Day 229 – 251
On Tuesday morning, 04/27/21, we borrowed St. John’s Yacht Harbor’s courtesy vehicle to drive to Enterprise in Charleston to pick-up our rental car, another late model Nissan Altima. This one was a shiny bright white. We returned the courtesy car to the marina and then drove to highly-reviewed Red’s Ice House in Mount Pleasant, SC, on popular Shem Creek across Hog Island Channel from Charleston. As has been so common for us on this journey, our weather was incredibly pleasant.
My Splendide 2100 washer/dryer went on the blink, so I carried our laundry up to the machines at the marina. Luckily, while I was up there, Steve was able to speak with a Splendide technician and found out how to resolve the problem ourselves. Seems, even though the Splendide operator’s manual mentions absolutely nothing about it, our unit requires a monthly cleaning! Who knew? UGH! The technician emailed Steve the instructions, we followed them, and VOILA! our unit was running smoothly again. In case I haven’t mentioned it, I hate laundromats! That evening, we drove our rental car to Charleston Crab House for a delicious dinner.
04/28/21 dawned another glorious weather day. I found out first hand that – as reputed – St. John’s Yacht Harbor truly DOES have the nicest, cleanest marina restrooms and showers on the east coast. Later that day, as planned, we moved Legacy from her too-short slip at St. John’s to Ross Marine, farther up the Stono River, where she was scheduled for a haul-out, a new bottom paint job, and several other repairs/improvements, over the next several weeks. We had originally planned to leave at 11 am, but BOTH of our engines decided not to start for us that morning?! Gee, what a shocker – it’s a boat! We had to wait for a mechanic from recommended Zimmerman Marine to come over and help us out. Although the mechanic was able to jump-start our engines, it was not determined until later that our starter battery had died and would have to be replaced. Several hours later, we moved the boat to one of Ross Marine’s powered docks where we’d stay until it was time for Legacy’s haul-out.
After we got the boat tied-up and connected to power, we showered and drove to Wild Olive for a really nice, early dinner. Wild Olive had been recommended to us, and we enjoyed our time there. When we arrived back at Ross Marine from dinner, it was after 6:00 pm, and we found the place closed and locked-up tight, so that we couldn’t get through the gate which Legacy was behind! As the place was deserted, we were more than a little alarmed and tried calling the office number in hopes of being rerouted to an after-hours number. Getting no answer, I began punching the Ring doorbell button next to the gate. In the meantime, Steve had managed to scale the gate and jump down onto the other side of it. There was NO WAY, however, that I was going to attempt that stunt. Finally, I received a response on the Ring doorbell. We explained the problem and were given the gate-entry code. Whew! Turns out, Ross Marine thought we were spending that night in a hotel, and so didn’t know we’d need back inside. All’s well that ends well.
Early, Thursday morning, 04/29/21, we packed our rental car full of luggage and left our floating home behind as we drove to a hotel in Trussville, AL, for the night, halfway on our way home to visit family. Because Legacy was going to be out of the water, her air-conditioning (which requires circulating fresh or sea water to operate) would be out of commission that entire time. That, plus the fact that she’d be sitting about 15 feet up in the air, which involved climbing up and down a ladder to access her (I’m a major klutz, remember…), cinched our plan to use that time to drive back to Arkansas. We had to HOPE Legacy would be back in the water by the time we returned. From 04/29/21 through 05/03/21, we were off the boat and out of state from her.
Our rental car brought us safely back to Charleston on Monday, 05/03/21, where we found Legacy still out of the water, and her bottom still yet to be painted. Using our plethora of Marriott points, we booked a hotel in Mount Pleasant where we planned to stay until Ross Marine was finished with our boat and had splashed her back into the water. We ate a nice, casual dinner at another restaurant on Shem Creek, called Water’s Edge.
After spending a morning in the hotel’s complimentary guest laundry facilities (WHEE), I joined Steve for a drive into town, where he dropped me off at Michael’s and Marshall’s (I was really needing a fix!), and drove the rental car to Ross Marine to check on Legacy’s progress, of which there had been very little. As is usually the case with marine service centers, Legacy’s repairs were taking longer than originally projected. Later that afternoon, we drove to Saltwater Cowboys in Mount Pleasant, near our hotel, for dinner.
