We have gotten a kick out of some of the place names on our Great Loop. The first was one of Heather’s favourite stops at Paducah, Kentucky. Apalachicola, Florida and Choctawhatchee Bay are just fun to say. In this blog we go to Wacca Wache Marina and Sneads Ferry. What’s in a name? Wacca Wache comes from the Waccamaw Indians and means “happy, happy”. Sneads Ferry was referred to as “lower ferry” and was eventually named after Robert Snead, who was a prominant settler in the area.
Charleston, SC to Murrell’s Inlet @ Wacca Wache Marina
It was time to leave Charleston and the marina staff told us that slack tide was at 8:12 AM so we should leave anytime within the 30 minutes leading up to that. We pulled away at 7:40 and it was perfect. Heather had checked several wave forecasts for the Sound and once again saw very conflicting forecasts but most at least had a 1:2 ratio (one had 3.5 foot waves!). Thankfully, we could see the Sound from the marina and it looked pretty good. In reality, we had waves less than a foot. Go figure! We finally figured out that some forecasts cover a range of 50 km and others just 8 km. The ones with a range of 50 km were likely giving us the forecasts of the open ocean.
Our original plan for the day was to go to Georgetown, SC which was at the next large inlet. The water conditions looked pretty rough, but we figured it was about two foot waves with a comfortable wave period. We decided to slug it and go to Wacca Wache in Murrell’s Inlet, where we had planned a fuel stop for the next day. We picked up the pace and arrived about 2:40 PM. It took over an hour to fuel up so we were glad we got that done!
We met the crew from Sabbatical briefly on the dock while we were fuelling. Then we had a visit with the crew on the brand new Beneteau power boat beside us. The owner and friends were bringing the boat home. We laughed as the last crew member jumped on the boat with his shower towel over his shoulder, shaving kit under his arm, and uncombed hair, as the boat was just pulling away. We had a nice visit with our Loop friends Dallas and Cathy from After Hours, who we'd met on the inland rivers. They were leaving their boat in Myrtle Beach and flying from there to go to the Bahamas. That's a good way to get there!
Murrell’s Inlet to Southport, NC @ Safe Harbor Southport Marina
The next morning, the boat was covered in hundreds of mayflies, also called shad flies, so Cam hosed them off. The eisenglass on the bridge was all fogged up so we had to run a heater to clear the windows before we could leave. It was a beautiful, still journey that morning. We watched the rippling reflections of our tree lined path as we wound around lots of gentle curves. We were also treated to the smells of all the coniferous and deciduous trees. It was starting to smell more like home. The palm trees seemed to be gone but we still had some Oak trees covered in Spanish Moss, which we had been enjoying since St Augustine.
We passed lots of homes along the water, including some very palatial ones. Most of them had docks so there were lots of no-wake zones. We passed a few golf courses in Myrtle Beach and a beautiful lighthouse at the entrance to the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club. It wasn't on the charts so it wasn't official. River lighthouses tend to be much lower structures as they don’t have to be visible from great distances.
Just before lunch we crossed into North Carolina. The southeast border is marked by this section of the waterway. It had been only 13 days since we left Florida. We were five days in Georgia, and eight days in South Carolina and we had just entered our 11th state on our Great Loop. Overall, it was a long day with a lot of no wake zones. We arrived in Southport around 3:15 PM. We accidentally made our reservations at the wrong marina in Southport so we didn't get to go to our Harbor Hosts' home for Porch-tails. Too bad. Later, Robert told us that he would have picked us up and brought us over. Anyway, we took a walk instead and then came back for dinner on the boat.
Southport, NC to Sneads Ferry, NC @ Swan Point Marina
We were on a long face dock on the ICW so we were woken early by the wake of a boat going by. Most boats are courteous and slow down but there is always someone in a hurry. We chose to leave later so the tide would be higher when we went through Snows Cut. Cam did an engine check and found that the fuel filters were at 50%. He had just changed them in Jekyll Island when he did the oil change. The sudden jump seems to indicate that we got dirty fuel somewhere. We didn't necessarily get it at our last fuel stop because getting fuel can stir up sediment that's on the bottom of the tanks. The rough water in the crossing some of the Sounds could have stirred things up too. It's hard to say. We had two spare filters and we would likely need to switch them in one or two days. The filters were doing their job of keeping the sediment from the engines. Cam spent the time before departure looking for a source to get more. After several calls, he found two in Oriental, NC and we planned to be there the next day. They also ordered more for us so we would have a good supply.
