Ok.. time to do the time warp again as we get caught up on past due travelogues. This time, we’re taking you back to July.
When the temperatures were spiking into the 100s and we decided to take out a sweet monthly spot in a marina right smack dab downtown in the awesome city of Charleston, SC.
Which means my friends, this segment is back aboard Y-Not (which seems like forever ago as I type this sitting in our bus parked in Arizona).
It was a jam packed month of being tourists and just enjoying downtown city life – one of our favorite aspects of our cruising lifestyle.
Here’s a quick video recap of our month:
We selected the Charleston Maritime Center on the recommendation of our friends Sean & Louise.
It’s a super tiny marina run by the city – right across the bay from the Yorktown.
They normally only allow up to 10-day stays, but because it was the off season – they allow up to a month. And at a sweet discounted rate of $18/ft with our Boat US membership discount.
That meant for just about a grand, we got to stay smack dab downtown where hotels normally go for $200+ per night, and we were the view of million dollar condos.
Not bad, not bad at all.
The only downsides are that this marina is in use for commercial operations and it can get pretty choppy with all of the traffic. So it’s pretty busy during the day.
But what a location, especially for Fourth of July with the fireworks barge right across the bay from us!
So worth it.
We were just blocks from the action – neighbors to the state aquarium, a few blocks from the shopping district along King St, blocks from the French Quarter.
We could walk off our boat and pick a direction, and always be surrounded by awesome to discover. We opted not to bring our van up for transportation.
We had more dining, entertainment, theaters and museums to explore than any one should in a month.
To top it off, as soon as we booked our monthly stay – both our parents decided to come join us. Which meant we ended up on a 8-day non-stop, tour-filled extravaganza.
We did a bus tour, boat tours, aircraft carrier tour, slave museum, plantations, historic homes, ghost tours, dungeons and just lots and lots of strolling. I think I counted 16-official tours we did that spell.
It was also a highly social visit.
We had fabulous neighbors – fellow cruisers/RVers Lyn & Mark who literally bumped into us in the marina upon their arrival. We instantly connected and had cool friends to explore the city with, and enjoyed spontaneous hang outs. With their access to a vehicle we went further afield to visit a distillery, Angel Oak and the tea plantation.
Chris’ friend Dave from high school also lives in town, and we enjoyed many meetups exploring with him – including two nights out at the theatre and a drag show.
We enjoyed hosting AGLCA president Kim Russo aboard for an evening (and a live cast talking about the Great Loop).
Dear friends Sabine & Eckhart (who we met last winter in Sanford) dropped in for a surprise visit on their cross country summer RV adventure. And a few followers also made arrangements to visit.
Oh, and did I mention we managed to squeeze in a TON of work too? And got Kiki caught up on her vet appointments.
And to deal with the extreme heat and a very bouncy marina right along the main shipping channel – we purchased an annual pass to the next door aquarium, which made for great mid-day getaways to visit the aquatic animals.
Speaking of a bouncy marina, one night while we were out exploring we returned to a ransacked boat. Everything thrown around the living room – including my four year old 21″ iMac on the ground, cracking the screen.
According to our security camera, we got seriously waked.
So, that pushed replacing my computer up the priority list – which was overdue anyway.
I selected a more portable setup with a Mac Mini that can move between boat/van/bus and a 24″ LG Ultrafine monitor that also now moves between all three.
Whew. It was a full month for sure.. and so many memories.
It was kinda fun to step back through our footage then and remind ourselves of just how awesome of a summer we had.
We were offered a second month at the marina, which was highly tempting. But we ended up needing to return south to be with my Mom as she went through some treatments. Which then led us to wrapping up our boating season and shifting back to RVing.
I’ve just about given up on ever being caught up on the travelogues, so we’ll get to those stories when we can.
Real Time Update
As we shared already, we have arrived to our lot in Benson, AZ – and are getting settled in for the winter. We plan to be back to boat life in the spring time.
I’m fine with jumping around in the time line, whatever you’re doing, when ever you did it makes interesting reading. I would have been worn out after all that touring, but good for you guys!
Thank you for this great video!
Charleston is very interesting. Had no idea of all the things there are to see. What a wonderful time with family and friends. Thanks for bringing us along for the journey. Enjoy the new computer.
What a great month you had especially when you could spend some quality time with family and friends. You look so happy in the pics! Thanks for sharing!
Looks like it was absolutely amazing! Charleston is high on my list of places to visit.