Charleston

We arrived in Charleston on Saturday am. It was a rainy day, which was fine, since we had boat things to tend to. The night before, our generator wouldn't start, and Scott ran out of daylight to see to work on it. Saturday am, when we started to raise the anchor, our windlass acted up again, so Scott had to pull the anchor up by hand. So, Scott spent Saturday fixing the generator and windlass; luckily, none needed parts. I did laundry and cleaned the boat(once Scott was finished with the generator, and the floor was back together).

We are at the Charleston City Marina. The location is good, and the staff are friendly. However, the transient pier is insanely long, and the walk to shore is at least a quarter mile. So our bikes are worth their weight in gold here. They came in VERY handy when I was doing laundry! The marina has a courtesy car, that will run you to places in town. So for dinner, we rode our bikes to the courtesy stop, and then hopped a ride to Juanita Goldberg's Nacho Royal for dinner. They had great fish tacos, guacamole and margaritas, so it was a happy evening!
Sunday was decently warm, but the forecast was for rain most of the day. The wind was much worse than the rain, though. It was blowing at LEAST 25-30 mph, with gusts up to 40. Our boat is tied up to a pier that faces the Charleston harbor, that faces a southerly direction...NOT where we should be for this wind. We have been tossed against the pier mercifully. You'd think we were underway, full steam, out in the ocean! It quickly becomes unnerving, and has worn us thin.

We caught the marina's courtesy car to go to brunch, and then walked from there to the grocery store..in the rain. The courtesy car came back to get us at the store, and took us back to the pier, where we loaded our stuff into the baskets on our bikes and brought them back to the boat...in more rain, and the same wind. After that, we gave up on outside and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the boat, sloshing back and forth.

On Monday, we woke to sun, thank God, but the winds were still kicking just as much, and the temps. had dropped. We rode our bikes into town to take a carriage tour of Charleston. The tour was really good, and with the sun out, we could finally appreciate Charleston's beautiful homes and buildings. However, the wind and cold chilled us through, so we quickly peddled to the Mellow Mushroom for a warm lunch. After some good food and time indoors, we headed back to the boat, to spend the rest of the afternoon. We had no energy left to fight the wind and chilly temperatures.

This morning(Tuesday), we're headed out of town, and on our way farther south...hoping at SOME point to catch up with some warmer temps. We're noticing a lot of the boats, who were here with us at the Charleston Marina for the past few days, are heading out, too, now that the wind has FINALLY stopped! I guess it'll be a crowded day on the water.

Here are some pictures we managed to take, in between wind and rain.