posted 01-12-2006 11:36 AM ET (US)            

I have made the trip twice, Both times I left Conway around 9:00 AM and was able to get to Georgetown before the restaurants opened for lunch. I believe that it is approximately 50 miles by water (each way).

On my trips I continued on to Charleston but I think that it might be a bit much to organize a Conway to Charleston trip because that would be slightly over 100 miles each way.

If everyone could get to Conway by 11:00 AM on Saturday then we could launch at the marina and pay $3 to leave our vehicles and trailers there overnight and be underway by noon.

We could cruise at an average speed of 20 mph and be in Georgetown by 2:30 PM.

If we go on a busy holiday weekend then there will be zillions of jetskis that will be trying to pass us at 50 mph as we slow for no wake zones. That is stressful. So it would be best to do it on an non-holiday weekend and maybe early in the season (April or May?).

There is overnight docking in Georgetown at one of several small marinas. You could sleep on your boat or there are half a dozen Bread and Breakfast places plus a Hampton Inn.

On Sunday morning my wife is going to want to walk around Georgetown and do the things that tourists like to do. I would rather not do that but would instead like to head out at 8:00 AM and explore the two forks of the Pee Dee River.

posted 01-12-2006 01:11 PM ET (US)            

The proposed trip sounds like a lot of fun! We’d be in the exploration group rather than the land loving biped excursion group.

posted 01-13-2006 10:53 AM ET (US)            

I live in the Charleston area and just need an excuse to run up the waterway to go to Georgetown. While we used to go south to Beaufort, I have never gone north (brrrr) that far. Going to redezvous with unmet friends sounds like the perfect excuse.

Let's work on a good weekend. The Florida Whaler events like Stuart and Sarasota are in late May and early June I think, so the spring sounds like a good time to do this.

Thanks,

posted 01-13-2006 01:50 PM ET (US)            

Looking forward to this working out for everyone interested. Let me know if I can do anything to help.

posted 01-15-2006 10:54 AM ET (US)            

The weekend after the proposed date is an APBA event in Marathon, with the Offshore Big Boys. Tons of fun but not sure if I will make this one either. Twelve hours of road/trailer time, fuel, room, registration, passes just to get on the course, etc..

I will be attending the Mt. Dora ACBS show March 24-26th with the JS-04. Awesome show which kicks off the entire season, and only 5 hours away.

posted 01-16-2006 12:00 PM ET (US)            

In April 2006 the Saturday-Sunday choices are
April 1-2
April 8-9
April 15-16 (Easter)
April 22-23
April 29-30

My recommendation is that we moor our boats at the Georgetown Landing Marina and that we stay next to the marina at either the Hampton Inn or the Jameson Inn.

The Georgetown Landing Marina (843-546-1776) is the largest marina in the area. It is located in Winyah Bay where Highway 17 crosses the Waccamaw River. Their rate is $1.20 per foot per night. They have showers and heads and you can sleep on your boat if you would like to do that.

The Hampton Inn (843-545-5000) connects to the Georgetown Landing Marina so that it is possible to get a room where you could step out on your balcony and look down on your boat. The Inn's rates are $99 per night (plus tax). The rooms have two Queen-size beds, refrigerator, microwave and wireless internet. A continental breakfast is included.

The Jameson Inn (843-546-6090) is $79 per night and it also has wireless internet and a continental breakfast. The only disadvantage to staying at the Jameson Inn is that it is across the street from the Hampton Inn/Georgetown Landing Marina, so you would be 100 yards from your boat.

The disadvantage to mooring at the Georgetown Landing and staying at either the Hampton Inn or the Jameson Inn is that these accomdations are a mile from historic Front Street with all of its shops and restaurants. But we might be able to dock at a restaurant for dinner. Also, we could either walk the mile from the hotel to Front St or take a taxi. So that should not be a big problem.

Alternatively, we could tie up the boats over night right on Front St at the Harbor Walk (843-546-4250) which charges $1.50 per foot and provides showers and heads. You can sleep on your boat if you wish to do so. We could also tie up at Hazard Marin (843-527-3625), which is $1.50 per foot, a little smaller than Harbor Walk, and is 1/2 mile from most of the activity on Front St.

The biggest problem to mooring on or near Front Street is that there are no hotels on Front St and the two downtown Bed and Breakfast establishments (the Duprey House and the Harbor House) have a two-night minimum (and are $139-$179 per night).

