SC - CHARLESTON

A map of the ICW.  At the top of the map is Annapolis.  We're about 1/2 way down the map in Charleston, SC.   Jacksonville is just south of the Georgia/Florida stateline.

He Said:  Hello from Charleston: We have now spent about 10 days here in Charleston and we are enjoying it very much.  After 1 week we decided to spend a second one here. The winds were going to start kicking up for about 5 days in a row and we felt that it is safer buckled into a dock as opposed to traveling.  Also the marina here has the 2^nd week at a nice discount so we signed up.  When we stay in a place for 2 weeks like we are doing our lives are very normal, kind of like being back in Phoenix but having water all around us.

Daily we have barges passing the entrance to our marina.

 

There's always activity at our marina.  We saw this rescue mission - fortunately, it was only practice.

 

The weather here has been a little crazy although this past Monday we nearly set a record high at 83 degrees.  So for the first time in 6 months we made our way to the Charleston Municipal Golf Course.  Simple stuff at home like golfing is a lot more challenging here. We walked our clubs to the city bus station, then jumped a bus to the course.  About a 15 minute walk then about a 30 minute bus ride. Now for the rest of the golf story.  As we were sitting at a light a motorhome decided to take our driver’s side mirror with him.  Not the end of the world, other than our driver had to wait for his supervisor since it was kind of an accident.  He said it would be at least an hour before the bus could leave again.  We had a tee time in a little over an hour so we decided to walk with our clubs to the course.  The toughest part was crossing a long uphill bridge while carrying our sticks.  When we finally arrived we were singing the blues to the guy in the pro shop.  I made him feel guilty enough that he gave us the “locals” price for our round which saved us about 35% - very nice of him.  We played the back 9 twice because the front 9 was being worked on.  All in all, we both played pretty good especially since it had been 6 months since we last played.  I think since my heart deal Pat has played twice and I’ve played 3 times.  That’s not much golf in a year, and I realized how much I miss not playing.  Hopefully this winter in Florida we will have a few chances to play.  The bad news is it is like playing in the winter in Phoenix.  If you golf you know what the prices are like in winter months in both AZ and Florida.  We will see what happens.

 

As seen on the golf course.  Not what we see on Phoenix courses.

 

Everything with the boat has been going great.  When you are tied up to the dock for 2 weeks not too much happens to the boat. Having said that, last Tuesday we had 40 MPH winds all nite long.  You talk about a rocking boat, we had it.  We were on an end dock with a 44 ft catamaran sitting in front of us.  You should have seen the wind and waves work his boat.  We had 5 of us trying to get his boat from slamming so hard into the dock.  This went on until about mid-nite.  He only weighs about 15,000 lbs. and we are closer to 30,000 lbs.  This is pretty much the reason for his boat nearly drowning and ours not so bad.  It was still a long, long rocky nite.  This was enough excitement for a good while.  The good news is that everyone survived it just fine.

 

If you look really hard you can see the fin of a dolphin swimming in our marina.  They were actually jumping out of the water off the stern of the boat. 

Here are 2 dolphins swimming just outside our marina.  We see them everyday

 

Other than listening to some music at the local bars, catching happy hours, taking our walks and just hanging out, our lives are very normal. This is a very cool town with tons of good old history, a lot from the slave days here in the south.  I watched the OSU/Illinois game last Saturday at a local fun little bar here in town.  It was a Michigan/West Virginia Bar, but they did put on the Buckeyes for us few OSU Fans. This Sat. we play Indiana back in Columbus, and I will probably go back to the same bar to catch the game.  We need a few more wins and a loss by either Florida St. or Bama to have any shot at the BCS Championship Game.  Time will tell.

 

Our plan is to leave here this coming Sunday or Monday and travel to Beauford for Thanksgiving. We will anchor a nite or 2 and spend some time in a slip -  this will depend on weather and winds.  Our good friend Tim, from Seattle, will be in the area during Thanksgiving, and we will meet up with him on the Friday after the holiday.  He will stay on the boat with us for 4 nites then catch a flight back to Seattle.  We will be staying in Hilton Head SC at that time.  We’re still planning on crossing the Ga./Florida border by about the 5^th of next month.

