I’m always excited to get to Charleston – it’s one of our favorite cities and it feels like real progress to get here. We’re staying at the Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina, as we always do when we come through. The marina staff is friendly and competent (and the dock master knows his stuff), and we have access to all the resort amenities (pool, gym, fire pits, free shuttle into Charleston, etc). This time, we’re over in the “litter box” – the corner of the marina where they typically put the catamarans, along with the longer-term stays. The only downside is that we’re out in the middle of nowhere, but we don’t mind it. We’ve met a few of the neighbors who are also prepping to head to the Bahamas, so hopefully we’ll see them down there.
We were on passage for Chris’s birthday, so we decided we’d save the celebration until we got here. I did some digging and found Wild Common, which turned out to be absolutely fantastic. It was a bit of a hike from where the hotel shuttle drops us off on Market, but I wanted it to be a surprise and it definitely kept Chris guessing. It was one of the best dining experiences we’ve had – the space is super cool, their tasting menu is creative and beautifully balanced, and the wine paring is perfect. They all signed a copy of the evening’s menu as a birthday card, which I also thought was a really nice touch.
Part of the reason we come here is to take Jack to his vet. Animal Medical Center of Mount Pleasant is wonderful, and they’re only a 5 minute drive from the marina. He’s lost a little weight, but otherwise his results looked good and the vet was happy with his kidney and thyroid levels (he’s got kidney disease, which they’ve been monitoring since they diagnosed him three years ago).
We caught up with Katy and Phil, which is always a good timeI’m excited that they’ll be cruising again this season and look forward to some Bahamas shenanigans! We also caught up with Jim and Susan for dinner at the Blind Tiger, and it sounds like we’ll catch up with them again in St. Augustine.
With a whole weekend available to explore, we decided not to let the chilly, gray weather keep us down. Chris had never been to the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum and I had only gotten to explore quickly, so we took a day to tour the USS Yorktown (aircraft carrier) and USS Laffey (destroyer). We were really struck by the electronics – Windara has more capable, redundant systems than what was the state-of-the-art when these ships were commissioned. It’s crazy to think of all that’s changed since then. I always love touring engine rooms, but I can’t even fathom what it was like to work down there in temperatures that regularly reached 130°.
In the Yorktown’s galley there’s a recipe posted for 10,000 chocolate chip cookies calling for ridiculously large quantities of ingredients, including 500 eggs(!!). For some reason, that really stood out to me, and I mentioned it on Instagram where a friend chimed in about how many eggs probably went into a single breakfast. It got me thinking about what it would be like to provision a ship like that – the Yorktown had a crew of 3500. They didn’t talk about it much on the ship (I think that would be a fascinating exhibit), but we did some research and for a modern-day ship, they serve something like 17k individual meals per day and load in nearly a million pounds of provisions every 7-10 days!
It wouldn’t be a trip to Charleston without lunch at Lewis… we may possibly have overeaten, but it was 100% worth it. Afterwards, we toured the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. It’s so interesting to see how the places we visit are linked – several of the prisoners from the Provost were shipped down to St. Augustine to Castillo de San Marcos. Charleston was having their Second Sunday celebration where they shut down a few blocks of King Street to car traffic, so we wandered through. Stores have sidewalk sales, they have food trucks, and there was live music. We ended the afternoon with a stop at Kaminsky’s for some coffee/hot chocolate and Butterfinger mousse pie (because clearly we needed more food) before heading back to the marina and ending the weekend lounging at the fire pit.
Even though it was on the chilly side at night, we hit the hot tub and spent some more time sitting at the fire pit. Between that and our morning walks to the bridge and to a pretty overlook near the golf course, we got a much needed chance to relax and recharge.
