Charleston ( 8 May - 15 May)

In case you were wondering, it is pronounced Chahhhlston. (draw out the ah, there is no “R” and only a hint of an “L” – at least that’s my read on it.

Anyway, if you will recall, in the last entry we told you how we safely arrived in Charleston, SC despite the tidal currents which can run 2-3 MPH. For the past several days we have been “doing Charleston” with our good friends Dave and Joan Wolf. They came to visit from northern Virginia as some of our other friends should be doing (Hint, Hint). The four of us have been to Fort Sumter and the Old Market Place, we have been to see the Hunley (the first submarine to sink an enemy ship), and we did a tour around Charleston’s battery. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The first day we were in Charleston Ann and I did a little boat cleaning, a little bit of this and a little bit of that before renting a car and heading to two of our favorite places, West Marine and the grocery store. We controlled our expenditures at West Marine (a first!) and bought only what was on Ann’s list at the grocery store. When we got back, Ann spent her time doing the wash and I spent my time trying to find someone who would come to the boat to look at our dinghy davit (which, as you will recall is, to use a technical term, busted). It really took some looking – actually calling – because some marine repair people are notorious for not returning phone calls.  Eventually I did find someone, Heath Hackett, from Captain’s Choice Yacht Services, who said he would come by the following day and see what he could do.

On Wednesday Ann went out with her friend Elaine, whom she has known Elaine since Elaine lived in the DC area. She now lives in Beaufort, SC. (It is pronounced BOO-fort, which is not to be confused with Beaufort, NC (pronounced BOW-fort) and is a travel agent at the Marine Base at Paris Island. (Both Beaufort and Beaufort are real Cruiser’s destinations that we unfortunately missed on our way north; we hope to catch them on our way south in the fall.) Ann had a great time with Elaine – about which I will let her tell you in her notes.
Me? What was I doing? I was, of course, waiting on Heath … and waiting … and waiting and ... Finally, I called him again and he said that he had just got a big job and he wouldn’t be able to come by until Friday. I reminded him that he made a commitment to me and that we were leaving the following Monday. He hemmed and hawed and said, “OK,” that he would call back and give me a time that he would be able to drop by. Again, I waited … and waited some more, until finally I called Heath, told him what I thought of him and Captain’s Choice Yacht Services and left him a rather terse message to the effect that I really didn’t want to work with people who couldn’t keep their promises. In the recreational marine industry you find a lot of people like Heath – folks with the ambition of a turtle and the brains to match. That is why when you find a good one, you hold on to him.  Whew! Thanks. Having vented, I feel better.

Mike, Joan, Dave and Ann at Juanita Goldberg's Nacho Royale.
Really, that was the name! 

On Thursday our friends Dave and Joan Wolf arrived. We picked them up at the airport and took them to the boat. They are boat people and had stayed with us for nine days in the Bahamas so I didn’t need to give them the whole boat briefing. We dropped off their luggage and the four of us headed off for downtown Charleston. The first thing we did was to find a place for lunch. We looked at several but finally decided on Juanita Greenberg’s Nacho Royale (World Famous Margueritas), no less.  In case you are wondering, the food was okay, but it was the name that was the real attraction. Who could not eat at an establishment with that name??

That afternoon we took a carriage tour around Charleston with twelve of our best friends – anyhow we were packed on the carriage like they were our best friends. Here are a couple of interesting facts we learned about Charleston (according to our tour guide).

On the carriage ride in Charleston.
We were in the front seats -- right next to the horse's er .. uh..

· The city has a law that any building over 75 years old is considered “historical” and cannot be torn down. That is the reason for so many old houses, and why so many “fixer-uppers” are in the middle of a block full of ritzy houses. There is even a low income housing project that cannot be torn down because it is now 75 years old.

· After the War, the North refused to help reconstruct Charleston because it was Charlestonians that started the War. Among the many shortages city residents faced was the lack of paint. The only color they could get in quantity was Army surplus black. Charlestonians, in turn, added one part yellow to ten parts black and called the result Charleston Green. To this day it is used on many of the doors and shudders on the fanciest homes in the city. It is even an official DuPont color.

· Some very fancy houses that sit now in the middle of the Charleston Peninsula were once waterfront property. But as the city fathers filled in marshland to expand the city’s footprint, many of the then-waterfront properties lost their waterfront status and new waterfront property was created.

The next day we got serious about being tourists and headed for Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is on an island in the middle of Charleston Harbor so you have to go to one of two places (the Charleston Maritime Center or Patriot Point) to catch a boat that will take you out to the fort. Once on the island, you get a little over an hour to see everything before the next group arrives and you have to head back home.  An hour was almost enough but I sure could have used another 30 minutes or so. Here is a fun fact that I didn’t know: the flag that was raised over Fort Sumter when it was re-occupied by the Federals in 1865 is the same flag that was taken down at the start of the war in April 1861 – and that flag is today in the fort’s museum. Walking around the fort was interesting, but the visuals were kind of destroyed by a huge black structure that sits squarely in the middle of the fort that was put there in 1898 as part of the nation’s coastal defenses. It kind of takes away from the Civil War ambiance I was expecting. Ann thinks the huge structure looks like something from Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Battlestar Galactica and I am inclined to agree. Still, I am glad to have been there.


