After heading out of Charleston, we spend the next week with another string of early mornings in order to maximize our pre-work traveling time to push north. We were aiming to get all the way through the Waccamaw River, where there is no civilization, and to a town with a convenient airport for flying back to Seattle for a week of in-person work for David followed by his sister’s wedding.
We spent the week at peaceful anchorages, mostly alone, working through the remaining fresh food in the fridge in preparation to fly out at the end of the week.
However, on our way to Wilmington, where in early in the week we decided would be our airport destination, we decided to stop in Myrtle Beach for 2 nights. We had been through here last year, while everything was still closed, and I had seen the huge sign for “Dolly Parton’s Pirate Voyage”. I had made David put this on our list of “things we want to do when restrictions lift”. We managed to snag tickets to the show for our second night. On the evening of our first night, I managed to convince David to head in to Myrtle Beach proper on the scooters to ride the ferris wheel. We pulled out the big scooters, since it was about 8 miles away. We discovered that the front brake on my scooter is completely broken, so yet another project for another day….
We arrived at the wheel after sunset, so we didn’t really get to see much of the view over the beach and ocean, but did get a good view of the boardwalk area of Myrtle Beach.
The next evening, I was SO READY for the pirate show. It was essentially just across the street from the marina, so after work we headed there.
Once you walk inside the building, it is an EXPERIENCE. Our tickets were for the Sapphire ship, and we were ushered in to one side of the theatre. The show is a variety/cirque dinner show with a pirate battle theme. Once the show opens, the audience is inaugurated as pirates of either the Sapphire or Crimson captains. We were treated to pole, doubles aerial silks, mermaid lyra, performing seals and sea lions, pirate sword fights, spectacular circus diving, and much more!
WHAT FUN! It was a great way to cap off a long week of traveling north, and we didn’t have too far to go the next day where we arrived in Southport where we’d leave the boat while we flew to Seattle.
Very nice story, but your observation of the Waccamaw River ( the Intercoastal Waterway between Georgetown and Myrtle Beach) is partly spot on. Myself as being a former Manager/Owner of a Marina in that stretch knows that this is some of the most beautiful and historic part of the entire intercoastal Waterway from Gavelston to Maine. Not only this, not sure now but when I was there, my policy at the Marina was to give boaters free courtesy rides for provisions, sightseeing and free rides to and from airports.we had a restaurant on-site but if our boaters wanted other options we made recommendations and provided free courtesy rides to accommodate. . Even though there is not a lot of commercial activity through this beautiful part, there are many reasons to stop and enjoy and meet the locals who could tell you the history of the Waccamaw that would probably more interesting than you can imagine. We could even tell you about the real stories of Pirates from back in the day.
Yeah, we definitely enjoy our time on the Waccamaw and try to time our passage through there to enjoy it. This one trip, unfortunately, we had to rush through due to some time constraints, since we needed to get to an airport. 🙁