Thankful.

We are underway southbound in the ICW, after what turned out to be a pleasant two full weeks in Charleston, including Thanksgiving. Half of that stay was at the dock and the rest at anchor. This morning found us in Brickyard Creek (map), just an hour from Beaufort, SC, and today we are headed for Hilton Head.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving, aboard Esmeralde.

We arrived to Charleston Harbor just as the tide turned and we had an easy cruise up the east side, dropping the hook right at 4pm in a new spot for us, adjacent to the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier museum ship (map) and just across the channel from our destination of the Charleston Maritime Center. We tendered ashore to the nearby Charleston Harbor Resort, which is not in Charleston at all but rather Mount Pleasant, for a casual dinner at their Reel Bar. We remembered this place from our first visit here a dozen years ago, when we docked at the resort's marina.

Approaching our anchorage near the USS Yorktown.

We needed slack to enter the Maritime Center, and that was at 10am on Friday. It was a short 15-minute cruise across the ship channel, and as Louise was on deck setting out fenders, a couple of playful dolphins came over and used them as toys, booping them with their snouts. Making our way into the marina basin at dead low tide we plowed our way through a 5' hump of silt between the entrance and the dock. Thankfully we had a couple of feet under the keel once we got alongside (map).

Twinsies.

Right after we were tied up a lovely 55' Burger motor yacht came in right behind us; it was nice to meet Victoria and Kevin aboard Set Free.  On a lovely Friday evening in Charleston we thought it best to have a dinner reservation, and at dinner time we walked to Vincent Chiccos, an Italian joint on Hutson alley downtown. One of the things we like about the Maritime Center is that there are at least a handful of decent places in walking distance. We did spend part of the afternoon putting the scooters on the ground, but we both needed the walk.

Vector at the Maritime Center. Skipper of the tour boat at right admired Vector and invited us out on one of the cruises but we never had the chance.

The tender battery has been signalling end of life for the last couple of weeks, and I have been needing to pull-start the tender when it's cold. So Saturday I took the scooter up to Walmart in North Charleston with the old battery to swap it for a new one. On the way I stopped by the North Charleston Amtrak station to scope it out for my morning departure on Monday.

As long as I was at Walmart I picked up a bunch of staples we normally get there, and I almost lost half of them when the trunk flew open over a bump on my way home. I think the force of the battery hitting the lid overwhelmed the latch. Fortunately I only lost a microfiber towel that I keep in the trunk, which must have blown out before I discovered it was open. I had the new battery installed and the tender buttoned back up before dinner time.

Between the train station and Walmart I stopped by the outlet mall. Holiday shopping is in full swing.

It was a gorgeous day and we decided to again walk to dinner, and so we had made reservations at Muse, a place we remembered fondly. As we arrived we noticed a city work crew fixing a water main break right in front of the joint. As soon as we walked in we asked if everything was working, and they told us that yes the water was on in the kitchen ans the upstairs restrooms but not in the downstairs restroom. That seemed fine and, at the very start of the evening, they seated us in a choice table upstairs next to the window overlooking the street.

One of our neighbors, Vision of the Seas, departing.

That was lovely right up until the Binford 900 vacuum truck pulled up right outside the window, boomed over to the hole in the street, now full of the leaking water, and cranked the engine up to 11 to suck it all out. It was actually quite comical and we had a good laugh about it with our server. The food was good, and apart from the very brief racket from the vacuum truck it was a nice spot.

Louise toasting the vacuum truck right outside the window.

Sunday was my day to prepare for my whirlwind three-day trip to NJ, the reason we were at the dock in the first place. It was a sunny but crisp day, and we were surprised when the quayside started filling up with kayaks, each being carried down the dock one at a time and launched. We could see little flags with numbers and surmised some kind of kayak event.

Searching online for kayak events turned up nothing, and slowly it dawned on us that this was actually a swimming event. Each swimmer had a safety kayak with their number on it. We had a great view of the start of the inaugural Charleston Trident Swim, which began at our dock and ended on the other side of the city on the Ashley River. Apparently they raised over $100k for the Navy Seal Foundation.

Trident Swim leaving the marina. I was surprised the marina did not kill the power for the event.

