Lockwood Folly

Thursday 11-12-2015, 0645, 58 degrees F.  Wind westerly, slight. Incoming tide.  62 degrees. Partially cloudy.

Headed down ICW early from the sleepy Hamlet of Southport to arrive at ‘Lockwood Folly’ at near high tide.  Lockwood Folly River and Inlet are danger areas Hank talked about last night, a typical ocean inlet with strong tidal flows and resultant shoaling at strategic points, right smack on the ICW. So best to negotiate at high tide. Which we did, successfully!

Legend has it that the Lockwood Folly River got its name because a Mr. Lockwood, worked tirelessly for many months to build the boat of his dreams, only to discover that he had made the boat’s draft too deep to clear the sandbar at the inlet. Abandoned, the boat rotted in place.

Draft, by the way, for you novices, is the depth of the boat in the water.

I bet the next twenty years of Mr. Lockwood’s life were hard to bear. “There goes old woodhead Lockwood, the guy that built that there boat.” Things were probably not pleasant at the local pub where Locky went to have a warm swill. “Hey bonehead, how’s the boat coming?” Great peals of laughter could be heard for miles from the gathered, toothless and less than hygienic mariners, farmers and bar maids.

An important navigation lesson one learns by negotiating a tuff spot like Lockwood Folly is to always, I repeat, always know and respect navigation aids (navaids). These days, mariners use generally reliable digital mapping programs to navigate by just ‘following the bouncing boat’ on a screen. But these programs, as good as they are, don’t always reflect what is actually happening on the ground, or in our case, in the water.

The always reliable United States Coast Guard constantly checks navaid positions and moves them in response to changing conditions. Following the marks (navaids), never cutting corners, proceeding with caution, staying alert. These are the hallmark rules for successful passage through hazardous areas.      

So proceed we did past the ‘Folly’ We passed under three fixed bridges, crossed the Little River Inlet with it constantly changing currents and finally came to be in South Carolina. We anchored at 1530 in eight feet on the Calabash River, just in time to see the ‘Big M Casino’, a gambling boat, motor north bound out of Nixon’s Crossroads.

The 'Big M'

One of those dangerous illegals cleaning Big M's windows.

Gambling is illegal in South Carolina so the Big M loads up a bunch of folks with pockets full of cash and drives out through the Little River Inlet past the three mile territorial limit into the Atlantic Ocean. On the way the clients are well lubricated with free booze and plenty to eat. Once past the limit the gambling begins in earnest. Casino gorillas toss anyone caught cheating overboard. In the wee hours the boat returns with a bunch of well fed, drunk, broke and bummed out gamblers (minus the cheaters) and a safe full of cash.

Now ain’t that fun!

Early to bed, early to rise for us non-gamblers.

Tomorrow we tackle the daunting ‘Rock Pile’, called the Rock Pile, because, well, it’s a pile of rocks.

Good night.