Charleston April 6 - 10

The first thing we had to do was move the boat from the fuel dock to a spot inside the harbor. This was easy in the morning... no wind and a slack tide made the maneuver a piece of cake. We got our bikes down and, with a CARTA map in hand, took off on a shore side trip around the peninsula to Harris Teeters Supermarket on the opposite side of the city. Our trip took us down the Ashley river front to Battery Park and then up the Cooper river front. This is right through the heart of Historic Charleston.

At Harris Teeters we stocked up with a 3/4 full shopping cart of provisions, including a five liter box of chardonnay, fresh asparagus and a pair of filet mignons. This almost completely filled the dock cart which I was towing and the milk crate on the back of Marion's bike. It is about 2.5 miles from the grocery to the marina... right through the heart of the city.

We ate very well that evening on the above mentioned victuals. The meals aboard Remedy are better than 95% of the meals we get ashore. It takes a genuine **** eatery to beat Marion's cooking.

Next morning I struggled with credit card dialing  to my ISP in Texas. It worked in Marathon but after $5 worth of attempts I could not get it to work from Charleston. The harbormaster finally took pity on me and allowed me to do a direct long distance call. I was able to pickup Email, post the web page updates, and download my mutual funds data base.

"Are you done with the Internet?" Marion asked. "Let's get off the boat and do the Ft Sumter Cruise."

"Great idea, I should have thought of that."

We rushed to the ticket booth and found the next tour boarded in about an hour. Time for lunch and an errand to the drug store.  We had been disappointed with the Variety Store Grill... Pusser's was closed... so we started walking to the Eckerd Drug store, looking for a fast food along the way. After 10 minutes no luck.  We were passing the big medical center and time was running short.

"Let's have lunch in the hospital cafeteria," I suggested, "It will be like old times for you."

In Marion's former teaching career, she frequently trained her students for work in hospitals.

"Sure that will be fine," she agreed.

Lunch for two at Roper Hospital was $5.47. Rating $ **  (Sorry, I had to get that in.)
 

There were about 200 other people on the tour boat to Ft Sumter.  It is a very popular tourist attraction. The day was sunny but chilly, with a 20 kts. breeze from the south east. I should have dressed warmer but found a place in the sun on the fore deck. We were treated to a sail-by of the three masted schooner Pride while we were about to dock at the fort.

The park service does a great job of telling the Ft Sumter story.  They have a great brochure, a park ranger gives a brief introduction, there is a museum full of photographs and displays. The stay is limited to about an hour and a half.
 

Ft Sumter, under control of the Federal army, was subject to 34 continuous hours of bombardment by the Confederate troops. This attack was directed by General Beauregard, our cat's namesake.  No one on either side was killed in this battle, but the Colonel Anderson, commander of the federal troops, decided to surrender the fort. They were cut off from supplies and faced starvation. The Confederates shipped the garrison off to New York, and took control of the fort.

Over the next two years the federal troops attacked the fort on a more or less continuos basis. The longest continuous siege of the war.  The fort was badly damaged but never fell in battle. Toward the end of the civil war the fort was abandoned and the troops were moved into action on the mainland.

If you like history this is a must see attraction.

Saturday marion's sister Ginny came to visit. We celebrated the occasion with supper at Hank's Restaurant. This is surely one of Charleston's finest dining establishments. Their specialty is of course seafood, but their menu is wide ranging.  Martin, our waiter, did a wonderful sales job on the specials of the evening.  In all my life I had never had rabbit. Tender fillets were rolled around a core of asparagus and baked to a honey brown. The rabbit was presented on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes, and decorated with an elegant brown gravy rich with red wine.  Marion had a broiled Grouper fillet encrusted with pecans and served with a light white wine sauce.  Ginny had a fried Seafood Platter of oysters, shrimp and fish. We had a key lime pie with three forks as well.  Rating ***** $$$$  Memorable in both respects!

Next morning I was inspired to prepare a breakfast of Nova Salmon, Cream Cheese, capers and shallots with plain bagels. Mimosas accompanied before and after.

Before Ginny left to drive to Augusta, we all took a tour bus ride though the city. The driver covered much of the same territory we had covered on our bikes but he gave us an appreciation for the historical background on what we were seeing.

Many of the houses date back to the pre revolutionary war period. The lots are deep and narrow. The houses are two stories tall.  They are narrow on the street side because taxes were assessed on the basis of street frontage. They have long porches on both floors along the side of the house. They are called "single houses" because they are only one room deep with all rooms accessible from the central stairwell or from doors leading onto the porch.

There is a vigorous program of restoration and reuse of old buildings in the city. Unlike the deserted central cites in much of the country, downtown Charleston is a choice place to live.

The next morning we took another bike ride through the city. We could then pause and enjoy the sites we had seen described on the tour.   The tour driver had recommended Tommy Condon's Pub highly as a great, moderate priced, place for lunch.  I finally found a Low Country dish that I really enjoyed: Small boiled shrimp, served over garlic cheese grits with a light cream gravy and garnished with green onion tops.  Rating *** $$ Oops - there goes the diet again.

We pedaled hard back to the boat to burn off as much of lunch as we could.

It was our last night in Charleston and Mike and Ginny Schwartz came by the boat for cocktails (pickled garlic martinis had been independently discovered by both the Schwartz and Herndon captains). At sunset we headed out across the marsh lands for dinner at Craw Daddy's. We discussed our plans to travel and our adventures to date. They will not be leaving Charleston until we are well up into the Chesapeake. The food was great but I was stunned by the price of a glass of house wine.  Therefore rating *** $$$$.  Just drink water.