I needed cash for my trip and I hoofed it into town to the lone Chase ATM on the peninsula, only to find it out of cash. The bank across the street was similarly out and I ended up paying the vig at the third bank I tried. On the way home I stopped at Harris Teeter and picked up a deli sandwich for the train. We rode out to D'Allesandro's Pizza, locally known as D'Als and one of our favorite spots, for dinner.

D'Als. These pizza paddles fold down from the wall to become the stand for the pie.

The next three days were something of a blur. It was an all-day train ride, 12-13 hours, each way. I packed enough food and drink for both lunch and dinner on Monday, and we pulled into Philly more or less on-time just a few minutes before 10pm. I had booked a hotel only ¾ mile from the station and had a pleasant walk. It was my first time at a Hilton "Motto," where everything was diminutive, but comfortable. Even the front desk was a tiny affair, overshadowed by the upscale Mexican restaurant that occupies most of the space.

My train, the Palmetto, arriving in North Charleston.

Enterprise car rental was literally across the street, and I picked up my car when they opened at 7:30. I had a two-hour drive each way, a nice two-hour visit with my folks, and an evaluation stop at a continuing care facility for when that time comes. I had the car back to Enterprise an hour before their 6pm closing time. Too late to take in any of Philadelphia, but I did have a nice walk around Rittenhouse Park and dinner at a local pub before retiring. A late forecast for rain in the morning also had me in the Target across from the hotel to buy an umbrella, which I foolishly had not packed.

The Wharf, DC, a familiar stop for us, from the rail bridge over the Washington Channel.

Sure enough it was raining in the morning and I arrived at the train station with damp feet but otherwise mostly dry thanks to the umbrella. The underground trolley that would have taken me almost directly from the hotel to the train station was closed for tunnel repair. The train station is classic and beautiful, but entirely covered in scaffolding while it undergoes restoration. This brief taste of Philly has me thinking that we should make another stop there in the boat; lots of renewal and cleanup in the decade since our first visit.

What passes for a workspace at Motto. A combination nightstand/ottoman and a tray table. These and another nightstand containing a mini-fridge were the only furniture in the room.

The train makes a 45-minute stop in DC to change locomotives, and since I know Union Station like the back of my hand, I disembarked, hoofed it up to Pret-a-Manger, and bought a sandwich for lunch time. I actually like Amtrak's dining cars, but the Palmetto, a day train, does not have one. They have only a café car, which sells packaged or microwaveable items. I did end up buying a chicken Caesar for dinner, which I had at my seat with a Pluff Mud Porter I smuggled aboard.

The Philly train station should be beautiful when they are finished.

The whole trip was uneventful, and I arrived back in North Charleston on time at 7:30pm, after a brief glitch wherein the train went into emergency a quarter mile from the station. I ordered a Lyft, got in the car, and when I went to text Louise that I was on my way, my phone lost its mind. I spent the rest of the car ride fiddling with it to try to revive it but it was so far gone that it would not power off or reboot. I had to give the guy a cash tip. Louise could see my progress on a tracking feature built into Lyft.

These built-in shelves and diminutive closet bar were the total of storage.

The demise of my phone sealed my fate for the next two days. Even though they were a couple of the nicest days we had in Charleston, weather-wise, I was in recovery mode. I had a replacement phone ordered on second-day delivery not even an hour after I got home, and we extended our week at the marina by two days, all they had available, so I could receive it and get squared away. That would still leave us just enough time to make our Thanksgiving reservation in Hilton Head.

The restoration is clearly quite extensive.

Like most people I have become unduly dependent on my cell phone. From driving directions to boarding passes to communicating with family and friends, it all revolves around this infernal device. And while I like to think I am careful about making sure everything critical gets backed up, a catastrophic failure like this is often a lesson in just what, exactly, you forgot.

Ice and vending for the whole hotel were in the basement. But they had these fancy vending machines with lots of choices and a couple of microwaves.

My new phone is back up and running now, but in the process I lost my entire WhatsApp chat history, my Signal chat history, and a few dollars of stored value on a Washington DC Metro card. Getting everything else working took numerous hours, and some apps which are no longer supported by the current Android version and which I was previously able to side-load are additional casualties of the situation.

Part of the station already complete hosted the holiday tree.

One of those apps was the remote viewer for our Chinese 8-channel video camera system, and the only way to fix that problem turns out to be to replace the 8-channel DVR with a newer Chinese DVR that comes with a working app. That project took the better part of another day, and drew blood. I still don't have the whole thing dialed in, although it is mostly working.

