We're now in Charleston, tied up at the City Marina for a couple of nights. Tomorrow we'll just relax and enjoy the city.

After Wrightsville Beach we caught a fast ebb current down the Cape Fear River and rode it out through the inlet. The forecast had promised a beam reach across 10-15 knot north winds, gusting to 20. What we found were 2-4 knots, gusting to 5, so we sailed only a couple of hours and mostly motored to the Little River inlet. We anchored behind Bird Island along with one other boat, a power yacht from New York.

In the morning a strong south wind was fighting against an even stronger ebb current. We had to back up to get to our anchor. Not wanting to beat or motor into 20-25 knot winds outside, we stayed in the waterway all day, motoring into that ebb current for hours. The 20 mile stretch through the Myrtle Beach area is always depressing. The banks have mostly been bulldozed bare and carved up into tiny lots slowly filling up with large, ugly, three-story block houses which ironically appear identical even though no two display exactly the same ornamentation. Relief from this mindless monotony came when we reached the mostly unspoiled cypress forest lining the Waccamaw River. We stopped for the night, alone, in Thoroughfae Creek, bordered by abandoned rice fields.

Yesterday we stopped in Georgetown on our way out Winyah Bay. I've always liked that town with its lively Main St, its board walk along the river and, most of all, the Kudzu Bakery. The harbor has been filling up with liveaboard moorings but we found a small niche we could fill while having lunch and making a short visit ashore. We sailed back down the Bay and anchored just inside the inlet, miles away from the nearest boat or any other form of civilization.

This morning we once again had strong opposing wind and current and an anchor dead astern. We fought our way out the inlet against the flooding current then sailed a fast broad reach to Charleston. Along the way we heard much radio chatter about shoals and boats aground in the waterway and were even happier to be offshore sailing at hull speed.

Every day, whether inside or outside, we hear the same boat names being hailed by faster power boats wanting to pass. We've seen all these boats at one time or another - in the waterway, at an anchorage, in the locks or at a dock. Most of them are larger and faster than Gorgeous Girl but somehow we keep up with them, leapfrogging each other all the way south.