 

Tired hands, hope all is well!

 

Take Care, Jack

 

She Said:  The weathermen were right.  The weather was as awful as they predicted – right up there with the Nor’ Eastern in Deltaville.  Because of the high winds and our location, we had our worse night ever on the boat.  I will never forget that night and hopefully we will never experience anything like it ever again.  The wind was coming out of the northeast at a consistent 25-30 MPH (gusting to 45 MPH) and pushing us against the dock.  We had all nine of our fenders out protecting the starboard side of the boat against the pounding.  The pounding was so hard and so prolonged that one fender broke (I didn’t even know they could break).  After hitting the dock we would bounce away from it until the lines would catch us and jerk us back to the dock.  It sounded and felt like MTB would break.  I don’t know how we got any sleep that night.  We actually thought about getting a hotel room.  It was BAD.  The gusting stopped, but the winds still kept howling.  Temps dipped to 29 degrees.  It was a long, long 36 hours.  We had to get off the boat the next day; we were still rocking while standing on land. 

 

This is a 2.5 mile bridge that spans the Cooper River connecting Charleston and Mount Pleasant.  We see it from the marina.  I liked the way it looked in the fog.

 

Fortunately, Charleston is just as fun and interesting as we remembered.  Our marina is really convenient to historic Charleston, along with grocery, hardware and drug stores.  We met up with our friends, John and Debbie, and had a fun day taking in the city’s sights.  A couple of nights later we met them for dinner and live music (Kevin Church).  We enjoyed Kevin so much that we’ve seen him several times since then.  I had great barbeque one night at Queology (an award winning recipe) and dessert at my favorite night spot, Kaminskey’s.  Charleston is a great city to walk around and we’ve walked it almost everyday we’ve been here.  One of the interesting things we visited was the Old Slave Mart where enslaved people were sold at auction.  We’ve enjoyed Charleston so much that we decided to stay for a second week.  We enjoy getting to know the cities we travel through and living like locals.

 

This is typical Charleston architecture - you see it all over Charleston.  The porch is on the side of the house.  This was originally done to reduce property taxes.

Charleston’s bus service is great.  It’s only $0.85 for seniors, and it gets us everywhere we want to go.  Our most memorable bus ride was the one to the golf course.  We were parked at a light and a motorhome hit us.  It was no big deal – the mirrors hit.  Well . . . the motorhome didn’t stop so we had to pull over until the bus officials could get to the bus.  We had a tee time (yes, we finally got the clubs out), so we couldn’t wait the hour-plus that was projected so we set off on foot – 2 miles – to the course.  The most unbelievable thing was when the bus driver said we would be delayed because we were in an accident, the woman sitting across from me (who, like most people on the bus, didn’t even know we were in an accident) said that she was injured.  I don’t know what the outcome of that was, but she was not more injured than I was.  Unbelieveable!

  

We knew that weather would be an issue on this trip, but it’s been more than we anticipated.  Living in Phoenix weather is just not something you think about – it’s almost always clear and sunny.  Conversely, the weather we’ve experienced on the ICW changes almost daily.  As an example, while in Charleston we’ve seen temps go from 29 to 85 degrees over a couple day period.  In Phoenix, the weather rarely had an impact on what we would do.  While on the water, the weather (especially the wind) determines if we’re going to travel, how comfortable we’ll be while docked/anchored and the overall enjoyment of a town.  We have been averaging about one nice day for every three not-so-nice days – today is gorgeous.  It’s been a real challenge.  It looks like we won’t be able to count on consistent nice weather until about central Florida.  There’s a lot to see between here and there, so we’ve accepted that cool, windy weather will be part of our life for the next four to six weeks.  I guess I need to buy some cold weather clothes. 

 

Wishing y’all a very Happy Thanksgiving.