From Civilization to the Wild Stretches of the Waccamaw River.

10/25/11
First of all, a most important message for today, is to wish our Granddaughter, Jordan a most Happy Eleventh Birthday!!

Today we passed under several high fixed bridges  along a narrow land cut that offered a wide variety of views. One of the most surprising was an aerial tramway on cables (for golfers) that passes right over the ICW... Beautiful golf courses, homes, wildlife, etc. Next, we came to the Socastee Bridge which is historically slow to get through due to an unresponsive bridge tender....However, this was our lucky day! There were three boats(who had passed us earlier) already waiting there, so when we showed up I guess the bridge tender figured it was high time he open up the swing bridge, so we just cruised on through
 "CAVU clear Bridge Tender, Have a nice day!" It is so much easier going through a bridge when you don't have to circle around waiting for the bridge to open while dodging other waiting boats and dealing with wind and current at the same time.
After going through the bridge the Waccamaw River becomes a windy, twisty, narrowi beautiful section of the Waterway. It is filled with swamps, marshes, endless deep creeks, dense forests, Spanish Moss, etc.....We decided to stop in the early afternoon at an oxbow off the river to drop the hook and spend the afternoon exploring some of the inlets and creeks in this protected area.  As we dinghied back into some of the creek channels It felt as if we had traveled hundreds of miles from chaos  into the raw, rugged, extreme isolation of another world...both eerie and awe inspiring. Then, within 4 or 5 minutes we dinghied back to CAVU, our own little sign of civilization. Another 2 boats joined Catspaw and CAVU for the night in this anchorage of peace an serenity.