Again it was beastly hot as we left Osprey Marina. While I love the South, its people and its charm, I do not like the heat and humidity. I have no idea how people survived here before air conditioning. We continued to travel up the narrow manmade cut along the ICW path and slowly we began to see evidence of civilization. The Jungle Princess was our first clue, then a condo building and finally an outlet mall, so we knew that Myrtle Beach was not far away. 
I know that there are some people who think that what we are doing by taking this boat trip is conspicuous consumption, however, I think the following is evidence that golfers take the prize! This is a cable car system that transports golfers from one side of the golf course to the other and back again. 
On our trip today we also would encounter another first: a pontoon bridge. Upon first hearing of it, we could not image what it would look like…but the reality was even stranger than we could have imagined. It is a single lane bridge built on a pontoon that swings around so that boats may pass through at designated times. However, the bridge does not “swing” during low tide, so we had about two hours to wait before the tide would rise enough so that the bridge would open and we could pass. We decided that we would try to go out into the ocean again during our two hour wait. So we backtracked about three miles to the channel from the ICW to the Atlantic. Since it was the start of the 4th of July weekend, the waterway was very crowded with lots of go fast boats and crazy drivers but we made our way to the inlet. What we were not prepared for was the shallowness of the water…we did not run aground, but we nudged bottom a couple of times, so Captain Mark quickly maneuvered the Lolligag back into deeper water (3 to 4 feet) to make our way back down the ocean channel to the ICW.
By the time we made it back to the pontoon bridge, we had about a twenty minute wait for the bridge to “swing”. Captain Mark used this time to read the cruising guide to learn that the inlet that we used to try to enter the Atlantic should only be used during high tide…no wonder all of the other boaters in that area were anchored and playing in the water…
So we made it through the pontoon bridge and shortly thereafter located a spot to anchor for the evening just on the inland side of an ocean dune. This was nice as it provided a wonderful ocean breeze for sleeping.
Hours on the water: 7.5
Nautical miles traveled: 48
Number of bridges to be opened: 1
Time spent waiting at bridge: 20 minutes
Next Destination: Joyner Marina
What we're listening to: Finished Ten Big Ones and started Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich
What we watched: Our depth gauge
Lesson for the day: It is always a good idea to read the cruising guides first
Obligatory knitting report: Hats & scarves for the Wunder Kids
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