Memsahib's Voyage

It’s a long haul up to Beaufort from Savannah, so we stopped for the night in beautiful Bryant Creek.  I anchored in a spot with plenty of water in the falling tide, but then the wind and current blew us pretty far from the center of the stream.  “I don’t know, John, it’s really shallow over here, we might brush the bottom.  But it’s really close to low tide, so let’s see what happens.”  What happened was that two feet of water ran out of the creek in 45 minutes, and Memsahib slowly lay over in the mud at about a 45 degree angle.  Some fishermen came by to inform us, as we struggled to stand up, “There’s a sand bar there.  It’s not on the chart.”  No $&(%!

Sparta thought it was hilarious when all her food fell off the shelves, and she could walk on the sides of the cabin.  John was not amused and took to the dinghy to take a horizontal nap.  In about an hour we started to lean back upright, and then we simply floated off and re-anchored in 20 feet of water perhaps 50 yards away.  No damage, except to my ego, since re-anchoring is like reefing — the minute it even crosses your mind that there might be a problem, DO IT!

Then onto one of the gems of the South — Beaufort, SC, where we stayed for three days since I just can’t get enough of the town, the history, the food, the ambiance.  Beaufort for me is like Apalachicola, one of those places where I’ve been before and will always return, since everything just feels right.  Bay Street, the main drag, is beautiful, with a wide variety of restaurants for a small town.  The whole waterfront is a new city park rather than condos.  A whole area of town called The Point is an historic district, with by far the largest collection of ante bellum and Victorian homes I’ve ever seen.  We took a carriage tour to get the lay of the land, then I walked the whole area twice before we left.

We ran into a kind of colony of people from Westport, CT in Beaufort. People form Wilton, CT, our old home town, go to Williamsburg, VA, and I guess the word about Beaufort is spreading in Westport.

They say that cruising plans should be written in sand on a low tide, and that’s true for Memsahib, too.  John has to head home for a week for more medical treatment (nothing serious), and to get the last of his pre-college details cleared up.  So I am “stuck” for a week in Charleston, the second-most beautiful city in America after San Francisco.

Hey, where’s all the water going, what’s all that sand, why are we tipping over?

John abandons ship for a nice, level nap in the dinghy.

Going, going…

Bryant Creek anchorage WITH water

Newman, our tour guide to Beaufort

Spanish Moss and old houses — a perfect combination

Beaufort City Park where the Big Chill cast played touch football, Denzel Washington drilled in Glory and Forrest Gump did something-or-other

Forrest Gump somehow ran across the Mississippi over this bridge in Beaufort, SC

Beaufort has an Arts and Crafts district, too, with cottages like this gem