There will be lots of boats (mostly sailboats) anchored off of Front St. If I had a boat with a cabin this is what I would do. But since my boat is not setup for overnight sleeping, I recommend that we moor the boats at the fancy (but least expensive) Georgetown Landing Marina and get rooms at either the Hampton Inn or the Jameson Inn.

posted 01-17-2006 12:14 PM ET (US)            

Do we vote for one of the weekends above?

Thanks,

posted 01-17-2006 04:17 PM ET (US)            

April 22-23
April 29-30

My wife cannot attend on if we go on the weekend of the 22-23 so since she is excited about going to Georgetown I hope that we decide on the weekend of April 29-30 or else sometime in May. But if everyone else wants to go on April 22-23 then I will either go without my wife or else miss this trip.

I am also interested to see if people are okay with the idea of mooring at the Georgetown Landing Marina (meaning a one mile walk or taxi ride to the historic section of town). The overnight mooring cost is $1.20 per foot.

Also, would everyone rather stay at the Hampton (adjacent to the marina) or would we rather save $20 and go across the street to the Jameson? Maybe we have a good negotiator among us who could get the Hampton Inn to match the Jameson's rate of $79 if we agree to reserve half a dozen rooms.

I have no experience planning a rendezvous but Judge Nick (Bigshot) has done this so if he really willing to truck it up here from Florida then we could have propose an internary for us.

But to review what we have so far, I was thinking that boats could leave Conway marina at 11:00 AM Saturday morning which would give us an ETA in Georgetown at 1:30. We could congregate downtown (Front St) and dock somewhere temporarily long enough to have lunch and re-group.

Anyone joining us from the Charleston area would have to plan their own departure place and time.

We could then get back in the boats and cruise the one mile down to the marina and the hotel. Check in about 3:00 PM. Then we could drop off those that want to explore downtown by foot, and those that wanted to explore the Waccamaw or the Sampit River or the Great Pee Dee could do that.

Around 5:00 PM we could go back to the hotel to clean up, then head back downtown (either by boat, foot, or taxi) at about 7:00 for dinner.

On Sunday morning the fishermen could fish, explorers could explore, the walkers can walk, those who wanted to try out a new place of worship could do that, etc.

Then meet at 11:00 AM for lunch, and head back toward Conway or Charleston around noon.

posted 01-17-2006 05:19 PM ET (US)            

I am happy to call hampton Inn and see if I can negotiate a group rate, I am sure I can get some movement from them on it. I know I prefer to be closer to my boat for an overnight.

I will also try to get to BW and see if we can get some tee shirts and such, we would need someone with digital camera and maybe video agree to be the designated photographer/vidoegrapher.

so can we all agree to the weekend of April 29th as the "go to" date?

posted 01-17-2006 09:57 PM ET (US)            

We don't care where in the area we stay, so whoever makes the group call, sign us up.

posted 01-17-2006 10:21 PM ET (US)            

We are planning on taking the Temptation. No, we have not been that far up before, just as far as Awendaw. I have not had a chance to get a Waterway Chart yet, but others I have talked to said it's pretty straightforward. I will have a GPS installed by then, hopefully even a Chartplotter. No idea how long it will take, we usually just loaf along in the Temptation at about 3000 RPM (really just a good plane speed). Other than slowing down at Wild Dunes Marina, the trip up to Awendaw had no No Wake zones.

When we come up I-95, we usually exit at Point South (exit 33) and take US-17 into Charleston. That would take you right to the end of I-526 and right to the Duncan's Boat Harbor immediately after crossing the Ashley River bridge.

Tides are as follows:

04/27/2006 Thu 02:15AM LDT -0.6 L 08:16AM LDT 5.6 H 02:20PM LDT -0.9 L 08:39PM LDT 6.7 H

04/28/2006 Fri 03:06AM LDT -0.6 L 09:05AM LDT 5.5 H 03:07PM LDT -0.7 L 09:27PM LDT 6.7 H

04/29/2006 Sat 03:56AM LDT -0.4 L 09:54AM LDT 5.2 H 03:53PM LDT -0.5 L 10:14PM LDT 6.5 H

04/30/2006 Sun 04:45AM LDT -0.2 L 10:42AM LDT 5.0 H 04:40PM LDT -0.2 L 11:01PM LDT 6.2 H

Duncan's is "launchable" at any time.

