The Grand Ol South

Charleston, South Carolina
32 46.6N 79 57.2W

We have just completed our first week in Charleston, we have been waiting for a weather window to move north, but also enjoying a great city, very grand and very beautiful.

We arrived last Thursday after motoring all the way from Brunswick. It took us 26 hours and was quite an eye opener to the world of cruising for our visitors. Great weather forecast, but the wind never appeared, sufficiently bad that we ended up with no sails up at all as they were completely pointless. At least we now know the engine works well!

We hired a car for a day trip to Savannah, Gareth and I worked there for the summer in 1988 and I was really excited to go back and see it again. For those who haven't been it is the quintissential southern city, and well worth watching Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil just to see it. We strolled the streets and squares, had a beer in a pub we used to go to 20 years ago, and even found the restaurant Gareth and I used to work in. Sadly it has changed hands a few times, but still brought back memories of drunken fun times.

Our visitors drove back to Canada and since then we have walked the streets of Charleston, another stunning place, lot's of interesting alleys and streets and we have hit a period with two festivals on.

As well as enjoying Charleston there are a bunch of boats here waiting for weather windows to either head north or back across the Atlantic, so we have been doing the standard cruising thing of repairing each others boats and drinking in the evenings. We plan to leave tomorrow for the 450 mile trip to Chesapeake Bay, it's our longest passage yet by far, at least 3 nights at sea and we have to round the infamous Cape Hatteras so all very exciting.