Charleston, SC

3/23/2017

The anchorage last night in Middle-of-nowhere, South Carolina worked out well. The anchor alarm sounded at 4:00 a.m. to let us know that the boat had changed position with the changing of the tide. Clark verified all was well and then went back to sleep.

Waking around 7:00, we once again found it hard to remove ourselves from the nice, warm, cozy bed to face the chill of the unheated stateroom. As I laid in bed, I could hear the water from the current rushing by the sides of the boat. Listening to the running water finally forced me to surrender to my need for a stop in the bathroom. Afterwards, I dressed in lots of layers as my phone gave an outside temperature of 50 degrees with a high of 61. On the water with wind makes the "feels like" temperature a lot lower.

We left our anchorage at 9:45. Unfortunately our route took us against the strong current, so our average speed calculated out to be only 7.5 knots (8.5 mph). As we traveled, the South Carolina scenery looked much the same as yesterday. Long walks to floating docks from houses appears to be quite common. Ones we saw today made the long ones from yesterday appear to be "no big deal" in comparison.

Longest Dock Award

Note section in middle where something knocked the railing flat!
Clark though maybe a boat or dock washed through there during the hurricane.

Clearly fascinated by the length of this one, I took a picture after we passed by.

We had a long stretch of water today where I piloted the boat while Clark supplied navigation tips as he read them from the "Active Captain" application. I had fun continuously searching for the deep water. In the middle of the channel, wherever that happened to fall, I frequently found as much as 17 feet of water. Wandering slightly too far one way or the other and the depths dropped like a rock. 

Playing "find the deep water" certainly passed the time quickly today. Of course, it also helped that we did not have anywhere near as far to go as on prior days. We arrived in Charleston at 11:30.

Approaching Charleston, South Carolina

Riverboat in Charleston - Carolina Queen

By 12:30 we had the boat docked and were chatting with another boater. Since we had a lot in common, i.e. the loop, talking to the owner of the looper boat next to ours took a chunk of time. Still I hoped that since we arrived reasonably early that we could find a restaurant and eat lunch out. 

Clark had other ideas. As soon as we got the boat situated, he ran off to get a pump-out of our holding tank. My stomach and my watch told me that waiting until later to eat would be a big mistake, so while he took care of "business", I put some sandwiches together. After we ate lunch, we walked into Charleston. 

Last year when we visited here with our two sons and their families, we found an ice cream store that Clark truly enjoyed. They served raspberry and blueberry sorbet. He had a scoop of each on a cone and loved it. Our mission today was to find that same place and get him another cone. 

I remembered the place served waffles and ice cream. With that information I was able to find the store via Google. Google Maps indicated the distance to the shop as 1.5 miles. Definitely doable. As we walked up to the street to start our trek across town, I was flooded with happy memories of our time spent here with family. We made the same walk multiple times to the airbnb apartment that the "kids" rented for their stay in Charleston.

We must have walked at least a mile, if not more, but when we checked Google Maps for the shop, it indicated that we still had a mile to go. How could that be?  Besides "needing" his sorbet fix, Clark needed a new battery for his watch. Every so often (like every ten minutes) he would ask me the time until I thought I would go crazy. 

On the way to the sorbet shop, we found a Walgreen's where we could buy the watch battery; however, Clark had no means of opening his watch to do the repair himself. Later, we found a jewelry store where they replaced the battery for only $10. As we approached the store, Clark said, "We can do that later". I said, "No we can't" and entered the store.

When we finally found the ice cream store, we were in for a big surprise. 

The red sign says "Posted No Trespassing"
Sadly, after 90 years in business, the store is closed.
No sorbet for Clark at the Belgian Gelato store today!

It crossed my mind as we walked into Charleston from the docks that the store might not have the flavor of sorbet Clark had his heart set on. I never imagined that the store would have gone out of business. Disappointed, Clark said, "Well, at least we had a nice walk to get here."

We continued on to the market place bazaar on Market Street. Amazingly, the whole plaza was almost as busy as when we were here last time. Since our last visit was during a tropical storm, I thought the place was packed because there was nothing else to do in the rain. I guess it's just a really popular place to visit. Like last year, I could not wait to get out of the crowds.

On our stroll around the area, we found a T-shirt shop with a sense of humor. For some reason beyond my comprehension, Clark thought that our elder son, Jeff, would like a T-shirt that caught his eye. Since Jeff actually attended Harvard Law, I did not get the joke.

On the other hand, I liked another T-shirt that they had to offer, but I think that Clark did not find that one entertaining in the least. To each his own, I guess!

As we strolled around the area, we found an alternate ice cream shop where I bought myself a scoop of ice cream. They offered raspberry sorbet, but Clark opted not to get a cone there. Two doors down, we found a Ben & Jerry's. Recently we discovered that they sold a Berry Berry flavor of sorbet that is a combination of raspberry and blueberry. Clark went in and bought two scoops of this flavor on a cone. He said he still preferred the one scoop of raspberry with one scoop of blueberry, i.e. mix  your own, but this was a close approximation to what he wanted.

Standing on the street eating our ice cream / sorbet treats, we met a young lady who recently moved to Charleston from Colorado to get away from the cold weather. She was very chatty and asked us about our visit to the city. We told her we came by boat which led into a discussion of the Great Loop. When we finally finished our cones and finished our conversation with her, Clark said it was 4:00 and time to head back to the boat.

We retraced our steps back to the marina. On our path we passed a rather dilapidated house that must have been pretty at one time. Clark asked if he should take a picture, and I said no. He stopped and took one anyway.

To get to the marina, we had to cross a very busy highway. As we waited for the traffic to clear so we could cross, Clark found a picture just begging to be taken.

Bridge in Charleston, SC

By the time we got back to the marina, my legs felt rubbery from all the walking. I decided that I should work on making my blog updates and collapsed onto the sofa with my laptop. Clark, on the other hand, decided that he had to wash the salt off the boat. I spent three hours on my task while he spent more than that on his! He did not come in from washing the boat until it was too dark to see the salt.

While he was out there cleaning, he stopped long enough to take today's sunset picture.

Sunset in Charleston, SC

When we finally sat down to dinner at 8:30, Clark asked if my FitBit gave an indication of how far we walked today. I checked and found I had walked 5.98 miles. Since Clark spent another three hours on his feet washing the boat, he had to have gone further. No wonder we both felt tired.