We are now Riverboat Pilots and Creek Snugglers...as Kadey Krogen Manatee “Second Star” owners Mike and Jana have already declared.

Skinny water abounds on the Georgia-South Carolina waterways! Our travel days have been centered around HIGH TIDES. Ebbing tides are definitely not a river boatsman’s friend. The Gullah rural Lowcountry sea island communities have long held the belief that the ebb tide has the pull of death. We also much prefer to take care of important business on a coming tide. Due to lack of funding, GA and SC have neglected the dredging of the ICW along their coastlines for many years now. The silt build-up where side tributaries flow into the waterway often leaves only 2,3 or 4 feet of water. “Summertime” has a draft of a mere 3’ 2”... more like a kayak than a trawler... and we’ve scuffed the soft bottom passing through these areas. The water is so thick with particulates that seeing the deeper water, if there is any, is impossible. We are currently on anchor in the South Santee Rr. next to The Cape Romain Nat’l Wildlife Refuge, the greatest natural wildlife area on the Atlantic coast...64,000 acres of dense undergrowth and wetland wilderness. Big rafts of dead cord grass come by us, moved off the shore by the current. Fishing families pull their crab pots in the early morning hours. The green-headed horse flies peer at us through the screening. Life doesn’t get much better than this.