Our departure from the dock was new for us. The dock hand orchestrated it and it went perfectly. We removed all lines except for the forward mid on the port side. The dock hand slowly eased out on that line while Cam kicked starboard forward in and out of gear. The stern moved away from the dock. He threw the line to Heather and Cam reversed and gave a bit of a bow thrust and we were off. Before we knew it, we were in the Cape Fear Inlet heading north. The traffic was crazy going through Snows Cut and it was busy like that with lots of recreational boats until the end of the day. At one point, a small boat with six or seven young men went by. One was holding on to the roof and letting his legs fly out as they bounced over our wake. No one was wearing life
jackets. When we got to Wrightsville, we had to wait 10 minutes for the bridge to open and we were in strong wind and current. Cam had just turned the boat South again to hold our position by moving into the wind. The same boat with the young men came racing up behind us and one of the guys went flying off the boat in this very busy narrow channel. Cam called a Man Overboard, but I doubt that any of the boats in the immediate vicinity of chaotic recreational boaters were monitoring VHF 16. The small boat manoeuvred and the guy got back on board so Cam cancelled the call.
It was getting late in the day for boating and we were about an hour from our intended anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay. The number of boats on the water had dropped significantly. Suddenly, the high temperature alarm sounded on the Starboard engine so we turned it off immediately. Cam did an engine check and found water under the engine. We were miles from anything! We used the Skipper Bob's book and found the New River Marina was the closest to us. After talking to them a few times, they suggested we call the marina next door as they might be better able to accommodate us out of the wind and current. We were travelling at about 4-5 knots on one engine. It was a challenge getting into Swan Point Marina due to the wind and current so Cam ended up starting the starboard engine to get us in to the marina and past a shallow shoaling area near the entrance. We tied up and were glad to be safe and secure.
In the morning, a mechanic came in named Nathan. Nathan had a neck injury so Jim, the Harbormaster, acted as his hands. They decided that it was the impeller but they couldn't get it out and needed a bolt which we couldn't buy until Monday. Armed with a bolt on Monday, they tried again but ended up calling a mobile mechanic named Andrew who came on Tuesday. Andrew decided that a bolt on the top of the water pump had been loose and eventually sheared off with the vibration. That meant the cam was loose and the impeller was spinning freely in the cam. It was on the same water pump that we replaced in Florida so it had been working it's way loose since then. He got it fixed and then changed the engine zincs and the generators zincs for us while he was there. Andrew and his young protege left and we got underway. Ten minutes later the high temperature alarm went off again so we turned around and headed back to Swan Point Marina. At first we thought we'd left the sea cock closed, which meant that the engine wasn't getting any water for cooling, but 10 minutes of idle in the slip triggered the alarm again so Andrew, the mechanic returned. As it turned out, we did leave the sea cock closed so the new impeller was shredded! Fixed again, and feeling a little sheepish, we were away again by 11:40 AM.
We had three days in Sneads Ferry. In between visits with the mechanics, we had a lot of free time to explore the small town. We worked on blogs and videos, and went for a walk.
We stopped by New River Marina next door to thank them for their help and let them know we were okay. We wanted to go out for dinner and checked the Uber app and got the town's one and only driver to take us to the Riverview Cafe where we had a Mothers' Day dinner. Apparently, he sometimes drives when he's in town on the weekends. He told us he would wait to cover our ride home before he left town. It
was a very busy little restaurant so we ended up eating at the counter. Heather ordered snow crab legs and they came in a small roasting pan. She'd never eaten from a roasting pan before! Cam ordered the Seafood Platter and got a ton of food! The Uber driver came back and was waiting for us after dinner. We used the Uber app to make the ride official, and he drove us back to our boat and then left town.
On Monday, we got our bikes down. We drove to a gift shop that we had spotted on Sunday. We bought some souvenir coasters there. Then we found a bunch of shrimp boats and bought some fresh shrimp right out of the barrel! We biked over the bridge and found a bunch more boats with another fish market. We were trying to figure out how the shrimp boats caught the shrimp so we went over and talked to a couple of shrimpers. We learned that when they lower the outriggers down, the cone shaped trawl nets go down to the bottom (about 35 to 45 feet). They drag along the bottom scooping up lots of shrimp and, occasionally, snagging on rocks. The boats are usually out for five to six days and they come back with about 5000 pounds of shrimp! We really enjoyed our visit with them and learned a lot. Since we already had shrimp, we bought some frozen lobster tail before we biked back to the boat. Overall, Sneads Ferry was a pretty vacation village and we enjoyed the folks we met.
Click on the photos below to view the images in slideshow mode. You can also watch our videos on South Carolina and Losing an Engine in North Carolina. Coming up next, we go to Oriental, NC and the Alligator River.
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