Moving North up the Ditch

It was a bumpy overnight ride from Charleston to Carolina Beach, NC.  We slipped by Cape Fear into the intracoastal, through Snows Cut and down Masonburo Sound to find our destination.  Carolina Beach is a nice town with the ocean on one side and the calm sound on the other with cottages lined up between.  We were greeted at a really nice dingy dock where they had individual slips for each dingy with proper cleats.  We tied up and enjoyed strolling the town. 

We found a nice place serving local fried oyster Po-Boys that were really good.  As we walked near the beach we saw a line of not less than 60 people lined up at Britts.  We found out that they only serve one thing…hot, fresh glazed doughnuts!  Since the locals promised that they were famous “round these parts”, we joined the line and chowed down.  They were, in fact, good.

44 miles up the ditch, we pulled into Mike Hammock Bay for the night, which is a part of Camp Lejune.  We enjoyed watching the Marines playing war around us in the sea and air.

 

Another 40 miles up the ditch brought us to Beaufort, NC.  We visited the North Carolina Maritime Museum were they had all kinds of artifacts from Blackbeards ship Queen Anne’s Revenge that was recently found nearby.  We stocked up at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store (I just love that name) and moved on.

 

Two more anchorages in the Nuese and Alligator Rivers allowed us to rest for two nights tied up at the free Elizabeth City docks.  Kim spotted turtles all along the rivers and even saw one alligator. We even found a free electrical plug in Elizabeth City that I could reach with two 100 foot extension cords I had aboard.  It was enjoyable being able to step ashore and not running the generator to keep the batteries happy was also nice.

Another two nights and we crossed into Virginia and pulled into a dock at Atlantic Yacht Basin.  They are known for quality work and I needed a second opinion on a transmission problem.  Unfortunately they confirmed that I will need to pull it out of the boat (as I did in Africa 2 years ago) and change some seals.  Their quote was too high so we made arrangements to have this work done while we visit with my mother in Ocean City, Maryland.

We moved 10 miles to the north and found ourselves in Norfolk, Va.  Here we found the Chrysler Museum and Glassworks to be extraordinary and, even better, both were free to enter.  

 

 

The car magnate opened his collection to the public and we all enjoyed the artwork and artifacts from around the world.   

 

 

The blown glass, cameos and paintings were breathtaking and this statues face really captured my emotion as I discovered that my transmission needed to be repaired again!

We visited the Glassworks and saw a presentation where a glass vase was created and blown from liquid glass to the finished product.

We had one more day to wait for weather to move up in the Atlantic Ocean to Ocean City Maryland, so we went ashore again.  This day we visited the Nauticus museum. We spent 2 hours in the morning just going through the museum and had lunch out side and came back to see the ship.  Berthed at Nauticus, the Wisconsin is one of the largest and last battleships ever built by the U.S. Navy. It was impressive and Emily liked seeing the oversized equipment like anchors and windlass compared to our little ship.

The weather report finally said go and we headed out to sea again.  It was another overnight passage to Ocean City and we slipped into the marina at 8:30 AM.  Once hooked up to power and water and rinsed off, we called my mother who lives in nearby Berlin.  We will get our transmission and generator all fixed up while we visit for 2 weeks.  My mother has a short list of handyman items that I can help with and the whole crew is looking forward to long baths and beds that don’t move!

Tom

Charleston,South Carolina

Well, Emily Grace may well have tried to make us linger in Charleston as she proceeded to let the overboard macerator pump fail on the passage from Georgia.  Since this little pump allows us to discharge waste when 3 miles offshore, it is mighty important and she may have succeeded. The captain, however, thwarted any such mutinous plan by having 2 spare pump impellers aboard.  Although that fixed the problem, the captain was also ready with another complete replacement pump!

 

In any event, we entered the Ashley River and found the private mooring ball that we had found and reserved using Active Captain on our Coastal Explorer navigation software.  Unfortunately the owner had left a decrepit dingy tied to it using copious amounts of rope.  Despite valiant efforts by Captain and crew, we couldn’t get the tangled line free with our boat hook and ended up with the dingy painter wrapped around the underwater stabilizer fin.  A local boater came over and with his help and the swift 2 knot current, we managed to break free unharmed and get temporarily re-attached to the mooring/dingy mess.  The owner of the mooring was then called and he borrowed my knife to cut off the tangled mess he had left us and we were then properly attached to the mooring ball.  It all worked out well, since we paid him $15 per night for a $20 per night mooring.  He got a $45 windfall for our 3-night stay and we got a good deal.

