aPhantom.net Doin' the Charleston
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In 2012, the Conde Nast Traveler's Choice Award for "Top City in the United States" was awarded to Charleston South Carolina. After having spent a good part of last summer there, I have to agree with their choice. In 2010, Conde Nast named Charleston the country's "Friendliest City". I have to agree with that award as well. In our previous visits to Charleston, mostly by land, we had found the place to be "touristy" and somehow not as friendly as many other southern cities. We were soon to discover what gained this city its coveted awards.
We spent our first few days in Charleston at the Charleston City Marina. We were nestled in on the "megadock", built especially for mega-yachts, one of which we are not by any means. There were several "small ships" of about a hundred-plus foot length crowded around but we insisted that we were not intimidated by their size or their oppulence.
The City Marina is on the southwest side of the peninsula that forms the downtown section of Charleston. It's a pretty good hike to most restaurants and shopping, but the marina provides a free shuttle van that runs every hour and delivers you to any part of downtown that you desire. A phone call to the van driver gets you a ride back to the marina. The van also makes a run once a day to the local marine supply store, so there's no excuse to delay boat projects.
Charleston has so many great restaurants to choose from, it's hard to name a favorite. We decided that just trying them all was going to add several pounds to our weight and several inches to our waistlines, but we were determined to make a gallant effort. My personal project was to find the best shrimp and grits and the best Bloody Marys. And, of course, one must sample the local fresh seafood, southern crab cakes, Frogmore stew, Charleston red rice, the list seemed endless.
History is everywhere in Charleston. Once known as the "Manhattan of the South", the antebellum era saw the building of many beautiful homes by prosperous plantation owners. The much sought-after Sea Island cotton grown on the barrier islands drove much of the Charleston economy during the late seventeen and early eighteen hundreds. It is amazing how many of these homes have been lovingly preserved. Most of them are several stories high with beautiful gardens and landscaping. Just maintaining something that size has to be a daunting task, but Charlestonians take their historical restoration seriously.
There are also shopping opportunities everywhere. The City Market is history and shopping all in one. The buildings date from 1788 and have served as a market of 
some sort ever since. The current buildings stretch for several blocks and house all sorts of small and unique shops. This is where you can watch local artisans creating their unique sweet grass baskets. Each basket is hand woven from local grasses. They come in all shapes and sizes and are said to be watertight. In the market area, you can also buy all sorts of other tourist items including local grits, hot sauce, Carolina rice, and beautiful handmade linens, shawls, and hats. If you are looking for art, there is a whole section of the city full of art galleries and craft shops. There is also another section that contains many of the modern shops you would see in a suburban shopping mall. If you can't find something to spend money on here, you are just not trying.
After about a week at the City Marina, we decided to move to the other side of town to the Charleston Harbor Marina. This marina caters more to boats our size, not so much to mega-yachts. It is also part of a resort, which included a swimming pool, two in house restaurants, and some other resort amenities. It is just adjacent to the Patriot's Point Museum which houses a floating aircraft carrier, a WWII destroyer, and a submarine. One of the most appealing things we discovered about this marina was its location just off the main harbor entrance. This spot afforded us a close up and personal view of the many types of commercial traffic entering and leaving Charleston harbor.
According to recent statistics, Charleston is the tenth busiest port in the United States, handling about $72 million in cargo every day. This makes for lots of ships 
coming and going within a stone's throw of our marina. Ordinarily, this might make for an uncomfortable situation with large boat wakes rocking the marina day and night but Charleston Harbor Marina has a unique docking system that pretty much eliminates any movement from passing boat traffic. The large wakes from passing commercial ships are virtually suppressed by the outer docks and it's smooth and comfortable inside almost all the time. So we were able to enjoy the passing commerce with less boat rocking than we had experienced at most places from just small boats passing by.
The marina provided a free shuttle to downtown and also to a charming bar and restaurant area called Shem Creek. This was once the local shrimpers docking area but now houses six restaurants all on the creek, some with an excellent view of the surrounding marsh and all with daily happy hour specials. The City of Charleston runs a water taxi every hour from the downtown docks to Charleston Harbor and the museum. For ten dollars you could ride the water taxi all day long. The route included a ride around the harbor where the captain would often rouse a dolphin or two for the tourists' entertainment.
We quickly met other boaters living in the marina who immediately reinforced the Friendliest City designation. They offered us rides to local shopping and movies, or to the beach or their favorite restaurants. Several new friends simply said "Here are the keys, take my car wherever you need to go". This was from people we had met only days ago.
Charleston is also a sailor's town. The Wednesday night sailboat races in the harbor are well attended with dozens of boats vying for no prize that we heard of except bragging rights. The venerable College of Charleston, founded in 1770, even offers college credits for sailing. Their fleet of small motor-less sailboats is centered at Charleston Harbor Marina. We often saw the students sailing race courses across the main shipping channel, creating an interesting challenge for the commercial traffic.
We had planned to stay a few days but we ended up spending a month at Charleston Harbor. The city of Charleston was definitely working her charm on us. Our original plans for a summer sail to the Chesapeake Bay had been pretty much put on hold until another time. Why go anywhere else when we were having such a great time here?
We did decide to sample another area of Charleston. We moved to another marina just to the west of the city on James Island. This was a short ride in the Intracoastal Waterway, through an infamous narrow channel called Elliot Cut. This is a small man-made passage between the Ashley and Stono Rivers. It is said that the current often roars through this pass at a speed of five knots. Since most sailboats (ours included) usually only travel at about five knots, you can see the problem with arriving at the wrong time. In addition, should you meet a tug and barge coming from the opposite direction in this short channel, it could be quite dicey. We passed through the narrow cut without incident, heading for our destination, just a mile down the Stono River.
Just as we were in sight of the James Island Marina, we heard a loud thump. Something had hit our hull and was making a most distressing racket. We coasted into the marina and attempted to figure out what we had hit. As it was a nice summer day, Jim decided he would inspect the hull and propeller for damage. As the tide was in full ebb about this time, we tied a sturdy line around him and he slipped over the side to investigate. The fine mud from the surrounding marsh and the speed of the current made it impossible for him to see anything even with his diving mask just inches from the propeller. It turned out that a professional diver was doing some work on a nearby boat, so we hired him to take a look at our running gear.
A four foot piece of quarter inch line with a ragged end was wrapped around the shaft. It was most likely from a crab pot marker that was a little too close to the channel. We thought we felt a slight vibration when running the engine in gear but it seemed that we had not damaged anything seriously. We vowed to keep a closer watch for the small wooden crab pot markers that dot the channels everywhere.
James Island seemed pretty remote after being so near downtown Charleston and 
the busy harbor. It was only a few miles away by car but seemed more like the countryside. The facility was very nice with a large swimming pool and a small bar and restaurant. The bar specialty was cheese filled soft pretzels which were pretty decadent. The friendly side of Charleston was here as well. A new friend we met at the marina insisted on driving us to the grocery and hardware store and to his favorite restaurant for dinner. We had one more stop planned for the Charleston area and it might turn out to be the friendliest place yet.
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