We have enjoyed our stay at St. John’s Yacht Harbor but it’s time to move on. We released our lines this morning (Monday 7/15) at about 8:45 in route to Leland Oil Company Marina in McClellanville, SC. Lots to see on the water this trip. More beautiful waterfront homes, pretty commercial area, Coast Guard Station, interesting bridges, people fishing, people jet skiing, signs on the water about hurricane regulations, dredges, barges and sunken barges, numerous small go-fast boats, boats in the grass and a smiley face with an eye patch. We had a very interesting sail which made the five-plus hours go by pretty fast. It was all fun and uneventful until the last three miles, at Matthews Cut, where the water got REAL SKINNY. We saw our depth sounder go from around eight feet to three-six. Yikes! We draw three-eight so I don’t know how we made it through. We were overtaking another boat for several hours that turned out to be another Mainship. They suddenly appeared to have stopped so we called them on the VHF and they said they had run aground and would follow us, but apparently they were stuck. As we passed them we saw they also had a Looper burgee.

Around 2:00pm we arrived at Leland Oil Company Marina. Well, it’s not really a marina but a long dock with mostly working boats tied up. When we arrived, the two boats that were on the other side of the dock were sitting on the bottom and none of the boats were occupied. We hopped off the boat and took the doggies for a walk. It was quite hot and as we walked to the small town about a quarter mile away a man in a car pulled up beside us and told us there wasn’t much to see in the town and asked if we wanted a ride. His name was Gabriel Purvis and he was related to Melvin Purvis who was the GI man who single handedly killed John Dillinger. Nice man but we declined to get in the car and continued our walk to Boats N Hoagies (the only place that was open on Monday) and got home-made ice cream. We were told that T.W. Graham & Company Seafood Restaurant is excellent but not open today. Darn. We then walked to the shrimp boats dock and bought a pound of fresh shrimp for five dollars.

This is an extremely charming town with beautiful old houses with big front porches and lovely gardens.  They claim the oak tree by the park is 1,000 years old! Around 5:30 I took another walk-about and it was so quiet I could hear the birds chirping, cicadas singing and my flip flops flapping against my feet. Children were riding bikes and a few vehicles (mostly pick-up trucks) passed by me and they all waved at me. It’s like an “Ozzie and Harriet” neighborhood. Beautiful and peaceful.

Plan to leave in the morning for Georgetown, SC…..