Charleston, SC - Day 36 & 37

Day 36 and 37

10/27/15 - 10/28/15

We woke up in McClellanville thinking we would be stuck there due to rain.  Yes, I can pilot from the inside of the boat and be out of the weather, but visibility is limited from there and unless I really have to I'd rather pilot from the flybridge.  Anyway, when I checked the weather forecast it had changed so there was now very little rain forecast, so it looked like we could make it to Charleston without much trouble.  

I spent a couple of hours on the phone with various marinas trying to find a place to stay.  I had initially picked out a nice downtown marina, but they were full due to the snowbird migration being in full swing.  Several said they would call me back if they had cancellations, and finally my first choice marina did find a space for us, so we threw off the lines and took off.  We made our marina in good time, and I only had to pilot from inside for part of the trip.  We pulled into our marina near a Carnival cruise ship and got tied up behind a protective sea wall.  With predicted tides for the day being over 10 feet from low to high we were thankful for the floating dock.

Since we were low on supplies due to my mistake of turning off the shore power while we were in Virgina, we walked to the nearby Harris-Teeter grocery store and restocked.

The next day we walked for hours viewing the various sights and the waterfront.  We found a fire station where they had preserved their old fire engines.  One we saw was from 1916 and was horse-drawn.  The replacement in 1926 had its own gasoline engine!

We went to the historic Charleston City Market and walked from one end to the other, the market is blocks long and full of just about anything you would want, including many locally made crafts.

We walked along the waterfront park, seeing the beautiful landscaping and many waterfront mansions.

We finally caught the free trolly to back toward the marina.  Our stop was at George Street, and I kept telling Sharon that the name of that street was ringing a bell with me.  We had visited Charleston almost 30 years ago and stayed at a bed and breakfast, but we didn't remember the name of it or where it was located.  I said I thought it may have been on George Street so we decided to walk a few blocks to see if I was right.  We went about a block and there it was!  Even though the area around it had a number of new buildings that were not there 30 years ago, the bed and breakfast had hardly changed.

We finally made it back to the marina after a full day of sight-seeing.  Below is another view from the marina.

We decided to eat dinner that evening at another place we had stumbled upon and loved 30 years ago, Jestines Kitchen.  We found out that since we were there the restaurant had been featured by both Anthony Bourdain and Rachel Ray on their TV shows.  I guess we must have given it some good word of mouth!  The restaurant had really not changed a bit, including their menu, and the food was even better than we remembered.  I don't think the prices had changed all that much either!  It was a great end to a wonderful visit.