Day 102: Beaufort NC to Charleston, SC – 23/10/12

It continues to be a very pleasant motor through the sea towards Charleston.  The wind overnight is slight and there’s just enough light to discern between the sea and the sky.  Poking my head out I can see lots of stars and it’s warmer than it has been at night recently.  However, I am very tired even though I had pretty much my quota of sleep earlier and when Mike get up just after 7 am I retreat downstairs even without my cups of tea.

Mike comes down for me at around 10 am with a cuppa and tells me that I have about half an hour to come to before I am needed for docking at the marina – we have come through the entrance of Charleston Harbour, along the Cooper River and are now in the Ashley River.

By the time I am up on deck it’s time for me to put the lines and fenders out.  There’s a bridge looming ahead which looks very low but we are going to dock before we get there at Charleston City Marina and as the bridge is only 55 ft high, it’s just as well.  Just before it and to the left side are two masts sticking out of the water, signs of a yacht wreck and on the bank opposite is a yacht on it’s side.  I’m glad we are not anchoring although plenty of people are on the opposite side to the marina.

Photo:  One of the party paddle boats taking the scenic route around Charleston

Mike turns Jeannius around as we approach and it’s nice to see Christine and Rudy from the motor yacht Constance coming out to take our lines and tie us up behind them.  We met them in Beaufort when they were docked behind us in the marina.  A small world this yachting lark.

Once we are secure Mike goes to register us, armed with a whole load of literature on his return.  I take time to actually read some of this stuff and discover that there are two culinary schools in Charleston than run restaurants for the students to practise in and you can have three course lunches in them very cheaply.  This could be a good idea.

Using the internet, Mike has been watching the storm brewing in the Caribbean which has now become organised and is a named Tropical Storm – Sandy – which could be coming our way, or at least within a few hundred miles.  She is expected to form into a hurricane somewhere along the line too, so with this information plus the fact that you get the 7th night free here, we decide to stay until next Tuesday giving me lots of time to see Charleston.

Photo:  Bridges galore behind us

With this in mind, I don’t bother to rush out to do stuff, and we hang around the boat for the afternoon, taking it easy.  I decide that it would be nice to have some champagne or some other treat so we go out with the plan to visit the on-site wine shop then get side-tracked by the idea of going to look at the Privilege 745 that we passed when we came into the marina.  It is the same one that some of our friends from Pasadena saw in Baltimore’s Inner Harbour just after we left.

We walk down the mega yacht dock and as we come to the boat we see the captain and stop to chat, telling him that we have a ‘baby’ Privilege.  Then the owner comes out to chat and we end up arranging to meet him, his wife and the captain for dinner at the local yacht club.

Champagne forgotten we rush back to the boat to change.  Just as we are leaving Jeannius, a dolphin swims out from between the two hulls and I curse for not having my camera to hand.  Next the whole marina is swamped by birds clinging to lines, spreaders and basically anything they can land on.  It’s like being on the film set of the Alfred Hitchcock film, ‘The Birds’. 

We head over to the yacht club to meet the owners of the beautiful Privilege, Liz and Gordon and their captain, Steven.  The buffet, for $8, is really good – ribs, beans and salad – although the wine is quite disgusting.  Liz invites us back to their boat for some decent wine and instead gets out the champagne – so we do get to have it after all!  They show us around the boat which I have to say is magnificent.  It has all the great basic design features as our Privilege but much, much more, not just in terms of style but in the materials used.  I just hope to God that my tongue wasn’t hanging out too much!

We go back to Jeannius which now looks like a slightly grubby cupboard in comparison but it’s home away from home and she has served us well and got us safely around the world.

 

Position:  32 deg 46 min N, 79 deg 57 min W

Distance so far:  3276 miles