Huntington Beach State Park… Day 3

 

Wednesday, 10/30/2013

Huntington Beach State Park

Murrells Inlet, SC

Today we, and three other couples, took our Sea Eagles out for a paddle on the Intracoastal Waterway.  Paul & Marti, George & Laurie, Howard & Linda, and Terri & I drove over to the public boat ramp next to Wacca Weche Marina and pumped up our Sea Eagles.

           

Soon Howard & Linda were checking with the rest of us to see if we were ready…

and off we went to the water’s edge.

Marti & Paul

Linda & Howard

George & Laurie

We all launched successfully and headed south with the outgoing tide.

     

     

The scenery was beautiful along the waterway.

     

Here’s George & Laurie…

and Paul & Marti...

and Howard & Linda.

We continued on…

until Howard and Linda found a narrow inlet to navigate.  Of course we all followed them, some of us (Terri, George, and Laurie) reluctantly.

We didn’t travel far before we had to turn around and head back out.

Paul & Marti are heading toward us…

and George & Laurie are heading away from us.

I really enjoyed this little side trip into the “jungle.”

Once back on the main waterway we continued south after an airplane and a few larger vessels passed by.

     

     

Howard & Linda found another “side trip” to explore.  They had gotten a little ahead of the rest of us, so when we got there we waited a while to see if they would come back out.

           

They didn’t, so we headed in too. 

Soon we met up with them.

They were on their way back to see what had happened to us.  Laurie checked Google maps on her phone and it was determined that we were on a loop that would come back around to the main waterway, so we decided to follow it.

     

     

     

It was a lovely paddle along this waterway with calm water and very little wind.

Here are a couple great views showing the depth change from high to low tide.

We had timed our float to coincide with the tides and had it figured out that by the time we were ready to head back north, the tide would have changed direction.  We were just a bit early, and the water was at “slack” tide.  Paul explained that at “slack tide” there was no current because we were between low and high tides.  We headed north back to the boat ramp where our vehicles were parked.  Before we reached the ramp, we did notice the current had changed and was beginning to head north.

     

According to Howard, we paddled about three hours and travelled about five miles!

After our return to the campground, the whole group enjoyed pizza, and of course dessert too. 

PIZZA TIME!!!

                       

It was all excellent!  “Thank you” to Paul & Marti for picking up the pizzas for us!

The rest of the evening was spent around the campfire.

           

Another awesome day with friends!