We left Georgetown about 7:15 am today and it was 45 degrees this morning. We are headed to Grand Dunes Marina in Myrtle Beach. It’s about 40 miles today. We tried to make reservations at Osprey Marina and they were full, we called a few others and they were also full so this was our 3 or 4 choice and ordinarily we might not have stayed here simply because the price here is a bit more expensive than most. We have caught up with the great loop crowd of boats and I guess I need to think about reservations about a week out now instead of just a day or two. So I already made reservations for Southport for the next several days after Grand Dunes.

Today we have 6 fixed bridges, which we don’t worry too much about since we just motor right under these with just a quick verification of the water level and the actual height of the bridge. Most are 65 feet and we need about 58 feet to clear so these are straight forward. We also have one swing bridge today. We have to radio to the bridge operator to have the swing bridge opened for us.

Here we are going through:

Grand Dunes is a very upscale area in Myrtle Beach. There are many expensive and lovely looking homes along the ICW in this area.

The marina was very nice and we were along long face dock with one other sailboat. There was some space between us and the other sailboat behind us. Just after we got settled we saw another sailboat entering the harbor and it appeared the dock hands were standing at the ready to have this boat squeeze in between us and the boat behind us. We kept looking at the length of the boat approaching and the length of the open spot on the dock. It looks like it is going to be a tight fit. The sailboat was called Rhapsody in Blue and we heard him on the VHF today in our travels. He pulled in rather well and then the stern of his boat got a bit too close to the boat on the dock behind us. His wife had to push away from the boat behind us and as she did, she reached for the only thing that she could get her hands on which was the boats anchor. As she pushed away the back of the anchor lifted out of the anchor locker and when she let go, it slammed back down and made, I am sure, I loud bang. The owner of the other boat was aboard and down below when he heard the noise and popped his head out to see what was going on. I assured him his boat was fine, it was just his anchor that moved up and down. So all was good and Rhapsody in Blue made in the space with just a foot on either end of his boat.

Along the way to Grand Dunes marina we had a boat pass us and as soon as the boat was along side of us, we were like, ooohhh….what kind of boat is that? We have been thinking about someday when perhaps we might no longer own a sailboat and what we might want to do in the future. We have had thoughts of eventually buying a trawler and taking up the canal systems to Lake Champlain and through the Trent Severn canals into Canada and the trip is not well suited to a sailboat with a mast. The boat that passed us was a Mariner Orient 40. We have never seen one of these boats before. As it turns out they also pulled into the Grand Dunes Marina and we were able to chat with them about their boat. The hull was made in Taiwan and the finished and fitted in the Chesapeake area.

There is a great little restaurant at the marina that we checked out for dinner called the Anchor Cafe at the end of the pier.

We are here for just one night and then we are moving on to Southport tomorrow.