Charms of Charleston and South Carolina

After our quick visit to Savannah, we needed to move on as our food supplies had diminished considerably. A count in the vegetable and fruit basket yielded 5 onions and that was it. We had no bread, meats, and our reserve spaghetti supply was dwindling. In fact, our cooler was stark except for a container of French’s Mustard and a jar of mayonnaise. We knew from the way down that we could restock in Beaufort, SC so that is where we headed. We tried to anchor outside of the marina in Beaufort and encountered the same problem as on the way down, it is just too deep for us to comfortably anchor, so we went under the bridge that joins Ladies Island to the mainland and anchored up the quiet Factory Creek. Aside from our food deficit, we had not had a proper shower in a week! We set a day aside to complete these tasks. We paid a modest fee to use the facilities of the marina nearby, where a grocery store was about a kilometer away and showers available with hot running water!!! It took us two trips to the grocery store to fill our lockers and wine cellar (the bilge). We smelled wonderful and ate like kings that night enjoying some mahi mahi tacos and a few pieces of sushi. The next morning we were ready to move on.

High Tide

Low Tide - a very different view

Wednesday May 3^rd we were passed by about 5 other sailboats heading north. We exchanged words with a passing Canadian boat that was from Ottawa, and they recognized our boat as being a Rob Roy, which is very rare as not many people have heard of them. Soon we were all by ourselves and had entered a wider river. The current was with us, the winds were right, so we took the rare opportunity to put up all the sails and turn off the motor. We were sailing. Unfortunately the ICW does not provide a lot of these opportunities as it’s often narrow, with numerous turns and the currents are so strong in some areas, if we tried to sail we might end up going backwards. So we savored these couple hours of sailing until we had to change direction having the wind right on the nose, on came the motor and down came the sails. After a long day we anchored in a quiet little creek with 2 other boats. After about midnight the wind picked up and howled the rest of the night.

Busy doing the cooking

We had plans to head to Charleston the next day, but the wind was still strong and it looked as though it might thunderstorm. We decided to stay for a couple more hours to see how it played out. We left at 11 but in hind sight should have stayed because the current was against us the entire way making our predicted 5 hour day a 7 hour day and we were still 5 miles shy of Charleston. The wind was very shifty and gusty and we would pull out the jib to try to help us with our battle against the strong current. A sudden gust tipped the boat uncomfortably far over which resulted in the dinghy flipping over. Luckily we didn’t have the motor on, and all we lost was a sham-wow. We furled the jib half way but when we thought the gusts had died down we again let it out, only to be knocked over again and once again the dinghy flipped. This was not a good day, and after the frustratingly slow pace, I could see why so many leave their boat down south and fly home. We decided to anchor short of Charleston because there was only about an hour of sunlight left and the way we were going our chances of anchoring in the light were slim to none. We were glad we anchored where we did in the quiet and somewhat protected Stono River as again the wind piped up overnight which, if we were in Charleston in the crowded anchorage, would have caused a sleepless night worrying about all the other boats around us.

Replica of the first sub to take out a boat.

The wind died around 11am the next day after we had a leisurely breakfast. We left at a time which allowed us to catch the tide to Charleston. Our experiences anchoring in Charleston on the way down left me a little apprehensive as I did not want to do any late night re-anchoring, so we chose our spot carefully. There are lots of boats anchored out, many are neglected/derelict and some on mooring balls, so one knows for sure how each will swing when the tide turns. We put out two anchors in a Bahamian moor style to keep us from swinging too much. Once we were fairly sure we were secured and wouldn’t be playing bumper cars we put the engine on the dinghy and went ashore. We were able to find the dinghy dock this time, though it was quite a ride away. We walked to the downtown area and decided on a tour for the next day. We were thinking about staying the next night in a marina but decided to save our money on marina costs and instead use it towards exploring the city. Once we decided on what we would do the next day we walked back to the boat and had a quiet night at anchor.

Got to touch a horseshoe crab - only allowed to use 2 fingers though

Friday May 6^th we discovered the “Charms of Charleston”. We elected for a motorized tour and it worked out well as it rained on and off this day. Buba, our tour guide, was absolutely amazing. We have never had such an interesting, fun but informative tour. We got to see the sites of historical significance as well as some of the absolutely gorgeous huge homes in the city. After our tour we visited the Aquarium, boasted as Charleston’s #1 attraction. We battled the school children for views of the giant aquarium, which housed over 700 fish, including enormous sharks, tuna and Pompanos. I’m not a fan of captivity but I have to admit it was amazing to see all the fish. Nothing compared to actually snorkeling a coral reef though. After seeing all those fish we were a bit peckish so dined on some food along the way back to the boat. Our night ended with fireworks over Charleston harbour in celebration of some special occasion.

Time to move on. We were planning on leaving early, but were prevented due to fog making for poor visibility. We left at about 8:45 in almost complete calm. We were delayed about 45 minutes for a bridge opening but other than that it was easy going. The usual weekend traffic died down once we were a few miles out of Charleston and we had a beautiful day. We anchored in the wilderness and I once again appreciated nature and enjoyed what the ICW has to offer.

We are ticking off the miles of the ICW and currently have less than 400 to go until the Chesapeake. Time is just flying by.