Hey Steve,

...of the transient southbound migration, who knows? Perhaps the stimulus check that their Appalachain Trail-Hiking Guv originally wanted to turn down finally arrived? But, I'll bet one of the city's busiest businesses during those couple of weeks probably is none too pleased, The City Marina will likely lose a LOT of revenue with much of the traffic virtually halted during that time... Fortunately, the big-spending sportfishermen and larger motoryachts heading south are not gonna be daunted by an ICW bridge closure unless the weather is bad... But still, keeping a herd of cruisers at bay outside of a city like Charleston during the week just prior to one of the busiest travel holidays of the year does strike me as a rather unthinking bit of scheduling... Not just for boaters passing through, but possibly for the local residents, as well. We all know many of these large public works construction projects sometimes run into delays in completion, and Thanksgiving weekend for those living on Sullivan's Island without the use of that bridge could be a real PITA...

Not like the first time this has ever happened, of course. One of the more memorable closures of the ICW occurred about 15 years ago, when they decided to do a week's worth of scheduled maintenance on a railroad bridge in Norfolk in early May... UFB... What was worse, the CG did an incredibly poor job of alerting boaters about the closure, many boats made it to Coinjock before they even heard about it (different world back then, remember (grin)) Created the most massive jam up the waterway has ever seen, Coinjock Marina had boats rafted halfway across the canal, 8-10 deep... That project went a couple of days long, and when they finally open the Ditch again to the stampeding herd, it was amazing no one was KILLED... LOL!

best regards,

Jon