When I was not beating my head against the wall with my phone, we did enjoy our final three days at the Maritime Center. We rode to dinner at Mario's on King Street, and when our friends Dorsey and Bruce on Esmeralde landed across town at the City Marina, we met them for dinner at Costa one evening, and they met us at D'Als the next. Costa was new to us (and, I think, new overall) and while it was fine, I have to say neither the food nor the service was commensurate with the price tag. It does have the advantage of being one of the very few places in walking distance of that marina.

The DVR is crammed into this barely accessible space for security reasons, which made for a difficult time replacing it.

At one point we also rode out to James Island to offload some Goodwill donations and get badly needed haircuts for both of us. We had breakfast one morning at Saffron, just a couple of blocks from the marina, which was quite good. And one late night bit of excitement was monitoring the radio traffic as the inbound Maersk Frederica container ship collided with the shrimper Jesus Lives, who was trawling in the channel and paying no attention. All five crew were OK but the trawler sustained some damage; the ship had to keep going and the pilot boat Fort Moultrie went out to check on the shrimper.

When last I posted here I mentioned I needed to figure where we'd be on Thanksgiving, and after looking at our schedule from Charleston I settled on a familiar joint, the Dockside restaurant at Skull Creek, on Hilton Head Island. They have their own dock just a short tender ride from a nearby anchorage, and they were doing a prix fixe with all the holiday flavors. I made a 4:30 reservation and we figured to have a couple extra days of buffer on our way from Charleston.

Every city has its causes. I can't say I disagree with this one.

Meanwhile Dorsey and Bruce had made plans to have their Thanksgiving at the dock in Beaufort, SC, just one stop before Hilton Head. When they learned we'd be nearby, they invited us to join them, which is quite a lovely gesture. Home-cooked Thanksgiving with dear friends beats restaurant Thanksgiving alone by a wide margin and so we jumped at the chance.

Our plan from Charleston was to depart the Maritime Center at high slack and, with the tide then unfavorable for continuing south, round the peninsula and drop the hook in the Ashley for one night before continuing. From there it would be a comfortable two days to the Beaufort anchorage, working our way over a number of shallow sections.

A look down the Charleston City Market.

After decking the scooters we dropped lines on Sunday at high slack, made our way out of the marina, and cruised down around the Battery and up the Ashley. The Ashley River anchorage can get crowded and has a foul bottom, and we were hoping to drop the hook in the exact same spot we've used three times previously, where we knew the bottom was clear. When we arrived, however, we found a new green buoy right in that exact spot.

Since our last stay two years ago, the City Marina has expanded their face dock, which is now another hundred feet out into what used to be the channel. So the channel itself has been moved that much further to the southwest and the Coast Guard has placed new buoys to keep it clear. The anchorage is now considerably smaller. We continued upriver until we found a nice clearing past some submerged dolphins, just before the high bridge, and dropped the hook there instead (map).

I came across this Poinsettia exhibit in the library, with a bit of the controversial history of their local namesake, Joel Roberts Poinsett.

We had originally figured to be here just one night, otherwise we might well have left the scooters on the ground. We splashed the tender and headed to a new spot for us, California Dreaming, which is more or less a steak-and-seafood joint right on the water, across the river from Charleston. It has its own dock, and turned out to be surprisingly nice, even though we've both been shrugging if off for a decade. I think as ex-Californians the name alone had been off-putting for us. They had the local porter on draft, which is always a plus for me.

I liked this play sculpture in Brittlebank Park, where we land the dinghy.

Somewhere along the line, Bruce and Dorsey got word from the marina in Beaufort that the slip they wanted was unavailable. As they were already in a perfectly nice spot at the City Marina in Charleston they decided to just stay through the holiday. No way were we going to miss our dinner invitation, and so our one night on the Asheley morphed into five. Our new spot turned out to be ideal, calmer than our previous digs closer to Wappoo Creek.

The problem with anchoring on this side of town is that there are few eateries in walking distance. In the course of our stay, in addition to Caifornia Dreaming, we also ended up at Saffire in the Marriott, a short walk from the Publix that we also needed, and the Charleston Crab House, a mile or so dinghy ride up Wappoo Creek. We've passed this latter joint for years in Vector but this was our first visit. It was just OK, a typical waterfront fried seafood place. They did have some nice drafts.

