Friday 3-13-09 thru Monday 3-16-09
The weather was crappy and forecast to stay that way for several days so we arranged to stay at Osprey Marina. Why not? Their rates are great, the facilities nice and the folks that run the place are as good as they come. Friday we fueled and cleaned up the boat, relaxed, read and then at 6:00PM Mike Scatori arrived to take us to his restaurant where we had reserved a table for dinner. Kevin, the chef, came right to our table and “said” he remembered us from our stop in October. Dinner was again excellent, and after we did a bit of shopping at the supermarket next to the restaurant, Mike returned us to the marina.
Saturday was true to the forecast with fog, drizzle and cool temps so we checked into a rental from Enterprise and by 2:00 we were on our way to check out the Myrtle Beach area from shore side. We drove to the town of Georgetown, SC and found a pleasant little town trying to stay alive by re-tooling as a cute tourist spot – we hope it works out for them. We found MB to be a linear small city that is a combination of tourist shops and golf courses with some very large camping resorts and high-rise condos. Apparently it has become a wintering spot for Canadians from Ontario and Quebec. The local Sunday news paper has a separate section devoted to news from Canada and what’s going on within the Canadian community.
Sunday was more of the same weather so we drove down to Murrells Inlet. Murrell’s Inlet is a small beach community south of Myrtle Beach and it has a bit of water front charm unlike Myrtle Beach. They have a dock / boardwalk called The Marsh Walk which is about ½ mile long and extends out into the shallow water and marsh land. We saw a number of shore birds but the low overcast and fog didn’t let us see all of the beauty I’m sure it offers in nice weather. We stopped by Scatori’s for a pizza at lunch time and at a Wal-Mart for a few miscellaneous items before returning to the boat.
After returning the car, Monday, it began to rain in earnest, so we decided to stay another night and leave with the better weather forecast for Tuesday. Most evenings during our shore side stay we entertained ourselves by watching the DVDs my sister, Lorraine, loaned us for the trip. We finished out all of the Brit comedy series and got back to the series called “Backstairs at the White House” which gave us a refresher course in presidential history. We are hoping the next good weather window will allow us to push another couple hundred miles up the ICW.