Looking forward to the weekend!!

posted 01-18-2006 07:55 PM ET (US)            

There is also crabbing around Georgetown:
]url]http://www.blue-crab.org/forum/index.php/topic,4140.0.html[/url]

posted 01-19-2006 10:32 AM ET (US)            

Can anyone suggest a good source for charts on this run?

posted 01-24-2006 05:59 PM ET (US)            

http://www.freeboatingcharts.com/destinations.cfm?destlevel1=Region%2006%20-%20Norfolk%20VA%20to%20Florida%20including%20the%20ICW&destpack=CC&action=level2List

Then pull down the free charting program at:

http://www.maptech.com/support/doc.cfm?docid=123&CFID=14061261&CFTOKEN=57573193

This is great for a laptop for trip planning and you can print out the chart, but use a laser printer instead of an inkjet printer so that the colors won't run.

Hope this helps. Otherwise, West Marine, and BOAT/US have the ICW Charts in a big foldout pamplet.

posted 01-26-2006 05:27 PM ET (US)            

I’m sad to say that the date in April will not work for me. Hope you have a great trip. We will try to make the next one.

posted 01-27-2006 01:35 PM ET (US)            

11518_2 Charleston to Mt Pleasant

11518_1 Mt Pleasant to McClellanville

11534_7 Jericho Creek to Georgetown

11534_8 Georgetown/Winyah Bay

I am printing these out on a laser printer and hopefully can pass them out Saturday morning. I am also going to buy the real chart from the Armchair Sailor just to have a good, legitimate copy.

How many Charleston guys do we have going?

So far,
Ace & Joy in Temptation
Nick & Pup in 15' GLS
Zotch in 15' Sport
Wayne in ??

As we get closer, we can exchange cell phone numbers for the trip up & back. Getting excited already!

Ace

posted 01-28-2006 07:49 AM ET (US)            

Good question. I got the impression that Skip was going to ask for the bulk hotel rooms. I think we are going to drive to Georgetown today to do some reconnoitering.

1000 departure sounds good for now as a planning time. As we travel up, we can give our status to the Conway Crowd.

Skip,
Will you let us know? We want to stay wherever the group does, so please reserve us a room.

I have been trying to get in touch with Karrin at Whaler for some goodies, as suggested. Apparently she has moved up in the company, because the Whaler9 number goes straight to her desk now, instead of having to dial her extension. Good for her, she is a hard worker at the rendezvous.

posted 01-30-2006 10:57 AM ET (US)            

We drove up to Georgetown Saturday just to check out the site. Talked to the lady on duty at the Hampton Inn about group rates. Although she could NOT speak for the manager, the lady on duty said that because business had been so good lately, she felt that the manager might not be inclined to give group rates. On Saturday they still had about twenty rooms available for April 29th.

On an unrelated note, Joyce made reservation through the internet at HI for $79 per night, plus a non-refundable internet fee of $10. Lady at the front desk said that there is an $89 per night rate available if you call in. I guess in this case the phone wins over the internet.

I also asked if the hotel had any arrangement with the Gerogetown Landing (the marina right behind the HI hotel) and she replied in the negative. SO,I'll pass the buck on to you for further work.

posted 02-01-2006 09:19 AM ET (US)            

Is my assumption wrong that we can dock at the Marina overnight and sleep at Hampton Inn on sat night and then be able to fish and explore on Sunday AM? What am I missing?

Tight Lines to all.....

posted 02-01-2006 10:01 AM ET (US)            

Some friends of ours are going to borrow my 15 and come along, so we are a total of 4 adults and 2 children on 2 boats. Aside from Skip and his wife, is anyone else going to be meeting at the city marina in Conway, SC for an 11:00 AM departure?

It appears that there will be more people coming up from Charleston than coming down from Conway. Both stretches of river are scenic but they are different.

From Conway to Georgetown the river is relatively narrow with lots of turns and trees. My kind of river!

posted 02-01-2006 10:10 AM ET (US)            

There must be a long URL pasted somewhere up above. This thread is getting difficult to read!

Would you like to start a new thread that has the destination and the date in the title? Something like

posted 02-01-2006 11:01 AM ET (US)            

I'm planning on coming down from Wilmington with my Nauset 16 and meeting you at Conway. Is the "city marina" you mention above located at 4 Elm Street?

I found a little book in the UNCW library entitled: "Horry and the Waccamaw." The author, Franklin Burroughs, retraces the route originally taken by N.H. Bishop in his "manila paper" canoe in the 1870s. Bishop started at Lake Waccamaw and ended at Georgetown. I'm only a chapter or two into it, but I'll tell you this book is extremely well written and is a great reference for this river.

Best,