On Wednesday, 5/5 – in really windy conditions – we rode the ferry across Charleston Harbor, to visit historic Fort Sumter. We learned all about the fort’s history, which told us it is a sea fort built on an artificial (completely man-made) island protecting Charleston, SC, from naval invasion back in the early 19th century. Its origin dates to the War of 1812, when the British invaded Washington by sea. It was still incomplete in 1861 when the Battle of Fort Sumter began the American Civil War. It was severely damaged during that war, left in ruins, and although there was some rebuilding, the fort as originally conceived was never completed. Since the middle of the 20th century, Fort Sumter has been open to the public as part of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, operated by the National Park Service.
One of our favorite exhibits at Patriots Point (where the retired US battleship, the USS Yorktown is moored) was the Viet Nam Experience, where we spent over an hour in a realistic replica of a US military camp in Viet Nam from back in the day. I think I learned more about the Viet Nam War at that exhibit than anything I’d learned previously. It was an emotionally-moving exhibit, to say the least.
We ate lunch at the Fish House Restaurant, there at Patriot Point, before our physically-exerting walking tour of the mighty USS Yorktown, during which we walked at least 500 miles and climbed 83 sets of steep stairways/ladders, for two full hours. Although we felt certain our legs would buckle beneath us, we completed and survived our tour. We got so hot and sweaty we had to shower as soon as we got back to our hotel room! That evening we returned to Shem Creek for another great dinner at Vickery’s. Fortunately for us, there are a myriad of good restaurants in the Shem Creek area.
The morning of Thursday, 5/6, was beautiful, with bright sunshine and very low humidity. I stood down in the open air parking garage of our hotel, waiting for Steve, inhaling the marvelous fragrance of fully-blooming ligustrum bushes just adjacent to where I was standing. After driving back over to Ross Marine for another check on Legacy’s progress, we found our way to Drayton Hall, as previously recommended to us by our friend Waine Ratliff. Drayton Hall is a beautiful estate built on Charleston’s Ashley River in the mid-1700s by wealthy John Drayton, and later enhanced by John’s son, Charles Drayton. The gorgeous, massive Live Oaks on the property are described as “modern”, having not been planted on the estate until the late 1800s, so the views seen by the home’s original inhabitants were mainly just grazing and growing fields. In my opinion, though, the Live Oaks are what make the whole place! As we explored the lush grounds, we saw our very first alligator of this whole trip in a pond at Drayton Hall!
On Friday, 5/7, we basked in another glorious weather day as we drove over to Sullivan’s Island for lunch at a popular restaurant called The Obstinate Daughter. We discovered that the parking on Sullivan’s Island is scarce – we had to drive around for almost 20 minutes before we finally found a space, and then had to walk several blocks from our car to our destination. At the Obstinate Daughter (aka OD), Steve had their shrimp roll and I had their famous Frogmore Stew. As we awaited our food and enjoyed afternoon cocktails, we observed from the crowds that OD is most definitely the place to be on Sullivan’s Island. In fact, we were in a beautiful place filled with beautiful people. It was at this point it dawned on me that teen-aged girls and young women are all very much wearing hot pants again! Isn’t it amazing how fashions come and go? Oh, and the sound-track playing at OD was obviously selected especially for me, as it was all 70s disco music, which is right up my alley. I was doing the Freak, The Rock, and the Hustle right there in my bar stool throughout our meal. 😉
That same afternoon, we toured Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, which is a series of fortifications also built to protect the city of Charleston in the early 19th century. The first fort (formerly called Fort Sullivan) built of palmetto logs, inspired the flag and nickname of South Carolina, as “The Palmetto State”. The fort was renamed for the US patriot commander in the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, General William Moultrie. Moultrie, who lived from 1730 until 1805, was a South Carolina planter and politician who became a general in the American Revolutionary War. As colonel leading a state militia, in 1776 he prevented the British from taking Charleston, and Fort Moultrie was named in his honor. After independence, Moultrie advanced as a politician; he was elected by the legislature twice within a decade as Governor of South Carolina.
