After a couple of nights on the hook along the ICW, we arrived at the Charleston City Marina on Wednesday. This was the first time to South Carolina for both of us, and Charleston was a great spot to visit. We knocked down boat jobs, explored the tourist sights of the city, and enjoyed good food and cocktails.
For those who want more details, our activites included:
- Lots of errands and boat projects, including most significantly, marking our anchor chain. We hauled the anchor (73 lbs) onto the dock with a line and then pulled the 210 foot chain and 210 feet rope onto the dock, washed them down and then placed marks on them every 30 feet. This way, when we anchor, we will know for sure how much chain we have out. Too little, and we could have bad holding; too much, and we could swing too far and go aground.
- Exploring the historic city on foot. Charleston was very wealthy pre-Civil War, and the wealth is evident in the architecture of the old homes and public buildings.
- Visiting the covered market — about 4 blocks long, built for commerce in the late 1700s.
- Touring the slave mart museum. Charleston was a center of both the transatlantic and the domestic slave market until the Civil War. Even more than the exhibits themselves, it was powerful to stand in a place where people were sold as goods.
- Eating delicious seafood and drinking craft cocktails (shoutout to recommendations from friends!)
- Visiting the Exchange and Provost, a major civic building built before the Revolution that served as a customs house and market before being used by the British as a prison for POWs during the Revolution.
Tomorrow we head south for more adventures!
