On Wednesday, Nov 16, we arrived at Charleston City Marina about 2pm after crossing Charleston Harbor dodging a huge container ship and steering clear of a Coast Guard cutter anchored at the junction of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers, which merge to form Charleston Harbor.  Boy, the shower at the marina felt good.

Charleston City Marina is a well kept facility that looks recently renovated.  It has shower facilities separate from the lavatories with each shower unit with a large stall with a seat which made it comfortable as opposed to the small stalls in the lavatory that is found in most marinas.  The docks were floating with electrical service and water.  It looked like the original docks were fixed as they were remnants of these docks left as part of a sea wall protecting the docks.  The outside dock is called the megadock as it can (and did) accommodate ships up to 100 feet.  As we were low on provisions because we could not find an open grocery store in Georgetown on Sunday, we dined out at the restaurant at the marina.  It was good with seafood featured on the menu.

Thursday, we rode the free van from the marina to the South Carolina Aquarium.  This is a new facility with many interesting exhibits.  They show the aquatic life in South Carolina from the hills in the west to the seashore which culminates in a large tank with many different species of fish from eels to sharks including a large turtle.  They have a feeding demonstration where diver’s actually hand feed the fish.  The sharks are not fed by the divers in the water so they won’t associate the divers with food.  Smart idea if you’re a diver.  They feed the sharks well to keep the population of other fish intact.

In the afternoon we took a tour of Fort Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired in April of 1861.  The Fort has a long history of defending Charleston Harbor as it sits right at the entrance where any ship entering the harbor must pass.

Thursday evening as we were walking to dinner at Sticky Fingers, a rib place, we were pulled in from the street by a nice young guy offering free tours of Charleston.  Of course this was a come on for time share sales.  They were offering several different packages.  We took a horse drawn carriage tour of the city, tickets to the aircraft carrier Yorktown and $25 toward dinner at many of the best restaurants in town.  All this cost us was 90 min of our time to listen to the spiel and look at the property.  It was a good company and would appeal to us if we were not on Island Time.  They were not too “hard sell”.

On Friday, Nov 18, we rode the van into town to attend the time share spiel at 9 am.  We then used our free pass to take a carriage ride through the city, which was quite interesting.  The city once was walled with a moat around it fashioned after the medieval cities of Europe to protect it from Indian attacks.  The economy of Charleston was devastated by the Civil War as it was based on the wealth of the Plantation owners.  As there was no money to rebuild the city after the war, the houses were repaired and preserved and today serve as living history of a bygone era.  The examples of different architecture were plentiful. Most of the homes had verandas on the side of the house and the lots were narrow and deep.  This was due to the practice in Europe of taxing property based on its street frontage with higher taxes for more frontage so the early homeowners of Charleston made sure they would pay less taxes.  Churches were plentiful as we found them to be in all the southern cities we toured.

In the afternoon, we took a taxi across the new suspension bridge to Patriot’s Point where the aircraft carrier Yorktown is on display along with a submarine, destroyer and Coast Guard Cutter.  The Yorktown served in WWII until the mid seventies.  It’s hard to describe the size of this ship.  It must have taken sailors serving on the ship months to find their way around.  The ship was self contained with all the necessary equipment and skilled personnel to handle all situations.  The bakery had a display showing the ingredients needed to make 10,000 chocolate chip cookies that starts out with 112 pounds of chocolate chips.  The ship had a complete machine shop along with a shop for the shoemaker.

Several aircraft were on display from the propeller driven models to the jet powered models used at the end of the Yorktown’s tour of duty.  It is amazing that the planes could take off and land on the deck.  There were several examples of tailhooks on display along with the wire that they grabbed on landing.  The submarine was a contrast to the carrier.  It was so small that the sailors had to sleep in bunks suspended over the torpedoes.  It certainly took a lot of courage to serve on the submarine under those conditions.

On Friday night, my brother Peter and wife Donna picked us up from the marina and drove us westward to their home in Greenwood, SC, a 3.5 hour drive. This was 7 hours on the road for them.  Genie and I really appreciate their efforts in entertaining us for the weekend.  They have a beautiful home in a pleasant town.  We went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with a car which made it easy to buy heavy items such as soda and beer along with normal replenishing of the boat food supplies.  Donna gave us a grand tour of Greenwood which is where she was raised and has moved back to care for her parents.  We had dinner with them on Saturday night and found them to be wonderful company.

Sunday afternoon we rode back to Charleston again a seven hour round trip for Peter and Donna. Thanks again for the great weekend.  After watching the second football game to get the Giants score, 27 to 17 over Phil (go gints); we were going to marina restaurant for dinner.  It was closed and the only place to get a bite within walking distance was the gas station at the entrance to the marina.  They had premade subs.  This had to be the worst sub I ever had.  Fortunately they sold Ben and Jerrys, so a pint of Cherry Garcia salvaged the night.

On Monday Nov 21, we decided to stay at the marina one more night and complete or grocery shopping at a store called Harris Teeter which was on the van route.  This was a good grocery store that we never head of until Charleston.  We needed cold cuts and bread which we didn’t buy at Wal-mart where we shopped with my brother as we wanted them to be fresh for the next week.  That evening we ate at Hyman’s Seafood to use our $25 voucher from the time share presentation.   It was a good place to eat. We tried boiled peanuts served as a snack prior to the dinner, yuck. 

On Tuesday Nov 22 we left Charleston and went to Town Point Creek just off the ICW.  Our knotmeter became fouled after the 6 days at Charleston.  With great trepidation I pulled the sensor from its housing to check it for fouling.  The housing has a built in check valve which actually worked to stop the water inflow.  The sensor was free and I put it back in and it worked.

We spent the evening before Thanksgiving in Beaufort (bew-fert) SC anchored in Factory Creek just before the Lady Island bridge.  This was a good place to anchor in the marsh but close to downtown Beaufort.  We went to Beaufort on Thanksgiving to visit the town.  There is a good dinghy dock that allows access to the main street.  Being Thanksgiving all the shops were closed, but we walked through the town to look at the old homes.  The streets had oak trees covered with Spanish moss just like the pictures of the south.  Unfortunately I forgot the camera for the walk.  We went back to Island Time and had or Thanksgiving Dinner with Cornish Game hens substituting for Turkey but with all the other fixings including stuffing and cranberry sauce.   Watched the Cowboys get beat by the Bronchos yeah!!!