After our tour of Fort Moultrie, we walked over to the beautiful and historic Stella Maris (meaning star of the sea), which is the second oldest Catholic Church in the Charleston area. It’s parish originated in the 1830s and still worships to this day. After the church, we walked to Sullivan’s Island’s highly-touted beach and were underwhelmed. (But we always remind ourselves that we’re beach snobs, and are partial to the gleaming white sands of the Florida panhandle.) We returned from Sullivan’s Island to Shem Creek for another delicious dinner at Shem Creek Crab House.
On Saturday, 5/8, we drove back to Ross Marine to check on Legacy (still in her above-ground status) and I even climbed up the tall ladder to board and retrieve some important items, since it appeared we were going to be in the hotel longer than first expected. Amazingly, I made it up and back down the ladder without falling and breaking an appendage or two. Score! We then left Ross Marine to drive out to Johns Island and see the famous Angel Oak, as highly recommended by my dear friend, Darla Mancini. The truly astonishing work of nature I saw when we arrived rendered me simultaneously tearful and speechless. (The first not being that unusual, but the second being rare, indeed.) There were couples, groups, and families, admiring the majestic tree, which is a Live Oak tree that is old and large enough that its massive branches hang down to touch the ground. Once those limbs touch earth, the tree goes from being a Live Oak to an Angel Oak. (Once I understood this, I realized that we had already seen Angel Oaks in places like Beaufort, SC.) The Angel Oak on Johns Island is more than 400 years in age, and is highly revered by the residents of Charleston and the surrounding area. I could’ve stayed there underneath that incredible tree for the remainder of that day, but I cut Steve some slack and we left after about an hour.
After our moving experience with the tree, we drove to historic downtown Charleston and stopped at Henry’s Vintage Rooftop for day drinks. I enjoyed a tart Lowcounty Limeade, which very much invoked the southern lifestyle, as I sipped. As we’d done on our last visit to Charleston, eight years earlier, we walked around historic downtown Charleston, returned to Henry’s for another drink, then ate an early dinner at TBONZ, before returning to our hotel.
On Sunday, 5/9, we checked on Legacy again, then ate an early dinner at Tavern & Table on Shem Creek, which is quite the place to be for the younger set on the weekends. Everyone was obviously there to see and to be seen. The crowds “cruise” back and forth along the narrow creek in everything from kayaks to 4-engine power boats, checking each other out. It reminded me of MUCH younger days, when I used to cruise “the strip” at University and Asher Avenues in Little Rock, AR, as a teenager. Ah, memories…
On 5/11, we walked around White Point Garden down on the Battery in historic Charleston. It dawned on us that, of all the beautiful old Live Oak trees growing in that area, not a single one has any Spanish Moss hanging from its branches. Custodians must obviously keep the moss off of these trees (which we had to admit looked a lot healthier and lush, sans moss), but we could find no information on why or how that’s done…(?) Also in White Point Garden, high up in several of the trees, there is an active Night Heron rookery, which we thought was especially cool. We stood and watched the adult herons with their babies for several minutes. We ate lunch at US Navy Fleet Landing restaurant at Port Charleston, where we both enjoyed the Tuesday Blue Plate special, which was shrimp cakes, broccoli casserole, and red rice. Yummy!
The next several days were a whirlwind of heavy rain, and long road-trips to and from Conway, Arkansas, to watch our oldest grandchild, Brayden, graduate from high school. We returned to Charleston on Sunday, 5/16, and learned from Ross Marine on 05/17, that they were finally splashing our boat back into the water on 05/18 at 1:00 pm. Hooray! We could finally get out of the hotel and back into our floating home. Unfortunately, we learned that some of the repairs/improvements we’d requested be completed by Ross Marine while they had Legacy out of the water did not happen, due to some major ball-dropping with the staff, which was disappointing, to say the least. We did, however, get the really important stuff done and didn’t want to delay moving back aboard any longer, so we decided to wait and just have the rest of the items done later at a different company. Such is owning a boat…
Position: N 32° 46.365, W 80° 03.802
Distance traveled: 5 SM
Total distance traveled: 3257 SM
Total marina nights: 228
Total nights at anchor: 22
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27