We departed south with friends mid-day on Friday the 21st of January. We had a brief grounding incident in the charleston harbor due to mis-reading of the charts on my part, but got that sorted out and made pretty good progress southward.
Towards the end of the day we came to the McKinlery Washington Jr highway bridge at mile 500 on the ICM. It has 2 paved boat ramps with a floating concrete dock in between. We were planning on making a few more miles and anchoring out in the south Edisto, but this seemed like a good idea, so we pulled up and tied off. Being paranoid, I figured we ought to disconnect the starter battery so we didnt drain it overnight. Pual, being even more paranoid than me, thought we ought to try it and make sure it would start the motor. It turned over reluctantly, so we decided not to use any battery power that night.
I checked the water before turning in and we still had a good 7-8 feet of water at the bow at mid-tide. It was pretty windy all night, so we didnt sleep all that well. About 3 am the local rednecks started showing up to go duck hunting. About every 15 or 30 minutes one would launch their boat, some more reasonable than others. I was expecting the Charleston County Parks authority to show up and give us a ticket for overnight stopping when i heard some voice exclaim "I'll give them a knock on the side to wake them up". Turns out it was a redneck duck hunter cause as i was pulling my pants and boots on to go up on deck i hear our new wake up call: "Wake the fuck up, assholes!" Apparently redneck duck hunters cant maneuver their jon boat around a sailboat with a mere 20 foot clearance at 4 am....