We wanted to get into our slip at the Charleston Harbor Marina as soon as possible, but we were busy working during the daytime slack, and in the evening the wind kicked up as heavy, dark clouds appeared on the horizon. We could have tried to go in, but docking in Charleston is tough enough without a heavy wind, and I figured it didn’t make sense to stress ourselves out if conditions weren’t good. Instead we agreed to spend another night at anchor and head in on the early morning slack. The storms only brushed us, and we were treated to dramatic skies, a rainbow over the USS Yorktown, and a gorgeous sunset.
The next morning, we were up before dawn to prepare to head into our slip. We radioed as we hauled anchor a bit before slack, but by the time they helped another boat dock ahead of us and they found us a slip, slack had passed and the tide was starting to run in, so we almost called it off. The current picks up quickly, running perpendicular to the fairway and at a bit of an angle to the slips. Even though the current was pushing us across the fairway, Chris handled the docking beautifully. I was looking forward to being able to get ashore. As I was getting coffee started below, I heard Chris chatting with someone on the dock and it turned out our friend David on Flight, who we’d met in Great Harbour, was docked diagonally across from us! We’re constantly being reminded what a small, wonderful community we’re part of, and I love how often we have chance meetings with cruising friends.
After work, we had drinks up at Reel Bar and saw some nasty looking clouds heading towards us, so we made our way back to the dock. We walked out to the end of our dock and made it back to Windara just as the wind kicked up. The storms came on fast and were incredibly intense. We saw gusts up to 52kts, hail and incredible amounts of lightning. Mount Pleasant ended up losing power, but we switched from shore to battery power and were comfy and cozy below. I was so glad we’d gotten into our slip in the morning – I would NOT want to have been out on anchor in that weather. Eventually it settled down, but less intense storms continued to pass through well into the night.
On Wednesday night, we had drinks with David in our cockpit (he brought us Kaliks!) and we caught up on our respective seasons in the Bahamas. Afterwards, we took a water taxi over to Charleston proper and wandered around for a while. I absolutely love the architecture and would die to be able to afford one of the gorgeous homes with the long east/west porches. We stopped in at Byrd’s Cookies, and I couldn’t decide between the key lime or Georgia peach – so I got both. And the guy working there didn’t help my cause when he had us try the salted caramel cookies with the Georgia peach… so we got those too. We wandered King Street and I found this ridiculous porcelain roseate spoonbill figurine… and I totally want it (thankfully for Chris, now that we don’t have an apartment, we have nowhere to keep it) so if you happen to be in downtown Charleston and are looking for a gift idea for me…. We had a late dinner at Le Farfalle – fresh baked rosemary focaccia with whipped ricotta, olive oil and tomato to start, I got fettuccini with lamb ragu and Chris had the Agnolotti, and for dessert we had a tiramisu panna cotta. Everything was delicious! We somehow managed to catch the last shuttle back to the resort without having to rush.
We took an actual lunch break one afternoon and stopped to play chess on the giant chess board up by the tiki bar. I’m terrible at chess and haven’t played in ages – Chris kicks my butt every time – but it was fun anyway.
It wouldn’t have been a trip to Charleston without catching up with Katy and Phil. We went to the beer tasting at Bottles and then had dinner at a Vietnamese place, Little Miss Ha. The food was fantastic, and it was so good to catch up. We have tentative plans to meet up with them, Lori and Paul over the summer in the city, and I’m really looking forward to it! Every time I get to catch up with cruising friends, I’m reminded how lucky I am to have each of them as part of our story.
We squeezed in a walk out to the fishing pier under the Ravenel Bridge, and I’m so glad we found that path on our last visit. It’s such a pretty walk to start the morning, and we saw a bunch of great blues, tricolors, great egrets and snowy egrets.
Our time in Charleston was far too short, and we were so conflicted as to whether we should stay another week or take the weather window that we had. We were gun-shy after having so many recent forecasts not pan out, but as the forecasts continued to stabilize, we felt that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. David was also planning on heading to Southport, so we decided to buddy boat – it’ll be fun (but strange) to be traveling in company for a change!