Georgetown April 11-12

As we paid our bill at the city marina in Charleston I was told there was another Remedy on the fuel dock. We pulled out and headed for Georgetown. Along the way we heard them on the VHF as they were closing on us.  We visited a while on VHF 71 exchanging stories of how we both had picked the name.
Peter explained he and his wife were both burnt out health care professionals from Boston; the boat was their Remedy.  They were also headed for the anchorage at Georgetown. He came by in his dinghy the next morning before they pulled out. He could not believe the coincidence of names.
 

We stayed two nights anchored out at Georgetown and used our day to take the Swamp Fox Tour of the city. We learned Marion is a very famous and common name in South Carolina.  General Marion gave the British fits in the War for independence. The British gave him the nick name "Swamp Fox" for his sneak attack tactics. Georgetown was settled by plantation owners moving up from Charleston. They wanted their own port for the rice and Indigo trade.  Many of the homes date back to the period 1740 - 1800 when the city was getting its start.

Today Georgetown has a large steel mill and a large paper mill. In 1989 Hurricane Hugo flooded the Front Street area and damaged all of the old buildings in the down town business district. These are being rebuilt into art galleries, restaurants, gift shops, book stores and the like. Its quite picturesque.  The famous clock tower graces the waterfront. After our guided tour, we took our bikes on an extended jaunt around the city. We found the hardware store out on US 17 and bought insect repellent for the "no-see-ums", a new padlock for the bikes, and a nut and bolt to replace the one lost on Marion's rear fender. We bought fresh flounder at the fish market to have on the boat that night.

North Myrtle Beach April 13 -19

Leaving Georgetown the ICW goes for a good long stretch up the Waccamaw river. The weather was overcast, chilly and winds around 20 on the nose. We nevertheless got to see some beautiful forests, right down to the rivers edge. Many Osprey were seen as we made our way up this very scenic river.

Our planned destination was the free dockage at Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach. When we arrived we found sailboats rafted two deep, and a two trawlers tied along the dock. I asked permission to raft to one of the trawlers. He said it was OK for me to raft up. "BUT Don't put a foot on my boat."

"Thanks," I said, "we will be moving on."

The first marina up the ICW from there was Dock Holidays. They had space for us.

The weather was expected to be lousy for the next several days so I negotiated a three day stay for the price of two. We were warmly welcomed and invited to attend the dock party on the coming Saturday night. The marina is convenient to a Food Lion supermarket,  a CVS drug store, and several good restaurants. The beach is 1.5 miles away... an easy bike ride.

The Dock Party

We went to the marina dock party Saturday night. Perhaps 20 people attended. The marina furnished deep fried turkey's and Marion made her Dock Party Squash.   We met a lot of real nice folk that evening; they made us feel welcome.

I had a riotous time with Ralph and Mary Waltrip. He retired a dozen years ago from large scale poultry raising. He provided food and shelter to over 500,000 chickens.

"If you lived in the south," Ralph boasted, "you were probably eating my birds."

"You mean you were selling those chickens?" I asked.

"Yep, and all of the eggs that didn't hatch out," he came back.

Later in the conversation there was banter about politicians.

"You probably think I'm a Democrat," I said to Mary.

She smiled broadly and nodded, "Yes, I had you picked."

"I suppose the earring gave me away,"

"Well that was the first hint."

The evening went on like that. In the end I got a pledge from Ralph the he would get his ear pierced. Mary volunteered that she has a pair of diamonds, bigger than mine, that she never wears. I told Ralph that he was set because I would trade Mary my small diamond for her one of her big ones.

Susie Watson, the ships store manager, and our hostess for the night, reported that Ralph had not fullfilled his pledge three days later.  "But," she said, "they are still talking about the evening."

Since the weather was not as warm and spring like  as I had hoped, we decided to extend our stay to a week and let the warm weather catch up to us.

Coming back from a bike ride on Sunday we met Chance and Frank Earle from Countess. They were passing through and  left a note on our back deck. They are friends of the Caywoods and the Lowenbergs.  It was a good time to get catch up on the news of TMCA Cruisers who had seen. They were headed up to the Chesapeake for the summer.

These are my historical notes on Myrtle Beach:

The beach was discovered in 1946 by J. Brinton Marshfield, an exiled Maryland beach house contractor. Some of his early beach houses still stand. I doubt if anyone lives in a beach house year round. All have rental agency signs on them. They are empty in April.
 

The interior was invaded in 1961 by Tiger Hogan, the famous golf course developer. He chopped up the interior of this barrier island making travel impossible. There are 81 golf courses listed on the local travel map! Bring clubs .. this is golf mecca! US 17 and Ocean Blvd. are the only north south roads. All other roads are perpendicular to the beach. There are pockets of lovely homes in the spaces between the golf courses.

 

In 1986 a new high bridge for US 17 was built over the ICW and the highway was widened. The traffic signals on US 17 are all set for 2 minutes North/South.. 12 seconds for the cross street.  US 17 is home to a 1,314 discount stores, fast food restaurants and pawn shops. It has sidewalks on only 37% of its length. No one rides a bike. In 1997 there was no more space on the island for golf courses, so Tiger Hogan III built an extension on the mainland. He has an aerial tramway to carry golfers over the ICW to holes 37 through 54.

In the year 2000 Ed and Marion Herndon discovered a passage from the ICW side to the Ocean side that does not require exposure to US 17 traffic. This secret route goes under the US 17  ICW high bridge and picks up a lightly traveled 24th Ave. N.

Every year the SOS (Society of Shaggers) meet in North Myrtle Beach.  The Shag is the Dance of the South.  Their meeting on the beach kicks off the spring season.  We witnessed the Shag. Marion said she could teach me.  I changed the subject and we had a pair of Miller Lites instead.