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Day 28-31 April 29-May 2 In Charleston SC


 April 29 After a delicious breakfast that sister Kathy packed ahead of time and Kathy’s husband Dick dropped off a few supplies from West Marine, we have everything we need to tackle the windlass job, we thought!!

Spent the afternoon rewiring and replacing the windlass.  I provided moral support, tools and held things in place, Bill did the rest.  After much sweat, toil, and doing and redoing, the winch is on but not functioning properly- much to our dismay.




April 30

Made phone calls to get assistance with the windlass, then headed out for lunch in Charleston.  We found a market in Marion Square and enjoyed shrimp and grits!  We then headed out to seek out the numerous churches in Charleston. 






Had time to walk through the shopping district in the old town area of Charleston and down to south of Broad Street to see the beautiful Charleston homes.



 Many homes in Charleston date back to the 1770’s.  These are made of bricks.  Homes built later closer to the 1800’s are built of brick and the facade is covered in stucco.  A typical home is one to two rooms wide with the narrow side facing the street with a gated entrance that leads to a garden and the front door. Most also have a wide porches built to take advantage of the breezes.




The house above was originally a print shop and is one of the oldest buildings in Charleston, dating from 1733.


So many beautiful homes!!


May 1

With a little help from a fellow boater, we managed to get the windlass functioning properly.  Yeah!! thank you Pete on Vallabania. 

 Spent the afternoon cleaning and doing laundry, while Bill washed the boat.  Each evening all the boaters who are doing the Loop at the dock bring their chairs out with a drink and chat.  This is officially called docktails.  We learn a lot from the boaters we meet who have come down the rivers and are going north like us now.  They offer advice, suggest anchorages and marinas and share lots of boat stories!  We have met some wonderful people from all walks of life.  We hosted the docktails tonight with two other Looper couples joining us. 

May 2 

We opted to stay an extra day as our next marina stop couldn’t take us til May 8 and we didn’t get into the city yesterday.

After setting our route for tomorrow and checking the tides and weather, we headed into Charleston for more house hunting.  We saw homes dating back to 1746 and 1767 and 1781.  Was amazing to see that the homes were lived in still, with many owned by the same family.  Bill went crazy with garden and door knocker pictures!















Had the opportunity to go in the Catholic Church we walked by two days ago.  Some beautiful stained glass and ornamentation in the church, and also a huge pipe organ.  They don’t make churches like that any more!



We then ate lunch at Millers All Day Restaurant.  Recommend it to anyone- great southern food in a quirky setting with great prices. I had a honey fried chicken donut with peach preserves, pickles and just a bit of hot sauce.  Bill had a forest ham and cheese biscuit with fig jam.  Both were delicious! Can’t beat Southern fried chicken and biscuits.


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