Low Country

We liked being in Charleston so much that we spent an extra day there. The wind was howling for few days too, so there was no sense in leaving. Besides, being neighbors with George and Christina was too good an opportunity to pass up! They’d had a rough trip down from Morehead City too and I think we all needed a day to recover. 

Charleston garden

Nice Charleston digs for sale

Drinks at "Fast and French" on Broad Street

We caught up with friends Dave and Shelley who live on their boat Cadence in the same marina where we were. Dinner was on Saralane – everyone contributed food/drink and Shelley brought killer cupcakes from a shop in town. Yum. 

Time came to move on and George and Christina cast us off… we miss them already! 

George sent us a photo of our departure.... 

Yep… that’s me hanging off the side trying to grab a board from the dinghy that we’d stashed on deck (apparently not very securely) that fell off the boat as we left. There were a few startled seconds between hearing “splash!” and seeing what went overboard and then figuring out if/how to get it back on the boat. It’s not very dignified looking… but I did manage to grab the board and get it back on deck.

I’d had enough of the ocean for a while so we went back to the inland waterway and enjoyed the scenery. Over the next two days we traveled the South Edisto River, the Ashpoo River, the Coosaw River and finally the Beaufort River, which took us into Beaufort South Carolina. It was COLD!

Low country scenery

Low tide miscalculation

There were porpoises all over but at this point my porpoise photos are more like there’s-where-the-porpoise-was photos. I’ll have to work on my wildlife photography skills and in the meantime I’ll just point and yell “Look look look!! “ every time I see one. I’ve almost given Skip a heart attack a few times.

We’re having some typical boat issues; lights not working, etc that we sort of assume we’ll always have. Skip wrestled with the wiring for a bit and we now have a working stern light. However, now the switch marked “Spare” is really “Fuel Tank Level”.

 Our brother-in-law Dan has a childhood friend who lives in Beaufort and we were looking forward to meeting up with him and his wife. Harley and Lily have a beautiful home here and we thoroughly enjoyed an evening with them. This past summer they’d trekked across the country in an RV, going over 13,000 miles visiting state parks from coast to coast and we found a lot of similarities comparing our life in a tiny space on the water to their life in a tiny space on wheels.

Harley, Lily and Skip

Harley was kind enough to take us on our requisite West Marine run and filled us in on the location of the closest Piggly Wiggly. Piggly Wiggly – fondly referred to as The Pig – is a grocery chain in the south and if that’s not the best store name ever, for any kind of store, then I don’t know what is. The closest one to us was a small Pig (a Piglet?) and we walked there for a few supplies. Everywhere we walked the trees were draped with Spanish moss and I ended up with way too many photos of it. 

It’s a pretty little town and we poked around the shops and saw a few sights. 

Go on... invite the man!

We passed by a few horse drawn carriages and this handsome guy named Merlin was hitched up and ready to work. We chatted with the carriage driver who told us that Merlin just got back from Puerto Rico where he was one of four black horses to ‘act’ in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean (Part 4?). He looked like a movie star and I’ll bet he was wishing he was still in Puerto Rico getting star treatment instead of here in this cold weather hauling tourists around.

Tonight was the holiday boat parade… and we had a front row seat. It was a bit too dark for photos but I did manage to catch one sailboat as they went by. 

By the way… Happy Hannukah to my family and to my sister-in-law Cindy, an honorary Jewess who loves lighting the candles. 

Tomorrow.... southward again.