Sun May 31: Church Creek anchorage to Leland Oil Co Docks

In which we wake up in Church (Creek) on Sunday and then head into traffic.

Although this is a “tourist” type trip during which we are supposed to be exploring, we’ve decided that we want to get out of the south, the heat and humidity and this section of the coast that we’ve already traveled through once before.  So our days are a little longer.  Today we got up at a reasonable hour (sorry no lazing about!) and were motoring off by 8 am. 

The view from our cabin as we wake

We motored into Charleston harbor, looked at the city and motored on by saying hello and good-bye  in less than 40 minutes.  Total travel time was up at 7 hours, a longish day and on top of that we made the mistake of traveling on a Sunday which made it worse.  The intercostal waterway was inundated with weekend warriors taking a trip on the family boat.  We must have seen hundreds of boats all speeding at us or passing without slowing down.  You’ll remember that we cruise along at about 8 mph so all the high speed passes left us caught in the wakes left by these “mosquito” boats which us bounced around making for a not so comfortable ride. 

At one point we counted over 30 boats around us but eventually we got far enough away from Charleston that the boat traffic died down and we pulled calmly into the Leland Oil Company dock after 3 pm.  We stayed at this working dock on our way south last year and decided it would be okay to stop again.  We say “dock” because it isn’t a marina in the strict sense of the word.  Leland Oil company is a working fuel dock surrounded by working shrimp boats and has room for about 4 boats to tie up. They let us loopers dock overnight but we have to be out of the way in the morning so they can fuel up fishing boats. Located in McClelanville, SC, the only reason to stop here is the cheap diesel fuel and a somewhat famous seafood restaurant.  You may remember we tried to eat there last November only to find it closed for the annual town oyster boil...well they are also closed on Sunday and Monday so we are once again thwarted in our attempt to eat there. Darn, that means Rick has to cook again. 

We washed clothes and had dinner watching a lovely sunset.  Another beautiful day on the water!