So we made our way south from Southport, arriving at the other end of Oak Island at the aptly named Lockwood's Folley. We encountered a situation where the channel markers on the chart were different from what was actually before us. When we have encountered this before we try to follow the actual channel markers unless the chart and/or our eyes are strongly recommending another path. Okay so far, but it is almost low tide, and appears that Dorian and such have perhaps done some recent remodeling not accounted for by some or most of our guides. At which point we run aground in the sand. We had slowed down a lot by then, so really just a couple bumps, but we clearly weren't going anywhere until we had some more water.
Now we had more time to discuss our options! We were at most barely off the line indicated by the green channel marker. The chart showed that one of the least objectionable paths lay just to the right of the marker, so when passing boats threw us a wake I tried to use them to bump our way in our intended direction, which worked maybe half the time. It felt weird wanting boats to wake us as they passed. At least we had a nice view.
After maybe an hour we had plowed maybe a dozen yards to the correct side of the marker, but we were still aground. There may have not been any good options at low tide. It took another half hour of the tide rising to finally get us going. This would prove to be an important experience over the next few days. This was the longest we had been aground since the disastrous Sarasota episode a couple years ago.
Once free of the sand we continued down to Myrtle Beach. We planned on going across the ditch to some highly rated restaurant, but when we got to the top of the stairs we just stopped at the marina restaurant, which turned out to have good food and drinks. Mine came in a little bucket advertising some sort of rum.
The next morning we continued down to Georgetown, which we had skipped on the way up. It was a cute little town that was obviously trying real hard. As we were leaving the boat we saw this just off the dock. We're still not certain, but it appeared to be an alligator that had gotten tangled up in a trash bag. It was gone when we got back.
At dinner Heather finally cracked the code on what vegetable means in the south. It means not meat.
It looked like a paper plant was off in the distance, giving Georgetown yet another similarity with Brunswick.
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