and was about a 2-1/2 hour cruise from Lady’s Island Marina. After consulting all the tide and current charts we decided a 10AM departure from the marina would have us leaving there at slack low water but getting to the first cut about 3 hours into the incoming tide providing an additional 2-3’ of depth. Honestly, we never could figure what all the drama is about as the lowest water we saw was 7’ under our 5’ keel. We simply stayed in the channel with a little maneuvering to stay in the deepest water as shown on our Navionics sonar charts. We had an interesting armada of center console boats coming out of one cut as we approached. Must be the weekend!! No social distancing on those boats as they were all loaded with big groups of people.

Leaving Beaufort we passed this historic home used in the movies

"The Big Chill" and "The Great Santini"

A convoy of 20+center consoles heading south

A couple of stragglers coming out of the cut

We were all prepared for a rainy trip as the weather reports were calling for 10 mph winds from the NE and intermittent showers. Forecasters missed on both accounts. Winds were blowing a bit stronger most of the day and we never hit any rain showers. That wind kept the temperatures and humidity at very nice levels which was a pleasant change from the past week. Late in the trip as we turned north up the Edisto River, we hit a particularly strong stretch of wind that kicked up some waves. After splitting a decent sized one the wind grabbed some of the water and blew it up very unexpectedly onto us in the flybridge. We hadn’t had that kind of fun in a while.

Commercial tow on the choppy Edisto River.

Nothing like the ones we experienced on the river system

We made it to Tom Point Creek around 3:30 and dropped the anchor. One other boat already here but plenty of room for us. After chillin’ a bit we had our last dinner on board and then watched another incredible sunset.