Day 292 – Georgetown, SC to Marina at Grande Dunes, Myrtle Beach, SC - April 23, 2012

The day started out clear and cool – jeans and fleece jacket weather.  Tom and Barb are headed back home this morning, so we packed up their car before casting off the dock lines.  We commented on how nice it was to see blue sky today since we’ve had rain and clouds for the past couple of days.  Unfortunately the blue sky didn’t last.  High clouds began to move in and although the sun managed to peek through every so often we were still back to clouds.  Still, the clouds could not take away from the beauty of the area we travelled through.  We spent most of today cruising the Waccamaw River – our guide book says this is one of the most beautiful sections of the ICW and we agree.  The trees are spectacular and we saw many osprey in their nests.

Fred found a good stop for fuel at Wacca Wache Marina part way along today’s journey, so we stopped and filled up the fuel tanks and pumped out the holding tanks (so did Frank and Carrie).  Our friend Tom told us that the restaurant here had excellent burgers, so we decided to stop for lunch as well.  They let us stay tied up to the fuel dock and we enjoyed lunch at the Hannah Banana Cabana.  Tom was right – the burgers were excellent!

With our stop off for fuel and lunch, we arrived at the Marina at Grande Dunes just after 3:30pm.  Once the boat was all secured we called my aunt and uncle who live just north of Myrtle Beach to let them know we had arrived.  They stopped by for an hour or so in the evening to make plans for the next few days and to deliver a new salon chair to Once Around (Frank and Carrie had ordered the chair awhile ago and when they got the info that it was ready for delivery they had it shipped here).  The chair looks great and we now have plans for the next two days.

            Miles: 40.8      Bridges: 7        Locks: 0

the beautiful Waccamaw River

blue skies and easy travel

these trees are in the water at high tide

an osprey nest on a channel mark

another spot for building an osprey nest - in the top of
a very large dead tree

something did some damage to this tree (perhaps a wind
storm or lightning strike), but it continues grow

an osprey keeping an eye on her nest

trees along the Waccamaw River

Socastee Swing Bridge