Beaufort, South Carolina

We spent two days in Beaufort, South Carolina. It's a beautiful city! Our marina was very convenient to the historical district, allowing us to both bike and walk the city with ease. After getting settled into our slip on Monday, we set out to find ourselves some lunch. We ended up at Panini's, on the recommendation of the ladies at the marina office. It was a beautiful day, so we waited for an outside table to open up. We could hardly stand the delicious smells coming at us from all sides, and couldn't wait to order our food! Our lunch was worth the wait, and we then headed out for a bike ride around town.

Beaufort is full of historic homes. We enjoyed riding through the streets, finding one beautiful old house after another. We also passed more restaurants, and stopped into a few shops along the main street in town. Scott got an ice cream fix, before we headed back to the boat.

While on laundry duty, we met Don, from New York. He owns a marina in Mexico Point, New York, northwest of Syracuse, on Lake Ontario. He's also lived in Miami and St. Petersburg, and has done extensive cruising on his sailboat. He and Scott talked extensively about boating and the Intracoastal. I think Scott was glad to have someone to talk to about these things, who could respond with experience and knowledge. I'm usually on the receiving end of the conversation, and I know my water knowledge is greatly lacking!

We also chatted with a couple whose boat was tied up behind ours at the pier. They were headed back to New Jersey, from spending the winter in Hilton Head(not far enough south for a winter get away for me!). We swapped Intracoastal and East Coast waters information. They are traveling with a cat, so we also shared stories about boating with animals...ours were more colorful!

The next day, we took a three hour walking tour of Beaufort with Jon Sharp. We learned MUCH about the history of Beaufort, which I’ll detail in a later entry. After our three hour trek around town, we were pretty hungry. We’d spotted Nippy’s the day before, on our bike ride, but it was closed. A shop employee had also highly recommended the place, so we went back to have lunch. Nippy’s is tiny, with most of its seating outside, adjacent to a public parking lot. Despite the location, it’s a casual, comfortable feel, and the food was terrific! We shared a blackened fish taco and a fried grouper sandwich. The fish taco was so good, we ordered a second one! On Thursday and Friday nights, Nippy’s has live music. There’s an outside fire pit, if the weather mandates. That’ll have to wait for another visit.

After getting back to the boat, I did a second round of laundry. Scott spent some time plotting the next week’s schedule and anchorages. We had the transient pier all to ourselves, and enjoyed a quiet night. Here are some pictures we took while in Beaufort.