Approaching Fort Sumter by boat. The huge mass in the
middle of the fort looks like it is from Close Encounters.

On Saturday we went to see the CSS Hunley – the first submarine to sink an enemy ship. The Hunley, nearly 40 feet long, was built at Mobile, AL and launched in July 1863. It was then shipped by rail to Charleston. The Hunley sank in August 1863, during a training exercise, killing five members of her crew. After being salvaged, it sank again on another training exercise in October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew.  Again, the Hunley was raised and returned to service. On February 17, 1864, Hunley went out on it first and only combat mission when it attacked and sank the 1240-ton sloop Housatonic on blockade duty in Charleston's outer harbor. After the successful attack, Hunley sank for unknown reasons, killing all eight of her third crew. This time, the ship was lost. In fact, it was lost for 131 years until being discovered at the bottom of Charleston Harbor. There are several mysteries surrounding the Hunley – most importantly, how did she sink? Anyway, at the Hunley museum, you can see the sub sitting in water as preservationists try to keep her in her present condition

On Sunday, Dave and Joan headed back to Virginia, and Ann and I prepared the boat for going back out to sea … or the ditch in this case (it just sounds so much cooler to say, “going back out to sea.”) While in Charleston, I had e-mailed several friends and talked to fellow cruisers around Charleston. I found that most of them did, in fact, anchor out, and that maybe the reason we hadn’t seen any anchorers was that we were looking for them too early in the day. Folks don’t drop the hook until 5 PM or so and by that time we were usually in a marina for the night. So, we decided to get bold. We were going to anchor Monday night come hell or high water.

I know it is a bit gruesome, but war
(especially against vicious, biting flies) is hell!

Ann wielding our new secret weapon.

Our day on the Waterway was better than some and not as good as others. Yes, there were attack flies, but they didn’t bother us as much as they had in the past for two very good reasons. First, it seems to us that the South Carolina flies are better behaved than their Georgian cousins – anyhow they didn’t swarm as much and certainly didn’t seem as aggressive. Second, and most important, we had a secret weapon. Dave and Joan had brought us an electric flyswatter! All you have to do is touch the fly and it gets electrocuted. So, Ann spent part of the day wreaking revenge for all the bites we had received to date. Maybe two dozen flies fell to the zapper. Good on ya, Ann!

Looking at the charts the previous night I had found a location that I considered to be a near perfect anchorage near Winyah Bay in South Carolina. I checked our chart that lists popular anchorages and yes, it was in there. I then checked Active Captain, a wonderful web site that lists marinas, anchorages, boatyards etc., gives information about them and asks users to review and rate them. Winyah Bay had received several reviews – most of which were pretty good. Moreover, it was very close to an inlet that would allow us to go outside to the Atlantic the following day (which we wanted to do for reasons that I will explain below). Anyway, it was getting close to 4:30. I could see on my XM Satellite weather gizmo that the atmosphere was unsettled and the weather was starting to deteriorate to the point where a lesser forecaster might have predicted that we were going to catch a bit of a thunderstorm. For my part, I thought it would miss us (and it did), but I was nevertheless antsy because – if I were wrong – I knew that winds and waves can be higher in thunderstorms and the result might not be pleasant. About that time, a power catamaran passed us. On the radio we asked where they were headed that night and they said they were going to anchor just a short distance ahead in Winyah Bay. Yes! We wouldn’t be the only ones there. Well, a few minutes later we dropped anchor. We turned on the generator to recharge the inverter batteries and also turned on the air conditioner, not so much to cool us down as to allow us to close all the hatches and windows so the damn flies couldn’t get in. Anyway, after we had been there for about an hour another boat came by and dropped anchor – a sailboat named Outpost that we had passed earlier in the day. We will have more to say about Outpost later. Anyway, apparently I had done well, as there were three boats in the anchorage that I had picked, there appeared to be good holding and there was lots of swing room.

We awoke the next morning and the water was almost perfectly still; the currents hadn’t carried us away, the tides hadn’t left us high and dry – even the flies were gone. It had been a wonderful night. Ok, Ok, maybe the anchor chain was a bit muddy (well, maybe more than a little), but who cared? We had survived our first night at anchor on the ICW. My anchorage-picking confidence was on the way back up.

Now it was time to pick up the anchor and head outside, into the North Atlantic. If you take a look at the coastline between North and South Carolina, you will see it is kind of concave. The ICW, of course, takes you around Long Bay the long way, whereas if the weather cooperates and you are willing to go outside and cut across the Bay you can almost go in a straight line, saving many miles, much time and beaucoup gallons of fuel. So, outside we went. For us it was a 92 mile day – one of the longest we have had – but it probably saved us 100 miles and at least one, maybe two days.

