Hilton Head Island is a beautiful resort that is located on the southern South Carolina Coast north of Savannah and south of Beaufort, SC. Popular with vacationers and tourists, Hilton Head Island also has excellent accommodations for cruising boaters with a network of marinas that dot almost every body of water in and around the Island.

If you are approaching on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) from the north, you will enter the Hilton Head area via Skull Creek off Port Royal Sound. Before you reach the state Route 278 Bridge (65-foot fixed vertical clearance), you will find four well equipped marinas on the east shore. Two of these marinas accept transient guests and two of them have lifts for haul-out and repair.

Skull Creek empties into Calibogue Sound at the May River and continues past Spanish Wells and Brams Point near Broad Creek. Broad Creek has five marinas scattered along its length, but many of them are centered around the Cross Island Parkway Bridge (65-foot fixed vertical clearance, visible in the image above). You will find facilities with transient accommodations and repair facilities with lifts.

On the south end of Hilton Head Island where Broad Creek empties into Calibogue Sound, you will find Harbourtown Marina, which is part of the large Sea Pines Plantation. Although there is not a repair yard associated with this marina, the facilities are top-rate and there are plenty of shops and restaurants around the marina.

Use NOAA Charts 11507 and 11512.

Hilton Head Island is bounded by many bodies of water. In the image above, you can see Broad Creek and the Cross Island Parkway Bridge (65-foot fixed vertical clearance) at Palmetto Bay Plantation. Broad Creek works its way north from Calibogue Sound through the middle of the Island. To the north, Hilton Head is washed by Port Royal Sound, which opens up into the Atlantic Ocean south of Beaufort, SC.

Skull Creek and the Intracoastal Waterway route break off of Port Royal Sound to the north, and eventually turn into Calibogue Sound, which runs past the back side of Hilton Head Island south to Dafuskie Island. Calibogue Sound ends at the Atlantic Ocean on the south side of the Island north of the Savannah River Entrance.

Local Notices to Mariners are now exclusively available online from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Hilton Head Island??Guide to Hilton Head Island

Hilton Head Chamber of Commerce

Hilton Head Calendar of Events