One of the cities that we visited on our way south that we decided we would want to visit again was Charleston, SC. So, after our stay on Jekyll Island, we headed back out to the Atlantic and sailed up the coast of Georgia 150 miles arriving in Charleston the next morning at about 11:00am. The winds remained S, SE and averaged about 10-15 knots, so once again we were able to sail during the day, and then when the winds died down, we motor-sailed through the night. There was even less traffic off the coast of Georgia than there was off the northern coast of Florida, so a very quiet sail with almost no contacts until we neared the entrance to Charleston. The following is a little clip of how our day went!! For the record, I taped this just before the the 'iron jib' was taken off duty and the canvas jib unfurled and our intrepid skipper took the helm for the rest of the day!!!
We had hoped to stay at the Maritime Centre because it is right downtown and close to everything by foot, however, they were full, so managed to secure a dock at The Harborage at Ashley Marina. The staff here are numerous, young, and friendly, but best of all, they provide a free shuttle service anywhere you want to go downtown!! This has meant that we have had 'door to door' service for everything from grocery shopping to window shopping!!! A big plus, as we had a lot of groceries to buy when we arrived and we would not have been able to carry them all!
We arrived in Charleston on Mother's Day weekend, which is also George's birthday, so we have had a couple of good excuses to go out to dinner and sample some of the fine restaurants in the city! We had a very nice meal at Lana's for George's birthday, and then went to 39 Rue de Jean for Mother's Day Brunch...also delicious! 39 Rue de Jean is right downtown, near the visitor centre, so we had actually sampled their wares the night before, when we stopped in for wine and cheese on the patio after we had spent the day touring historic downtown followed by a trip to the Magnolia plantation on the Ashley River.
We had decided that our starter, which has been giving us some grief for a few months now and is getting worse, needed to be looked at, so we had a mechanic come down and take the solanoid, the starter, and the alternator back to the shop for reconditioning. We actually had a new solanoid on the boat that George had ordered and Wil and brought with him when he and Didi came to visit, so we sent that along with the old parts, in case it did need replacing. Once those were out, George had a look at the engine, and noticed that one of the four steel mounts that secure the engine to the boat so it doesn't bounce around when we do, was broken clean in two!! So we gave our trusty mechanic a call and he came right back, took the two pieces, welded them together at the shop, and returned to replace the mount...all before the end of the day! However, we still had the weekend to wait while the other parts were being serviced, so that gave us the extra time to be able to enjoy Charleston and its environs!
Saturday we purchased tickets with Charleston's Finest Tours and spent the day with ten other people on a comfortable, air-conditioned bus, being shown the sights and sounds of Historic Charleston during the morning, and then being taken out to the Magnolia Plantation for the afternoon. In the morning we discovered that the common style of house that we had been seeing is called a 'Single', so named because it is a single room wide. These houses are essentially built sideways to the street, and stretch back in to the property, much like the strip farms one sees in Quebec along the St. Lawrence. The house size can range from quite small, to very large, but they all have just one room across. This allows for better air flow in the house, as there was no air conditioning when they were being built! Many of the homes also have a long porch, (which is called a piazza here in Charleston) that runs the length of the house, with the 'front door' built on the street end of the piazza. If the door was closed, it was a polite way of saying, "No visitors, please!", and if it was open, it meant "Come on in!"
Lots of impressive ironwork on the houses of Charleston!
White Point Gardens
The 'buttons' on the wall were put in place to hold 'earthquake rods' to stabilize houses after the earthquake of 1886
lots of jasmine in the city this time of year!
very old street!
the Pink House; built in the 1690's! Survived the earthquake of 1886 and Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Original Terra Cotta roof! Served as a 'groggerie' and coffee house for visiting sailors and had only one room per floor. The first and second floor rooms had large fireplaces that were used for heating and cooking.
door is closed on this piazza!
the old slave market (now museum)
street scene
fairly typical 'single' home
The Magnolia Plantation was an interesting visit. It was bought by the Drayton family in 1676 and the family lived continuously in the house until 1975!! It was initially a rice plantation, but after the civil war, the family was 'land rich and cash poor', as all their money was confederate money, so they had to sell some of the property, but kept the portion that ran along the river. With the loss of their slaves, the rice plantation also declined, and where the the rice used to be is now overgrown with marsh. One of the differences about Magnolia Plantation, is that the owners, instead of 'taming' nature and creating a formal garden, cooperated with nature and set the garden around what was naturally growing, so it is a lovely place to wander around and through! Part of our tour included a 'nature trolley ride', as the estate is very large and would be hard to walk all around. This tour allowed us to see LOTS of alligators that live in the numerous ponds on the estate, as well as turtles, and many birds and ducks. There are also a number of snakes on the property, wild pigs, and bears....we didn't see any of those!
pond covered in duck weed
Brutus bellowing for a mate!
American Alligator basking
slave house on the plantation
turtles basking amongst the duck weed!
can you see who's hiding in here??
common Gallinule (marsh bird, not a duck)
river front of the plantation house
The following day was Mother's Day, and as I mentioned earlier, we went for brunch and then wandered around downtown. Every other Sunday, King St. is closed to vehicular traffic, so we headed down King St. and soaked up the atmosphere with all the other people (and their dogs!) who were 'out and about'. Also managed to soak up a delicious coffee flavoured gelato!!!
Our engine parts arrived on the Monday as promised (the solanoid was the primary problem, however we had the brushes cleaned on the starter too!), and in preparation for our departure on Tuesday, we filled our water tanks.....only to find our main tank had a leak in it!! One of the seams had come apart! This is a relatively new tank (a Plastimo, bought at West Marine about two years ago), and the seams have been heat-welded, however the seam did not hold out very long! George tried re-heating and melting the seam back together, but we continued to get a pinhole leak, so finally had to order a new tank (not Plastimo this time) and we are presently awaiting it's arrival!! All this boat repair has meant that we have lost our very nice weather window to sail outside to Georgetown, so we now hope to be on our way after the next system coming through on Thursday. Fingers crossed, we will leave either Friday or Saturday!
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