Originally we had planned to cut right across, going from Winyah Bay, SC to Southport, NC, in a straight line. But that morning I had heard on the radio that the weather 20 miles out was pretty nasty. We weren’t going 20 miles out, but I decided that if we kept a little closer to shore, the weather might be better. So, instead of a straight line we took a kind of lazy, sideways “v” course. The first leg of the “v” was kind of north-northeast wasn’t too bad. In fact, since the winds and currents seemed to be out of the south we had some following seas that pushed us forward a little faster than we might have otherwise moved. However, when we made the turn to catch the other half of the “v” we were heading almost due east and those southerly seas and winds were coming straight at our starboard beam (the waves were coming at us directly from the right side) which made the ride a bit rolly. Now the seas were, for the most part, only 3-4 feet and rolling side-to-side wasn’t that big of a problem. Once in a while, however, we would catch a big 6 foot+ roller that tilted the boat from one side to the other. It wasn’t technically “uncomfortable,” but it did cause me a bit of pause. I don’t know how far the boat can roll from one side to the other without tipping over and really don’t want to find out! (Actually, when I looked at it later, I doubt we tilted more than seven or eight degrees. But when you are in the flybridge, 20 feet up, the feeling of being thrown from side to side is exacerbated.) Anyway, we arrived at Southport Marina at about 5PM and were safe and sound.

My God, why can't North Carolina
coordinate the timing of those openings darn bridges!
Anyway, here is one of those swing bridges for which
we had to wait.

The next day we headed north on the ICW. Although there were fewer flies, we ran into a problem on which we hadn’t counted. We arrived at Wrightsville Beach at about 11:10. In and of itself, that is not an issue, until you realize that the Bridge – with a vertical clearance of 20 feet (we need 23) – opens on the hour; that means we had to waste 50 minutes until the bridge opened. We drive forward, we drove backwards and we drove around in circles. We did everything we could to waste time. Eventually the time came and they raised the bridge and let us through. Then we had to move quickly to make sure we could pass under the next bridge – which was five miles away and opened on the half-hour. Whew! We made that one, but then we had a choice to make. The third bridge was 18 miles away and it, too, opened only on the hour. We couldn’t make it in 30 minutes, of course, and could be there in an hour-and-a-half only if we traveled for an hour at 12 MPH. We had never gone that far that fast, especially through residential areas, and weren’t about to start now. So we made the only possible decision – we decided to go 7 ½ MPH and spend 2 ½ hours to get to the next bridge. In short, we wasted almost 2 hours waiting on North Carolina bridges. NEVER AGAIN! When we come south next fall, we will probably go outside.

We arrived at our anchoring site, Mile Hammock Bay, at about 5PM. The neat thing about Mile Hammock Bay is that it is next to Camp Lejeune and you can sometimes see Marine Corps aircraft flying around. We did. In fact, I saw my first V22 Osprey while at anchor. When we arrived at the anchorage, there was only one other boat. By the time we went to bed there were another five. It was a great anchorage and a fun night.

On Thursday we were on the last leg of this portion of our trip. We were approaching Morehead City, NC, which is near Cherry Point Marine Air Station and our daughter Lisa’s house (the same house also holds our son-in-law Dave, our granddaughter Maddy and our two grandsons, Nik and Trent). We immediately put Lisa to work driving us around to various stores, etc., but we really put Dave to work on many boat projects. However, I am not going to write about that until next time.

ANN’S NOTES: I know this addition is late...so I will keep it short so Michael can post this tonight.

Our visit to Charleston was fun... it was sort of a  history lesson weekend. The carriage ride through the city was good, it gave us an idea of what the city was like back in the day, and how many times the waterfront property changed as they kept filling in the swamp and making more land. I would
not want to live with a swamp at my front or back door but I guess other people did.

I spent a wonderful afternoon with my good friend Elaine Hyman, we had a good lunch at a local waterfront restaurant, to which I later took Dave, Joan and Michael after our tour of Ft. Sumter. Anyway, Elaine drove me all over creation and I got a lot of errands done. If you are reading this Elaine, thank you, and I am so glad we got together. I think the next time I visit Charleston I will tour the Plantations. My treat to myself was that I bought a "seagrass basket" that I bought in the Visitor's Center. I met the woman that made it, and she gave me a short history lesson on the basket. It was a little pricey, but what the heck, I love it. I also found the perfect hat in a little shop next to the City Market ... it has a wide brim that covers my ears and is open at the top. I was a happy boater :)

Ok... now for the wildlife count ... just an FYI ... the world has a lot less biting flies :-)

14 May 2012    10 dolphins      2 sets of 3    1 set of 5    1 set of 6   Total 27
Bonus 10 ducklings and one mom

15 May 2012  in the Atlantic  8 dolphins   1set of 2      1 set of 7   total 17
Bonus 1 Turtle          1 reported gator not seen by us but the boat next to us (Thisa is Mike, I R

16 May 2012     2 Dolphins

17 May 2012      1 Dolphin                I know, where the hell did they go?

Blessings to all our readers....

Traveling Soul....OUT