St. Johns Yacht Harbor pretty much looks like some dude had some swamp land and he couldn’t find a use for it so he built a marina.
It’s a perfectly comfortable marina and the folks are handy and quick to please, but there’s no way to walk to anyplace of consequence without getting leaches and snake bites. Okay maybe that’s an exaggeration. But maybe it isn’t. Fortunately it all worked out, mostly because we rented a car and people came to visit.
First up were Mallory and Shannon, who decided at the last minute to stop by on their way from Washington D.C. to St. Petersburg. We were quite happy to see them. They’ll be back with us tomorrow, which is a good thing because the only documentation of their visit on Sunday is a shaky video of them acting about as un-college-age as possible while eating pie and playing cards. Hardly the stuff we want to show off.
We spent a good chunk of Monday with Greg and Mary Jane, Doug’s friends from his Knoxville days who now live on Kiawah. They invited us over. Nice back yard.
Greg was fairly dismissive of our fondness for pickleball but then we found out he does yoga so pretty much all of his efforts to belittle Doug fell miserably short of the mark. We all came back to our house and then they treated us to a great dinner. We enjoyed them immensely. Hopefully they’ll find time to travel with us a few days when we get back up north.
Tuesday brought a beautiful morning to travel.
Except The Lower Place almost hit bottom—again—at Isle of Palms a couple of days earlier while traveling at low tide. Charlie doesn’t let things like low tide get in his way. Charlie is The Man. We aren’t The Man, so we had to wait to leave until 2. That meant stopping at the marina on Isle of Palms, which was only a couple of hours away. There’s a great restaurant at the marina. Let’s just eat a light snack for lunch and then Doug can gorge himself at an early dinner.
Basically the only interesting thing between St. Johns Yacht Harbor and Isle of Palms Marina is Fort Sumpter.
Every schoolkid knows that on April 13, 1861, then-Major Robert Anderson surrendered Fort Sumpter to the newly-formed Confederate Army. Then a bunch of stuff happened and the Union took it back over so that tour boat operators could make an honest living.
Anyway, we made it through the shallow bits at highish tide. Time to eat at that yummy restaurant. “Hey wait,” says Dana. “If we keep going we can make McClellenville on a rising tide just before dark.” Why wasn’t this on the table for lunch, instead of those measly snacks? Oh well, let’s keep going. The person handling the phone for the Leland Oil Company Dock said there was just barely room for us behind a Looping catamaran. The inviting marina and yummy food slid past while Dana warmed up rice in the microwave.
At least we’re better off than those boats over there in the weeds.
Actually they’re happily at anchor on a small river. Those aren’t buzzards.
Just before we turned up the Jerome River towards that Misty Pearl-sized spot, a fishing skiff zoomed past us. We didn’t give it a thought. We eased on up, only to find that the dudes in that small boat had decided to take about 20% of our dock space. And they were no place to be seen. No way we wedge forty-five feet into a forty-foot opening.
What the hell? We’re going to have to go back and anchor in the weeds? In the dark? Curse word curse word. Wait. Here are the nice catamaran folks. They ran up and caught the guys from the small boat just as they were fixin’ to roar off in their truck. Crisis averted.
What seems like years ago, we met Tiki Queen in Delaware City. Leland McClellan was a very funny guy. He’s one of the McClellanville McClellans. As mentioned, we stayed at the Leland Oil dock. Dana walked through town and found a memorial to all the Lelands and McClellans who died in The Great War. There may or may not be family trees around here with branches too twisted for Cousin Wendall to decipher, but we don’t judge. Either way, thanks for your service.
Today on the way up to Georgetown, the scenery mostly looked like this.
But we made it to Georgetown. Mallory goes to Georgetown. A different one.
Another storm’s a-brewin’ so we’ll stay here over the weekend. The girls probably will eat pie and act juvenile while playing cards. Good thing their parents are above that sort of thing.
What else is in a name? On April 9 we commented on Runaway Negro Creek. Odd name for a creek here in the Year of Our Lord 2019. Literally the next day, the creek officially was renamed “Freedom Creek.” Who knew the U.S. Board on Geographic Names followed our blog?
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* For anyone who thinks references to country songs make us unrefined and references to Monty Python sketches make us sophomoric, we now give you Romeo and Juliet. That’s Billy Shakespeare baby. Once and for all proving—contrary evidence notwithstanding—that we’re damn classy.