I ordered this charcuterie board for my entree at Saffire. Apart from the crostini, it was pretty good.

One evening we tendered over to Esmeralde and the four of us Ubered to Hall's Chophouse, where we got the corner spot at the bar by being there before the doors opened at 4. We love the bar at Hall's, and the corner of the main bar is almost like a small round table, so it really worked for the four of us. I also tendered over to Esmeralde a couple of times to get in a walk or to run errands, including picking up at the on-site Amazon locker at the marina, one of the key benefits to being on this side of the peninsula.

Cheers from Charleston Crab House. No great shakes, but they have a dock.

On Thanksgiving day I spent part of the morning re-caulking the shower, which of course is when Amy and David from Selah Way stopped by in their tender to say hi. Louise chatted with them briefly, and after I was done I swung by and said hello to them at Corporate Approved at the dock, where they were having Thanksgiving with friends. They anchored upriver of the lift bridges, which we might try on our next visit as it is closer to the dinghy dock with the restaurants and grocery store. It was nice to meet Brian Donovan of Corporate Approved.

I had sold a couple of items on eBay and I hoped to drop them in the mailbox Thursday, but the mailboxes in Charleston have been modified to just a letter slot. I ended up leaving them at the front desk at the Hilton, and I hope they make it out. We did not want to delay our Friday departure for me to run the ashore in the morning.

I was stunned to see this bird come out of their tiny oven. It was perfect.

At the appointed time of 3pm we arrived at Esmeralde bearing a large salad, a bottle of wine, and a few beers. We had a pleasant hour or so of cocktails and conversation before the main event, wherein Dorsey plied us with home-made turkey, stuffing, potatoes, green beans, gravy, and the best cranberry relish I have ever tasted. We did not make it back to Vector until past 7:30, toting enough leftovers for a whole second Thanksgiving dinner. Bruce and Dorsey are the consummate hosts and it was very, very generous of them to share their holiday with us.

Thankful for good friends. Photo: Dorsey Beard

We decked the tender as soon as we got home, because as chilly as it was Thursday night, it was even colder yesterday morning. Both the cold and the tide favored an early morning departure, and we weighed anchor after our first cup of coffee and got underway. The early start and the rising tide meant we could get through the troublesome shoals not only at Watts cut but also the Ashepoo-Coosaw cutoff if we just kept going, and that's what we did.

Our view during dinner.

Once we were in the Coosaw it made the most sense to press on to the protection of Brickyard Creek, and we ended our day there shortly before 5pm, dropping the hook in an oxbow, a new spot for us. That had us just an hour from Beaufort, but we could not have made it there in the daylight. Esmeralde had left Charleston just ahead of us and made Beaufort with plenty of daylight to spare. We polished off the Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner; they were just as delicious the second day.

Just as good the second night.

This morning we had another early start owing to tide, and we passed them at the dock. They taunted us with photos of fresh local bagels and said they planned to leave at slack for Hilton Head. By the time they were ready to leave, they were of the mind that they could make a run for it outside tomorrow, and figured to be in Hilton Head just a single night, with an early departure in the morning.

We wanted to try to get together one more time before we recede in their rear view mirror, and so we made a last-minute decision to try to grab a slip at the same marine for tonight, Harbour Town at The Pines Resort. That was a long shot on a holiday weekend, but I think we landed the last available 50' slip. I expect Esmeralde to pass us en route.

Sunset over Brickyard Creek.

Update: We are docked at Harbour Town on Hilton Head (map). The only other time we've been here is a lunch stop we made on our final day of training back when we first started out. The pricing is commensurate with the resort nature of the place, but we decided to splurge. Esmeralde did not overtake us but arrived about a half hour after us, with a half dozen bagels for us. We've already heard the marina turning away boats on the radio. We strolled around the kitschy "village" with its rows of tourist shops and fake lighthouse, and we have a dinner reservation with Bruce and Dorsey for the Quarterdeck restaurant this evening.

Vector at Harbour Town.

I have no idea where we are headed tomorrow, but we'll linger right here until checkout time. One option is to make the side trip to downtown Savannah for a couple of days before we continue south toward Florida and warmer climes.