Charleston Weekend

Friday, July 3 and Saturday, July 4

After arriving in Charleston Harbor on Thursday night we took a long look at the next legs of our trip.  We were concerned that traveling on the holiday weekend might leave us stranded somewhere without dockage or emergency help if needed.

We decided to stay in Charleston until Sunday morning, July 5. Writing from hindsight now, that may not have been such a good idea.  We’ll get to that in a later post.

Our home in Charleston was the City Marina.  It is right downtown; which is very nice for little jaunts off the boat.  We are on the MegaDock. It’s where they put all the big boys. And no, we are not one of the big boys.

Unfortunately we are on the outside of the MegaDock. We are exposed to the wind and waves off the harbor.  This place is the capital of center console boats.  We see them running back and forth all day long to some unspecified location.  We have seen just about every size and brand name.  They are usually loaded up with people and moving pretty fast. This leads to quite a bit of boat wake at the dock.  We are using all of our fenders to protect the boat.

The big boys use fenders too; just a bit larger than ours.

The tidal change here is amazing. The water level rises and falls at least four to five feet four times throughout the day.  Luckily we are tied to a floating dock so we move with the rise and fall. As fresh water boaters; we can’t even imagine that kind of change. You can see the change because of the growth of sea life on all the pilings and walls.

Dan spent most of Friday trying to get our stateroom air conditioners to work.  He would run it until we received an HPF code and then turn it off.  Evidently HPF stands for high Freon pressure. The unit would overheat and then present the code.  So, he would then loosen the hose clamp and use the shop vac (Best idea ever to bring that baby along.) to suck out the water in the hose.  He would then put the hose back on and tighten the clamp.  He would run the air conditioner until it coded again. Then start all over with the shop vac. He must have done this at least twenty times.  Each time he would suck out more dirt and some small shells.  While he was going through all this the air conditioning in the entire boat would be off.  All four air conditioners are inter-connected. Eventually the boat just got so hot; he had to quit.

We still didn’t have air in our cabin.  We also brought along a fan. (Second best idea ever to bring along) So, we would run the air conditioners in the salon and try to blow the air into our cabin.  It was by no means cool, but it was tolerable. We hoped running the boat the next time would help clear those water exhaust hoses.

While Dan worked on air conditioning; I continued my quest to have a clean boat. I know the boat is only 675 square feet; but it has a lot of stuff that needs cleaning.

Friday night, a big storm blew through.  It came up really fast and moved on through just as quickly.

Fourth of July dawned bright and sunny.  We decided to take a break from our labors and take our bikes into town.  Downtown Charleston is very pretty.  We saw lots of old architecture and beautiful gardens.  We visited the Charleston City Market, Ben & Jerry’s and the Life is Good store. It was a very nice outing.

Dan couldn't believe we paid $7.50 for two little cups of ice cream!

When we got back to the boat we fueled up, during yet another storm so we would be ready to leave in the morning. We have stayed at a couple marinas now that do fueling right at your dock. It is an awesome convenience.