It's just a Short Walk: Charleston-one of our favorite cities because....

For the second year, we spent a full week in Charleston.   It is a great restuarant city and in between indulging ourselves, we try to cram in as much walking history as our feet can handle.    The Charleston Maritime Center is a very convenient marina with a Harris Teeter 2-3 blocks away and the center of the historic section only 2-3 blocks further.   Literally which ever direction you walk, there is something to see or do.    Many boaters stop in Charleston so we caught up with some friends from last year (Cara Mia and Jesse Marie) and made some new friends as the week progressed.   The week was capped off by a visit from friends, Donna and Jimmy from Charlotte, who got kind of a rough initiation to boating life when the wind and current rocked the boat pretty hard the night they visited.   The rocking is the only disadvantage of this marina; the entrance to the marina is on the Cooper River and at times, the winds just funnel in kicking up a swell and some nice little whitecaps.   Other nights it is like a bath tub.   Oh well, we still found a way to have fun and to celebrate my birthday.

I am fascinated by the architechture in Charleston and especially by the doors.   Many houses have side porches that are built to the length of the house.   They enclose the front of the porch at the street level and add a formal front door; often a very formidable door with great hardware.

Just to add some contrast, the picture of the houseboat below is from the last anchorage we were in just north of the Ben Sawyer bridge going into Charleston.   We never saw anyone but the nets looked recently used.

And of course, there were a few large ships to welcome us to Charleston.   The Navy docked a training ship near us and several large cargo, car carriers and large tankers passed the marina every day rocking the boats.   Our lines actually got chaffed and one snapped from all the rocking.   Yikes!

We had planned to leave the ICW and go into the ocean from Charleston to St. Mary's but with predictions of waves 16-26' we thought the prudent course might be to stay inside and go the slow way (again).   So after Charleston, we headed for Beaufort, SC., another great small town.   We only had about 1/2 day in town because the last big cold front predicted for a while blew through yesterday afternoon.   However, the good news is that giving the ocean waves and swells a day to settle down, this means we can finally go outside in the ocean, shake out the sails (if we remember how!) and fly down the coast to St. Mary's Georgia starting on Sat. Nov 12.   Next stop Cumberland Island, Georgia for shelling, hiking, touring.

Happy Veterans day!