Welcome to what Conde Nast has declared as the #1 City in the US. Possibly the Charleston tourism folks took some liberties with that ranking, but who knows 🤷♀️. We ended a beautiful, albeit long, run up from Beaufort to arrive at 5 pm into Charleston Harbor Marina. We left early with the intention of avoiding current on the Copper River. We had received a memo from Charleston Harbor the nite prior, strongly recommending arrival at slack tide to avoid the dangerous current in their bay. Pretty sure my Captain 💗 lost sleep over that memo. It was a crazy slow trip, filled with residential areas that needed slow speeds, so it became an 8 hour cruise Too long IMHO. In the future I will plan 4 hour routes. (🤦♀️ making a mental note)
The Harbor in Charleston was beautiful. It was everything I hoped it would be. Bustling, and vibrant, and well organized. We radioed in to the marina, got our space assignment, cruised in slow-like-a-pro and tied up with literally zero issue. Poor captain, worried for naught. That or he is just getting so good at this 🥰
Turns out I booked us into an actual resort, which was pretty cool. A couple of nice restaurants, a couple of nice bars, and some marginal live music. It was walking distance to the USS Yorktown, Patriots Point Park, the USS Laffey destroyer museum, and their Vietnam Museum.....and a shuttle to downtown Charleston. That worked out great for groceries later 😁 The resort marina was priced accordingly, but may have saved a bit on Ubers, so its all good.
The USS Yorktown is massive. Aircraft carriers house 10,000 people. Thats bigger than all of Woodland Park 😖. We really enjoyed it, but with all of those stairs and ladders, my knee was pretty unhappy when we got done. (Break out the Tiger Balm and Aleve) The destroyor USS Laffey was much smaller, housing 400 or so, but still those danged ladders. My heart goes out to the sailors on those giant ships. The Vietnam museum was good. Nothing like Angel Fire NM, but there was a volunteer that spent quite a bit of time reminiscing with George. Super interesting.
Downtown Charleston was any other similar sized city. Lots of shops, and people. We got to go over the super cool mile long bridge (not really a mile long, see pics) which was fun. The best part, well....in addition to a great grocery store and a fudge shop that made me think of Mackinac Island.... was lunch at TBonz BBQ. Apparently Carolina BBQ is a thing! 😋 Back to the boat with groceries and a quiet night in.
This morning, we had our usual green chili and egg breakfast, which means its bound to be a good day as we cruise the leisurely 30 miles to McClellanville. Completely uneventful launch into a cloudy, overcast 70 degree day. With Charleston disappearing in the distance we set our sights on the days cruise. It may rain later, but we should be there by then. If we let rain and gloom stop us, we may never finish. I'll bet its like this quite often in the coast. Makes us love CO more 😉💗 Well, ....til we arrive....
TTFN