23 December - Day #21. For several weeks now we've heard Coast Guard alerts and stories from fellow cruisers about the ICW being closed for new bridge construction. Well, today we find out for ourselves. About 5 miles from Southport we see large cranes on barges and some vertical supports. There's a tug moving one of the barges around and we try, without luck, to hail him. Figuring it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, and seeing a gap just big enough for Nellie, ok, the Queen Mary too if the truth be told, we slip through. Today's trip is an easy one. There are no scary waters to deal with. So, while not on watch, I get back to documenting Nellie's as-built AC wiring and Bicki buries her nose in Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss". Just into South Carolina is the second bridge hurdle of the day. The Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge is being replaced with a very high fixed span. Some local's are protesting the change. The pontoon bridge is the last on the ICW and so it's passing marks the end of an era. While all the other bridges we've gone under open by swinging or raising, this bridge floats and with a series or wire ropes is pulled out of the way. The on-going construction on the new bridge doesn't impede us and we pass, like the pontoon bridge, into the sunset. At Anchor in Calabash Creek, Little River, SC. 29nm today and 452nm total. DBH
