Saturday – Tuesday, May 11 – 14, 2019

We said good-by to Beaufort and hello to Charleston on May 11. We spent much of the seven or so hours battling the biggest flies that look like bees! Apparently, meandering through the marshes at only 9-10 mph attracted those bee-flies providing us with the unwanted entertainment of swinging our fly-swatters for hours! On the way we passed some sort of military station with warning signs to stay away and as we neared Charleston, we saw Fort Sumter in the distance. This fort was built in 1829 on a small man-made island in Charleston Harbor. It is also said that the first shot that started the Civil War was fired from here.

Our marina was at the Charleston Maritime Center, within walking distance of the historic district, and an aquarium and a beautiful park. Due to the prediction of storms the first day there, we took it easy and did boat stuff, which included two loads of laundry at the marina (free machines!) and as it almost always happens, the thunderstorms came through just as it was time to go back to the boat with clean laundry. Ugh! Brian arrived at the laundry room with rain jackets and plastic bins to keep everything (& us) dry.

We took a water taxi to Patriots Point across the Cooper River from our marina to tour the CV-10 USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. It was named after the CV-5 USS Yorktown that had been sunk during World War II at the Battle of Midway in June, 1942.  The self-guided tour was particularly interesting to Brian. Sue thought it looked a lot like other aircraft carriers and battleships we’ve toured (USS Midway in San Diego, USS Alabama in Mobile), yet the short film was well done and worthwhile. Then we took the water taxi back across the river to the historic district’s dock and Waterfront Park. We found a nice Irish bar for lunch then walked through the mostly open-air market (thanks for Brian’s patience) and successfully found a handcrafted sunglasses case to replace Sue’s that broke that morning. Back to the water taxi and our marina. A fine day!

The next day we went on a walking tour of the historic district. It began at what is called the Four Corners of Law at the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets. The four corner buildings are St. Michael’s Episcopal Church (God’s law), Charleston County Courthouse (state law), Charleston City Hall (city law), and the Federal Courthouse (federal law). We spent the next two and a quarter hours seeing lots of interesting homes, churches, buildings, gardens, trees, waterfront, etc., and learning a lot of the history that goes with them.

We enjoyed our stay at Charleston but it was time to move on to Georgetown.