After foiling the mutiny and surviving the attack mooring ball, the crew deservedly went ashore to explore Charleston.  We found the gracious waterfront mansions and well-made but overpriced sweetgrass baskets were still as we left them back in our 2008 visit.  We revisited the oldest museum in America, the old slave market and the historic Nathaniel Russell house.

America's oldest museum happens to be The Charleston Museum right here in South Carolina. It opened in 1773, and from the beginning, displayed geological specimens from its surrounding areas.  Outside there is a replica of the American Civil War H. L. Hunley submarine of the Confederate States of America. Drawing from my vast experience working at the Groton submarine factory (Ha Ha), I explained to Emily that the Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship, although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her successful attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to her base.  Apparently, the bowsprit containing the explosive charge was not quite long enough!

 

The exhibits inside run the gamut from textile and clothing to silver to lowcountry life, rise of the South, Revolutionary War, Civil War, natural history, and the most impressive arsenal of weaponry I've ever seen. If we only had one of these multibarrel rifles aboard, maybe we could have gone through the Somalia pirate waters!

 

The slave markets only redeeming quality is the ability to see the nicely made sweetgrass baskets.  Since we found and bought these same baskets in Dominica for less than 1/10th of the selling price here, we simply looked and complemented the ladies on their work.  Among the cheap trinkets being hawked here, Emily found some cool resin hair thingy’s she hopes will be OK with the school girls in Ludlow, Mass.

 

Located in Downtown Charleston near High Battery, the Nathaniel Russell House Museum at 51 Meeting Street, is widely recognized as one of America’s most important neoclassical dwellings and was worth the stop. The Historic Charleston Foundation purchased the National Historic Landmark in 1955, and the house served as the Foundation’s headquarters for 37 years. Today, the interiors are restored to their original 1808 grandeur and surrounded by formal gardens.

Nathaniel Russell was born in Bristol, Rhode Island. He settled in Charleston at the age of 27 in 1765, when Charleston was a bustling seaport. By 1774, Charleston boasted a per capita of wealth nearly four times that of all the American colonies. Russell’s career as a merchant involved the shipment of cargoes to and from New England, the West Indies, South America, Virginia, Great Britain, continental Europe, West Africa and Asia.

While most of his profits came from the exportation of staples, such as Carolina Gold rice, indigo, tobacco and cotton, Russell handled a broad range of imported goods. He also participated in the African slave trade both before and after the American Revolution.

The Nathaniel Russell House is an excellent example of the Adam style of architecture. Russell’s house was built when local carpenters had a decade of experience with the light and airy manner made popular by Robert Adam. His house has been called an exercise in ellipses, for from its free-flying stair to the wrought iron balconies, to the principal windows and doors, we found it to be extraordinary. It was the last great house of the city’s post-revolutionary period. Built in 1809, the house was listed in the National Register in 1971 and Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

We also stepped into the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The Cathedral seats 720 people and is noted for its Franz Mayer & Co. stained glass, hand painted Stations of the Cross, and neo-gothic architecture. The cornerstone was laid in 1890, and the church opened in 1907.

The sides of the Sanctuary are adorned with windows depicting the 4 Gospel writers with their winged creatures. Above the High Altar is the Chancel window. The top section is a rose window depicting St. John the Baptist baptizing Jesus with the Holy Spirit above. It is surrounded by 8 adoring angels playing instruments. Above the Rose window is a Sacred Heart. To the left of the Rose window is a pelican feeding her three newborn pelicans, and to the right is the Lamb of God. Below all of this is a 5-light replica of Da Vinci's Last Supper.

In general, Charleston was a nice stop.  They need some free dingy docks and the shuttle busses (although free) were really overcrowded; but those are minor complaints.  After 2 tiring days of sightseeing, Tom started to plot the trip up the ditch towards North Carolina.  When we compared 3 long days of hand steering and bridge openings, we again decided to head for the ocean since we could do the same trip easily overnight.  Come along as our next stop will be in Carolina Beach, North Carolina.

Tom