Charleston, Ghost Boats and Beaufort, SC

We got into Charleston late Tuesday (11/15) afternoon after motoring past Fort Sumpter, where the first shot was fired in the Civil War, and anchored in the harbor near a massive dock called the MegaDock, filled with some amazing boats owned by the 1% of the 1%.  We saw some tenders that were as big as our relatively small 25' boat.

It was a super moon high tide.

Sun rising over Charleston Harbor

Some of you may recall Fred MaDan (my first husband). Fred has lived in Charleston since 1989 and we have not seen each other for 36 years! I tracked him down, gave him a call and he enthusiastically offered to give us a tour the next morning.  We woke up to a beautiful day, enjoyed eggs and toast on our boat and then rode our dinghy to the dinghy dock.  Due to the "king" tide from the super moon, the tides were about 3 feet above normal. We had to walk through the water to get off the docks. A boater coming in after us warned me to watch out for the alligators and snakes. Southern sense of humor.

 We met Fred, and he gave us a driving tour of "South of Broad", the beautiful section of Charleston filled with old houses that were once the summer homes of the rice plantation owners. He left us to go to a business meeting while we took a carriage ride through the historic section of town. This tour was nice, but did not compare to the cook's tour we had gotten from Fred.

We met up with him again after his meeting and he took us to a great, but tiny soul food café called Martha Lou's. The cooks/hosts were third generation in this spot. I had fried chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese and cornbread. Amazing! My Virginia mama made great fried chicken, but I don't think it compared to this.

Fred then gave us a tour of his grand, historic house. He bought the house in 1989, when real estate values were relatively low in the city. Shortly after he bought the house, Hurricane Hugo hit and wreaked havoc on the city, including doing massive damage to his house, particularly his roof. As devastating an experience as this was for Fred and his family, the neighborhood came together and fast friendships were formed. This house has been a labor of love for Fred the past 27 years. (If you're reading this Freddy, it really was great to see you!)

The next morning, we had a beautiful and calm ride to Beaufort, traveling past the old former rice plantations, and later we saw some aerial pictures that show the made-made canals that brought the fresh water to the rice.

Old rice fields



Picture of an aerial shot of the old rice fields and canal system



The scope of the rice fields and canals is almost beyond comprehension.

We spent Thursday and Friday nights in Beaufort.  This small city has a rich historical past, and unlike Georgetown and Charleston, was built on cotton plantations. The cotton that was grown here prior to the Civil War was considered the finest in the world.  As in Charleston, the plantation owners built summer cottages in Beaufort to escape the sweltering heat on the plantations scattered around the low country islands adjacent to the city. These homes were more elaborate than the plantation homes.  In one such home was born the slave Robert Smalls, who has one of the most amazing stories.



A slave house

Smalls' owner hired him out to a the owner of the coastal freighter called Planter in Charleston.  He proved to be quite capable and became a pilot on the ship.  After the start of the Civil War, Smalls staged a daring escape when the ship's white officers were sleeping ashore.  He gathered his family, other black crewmates and their families and motored the Planter out of Charleston Harbor, bringing the ship to Union lines near Beaufort, where he gave the ship up to the Union.  He was then hired by the Union and became a freed man, ultimately becoming the officer in charge of the Planter. After the war, Smalls was elected as the first African American congressman for South Carolina.  There is much more to his story that a good Google search will provide.

Beaufort was the heart of the Gullah culture with roughly 10,000 slaves and only 1,000 or so white land owners. It became an early target of the Union in the Civil War because of the harbor at nearby Port Royal, thought to be the finest deep harbor south of New York City.  The Union captured the harbor early in the War and arrived in Beaufort to find all the whites gone.  Consequently, Beaufort was not destroyed and served as a Union base and hospital center throughout the hostilities.  After the war, few whites were able to reclaim their plantations as they did not have sufficient funds to pay the "back taxes."  Many of plantations are private homes today but few structures associated with slavery remain.



This is home.

The man is an artist, not a sailor, and
 lives on this abandoned boat.

As we have traveled further south we have seen more of the devastation of Hurricane Matthew.  In Charleston, we saw some anchored sailboats that I call ghost boats. It turns out that most of them have been abandoned in the harbor, but some are apparently lived on, and we chatted with one fellow, an "artist", who is living on his boat, under a mass of junk, including broken motors, and who is waiting for his big break. We also saw some boats that were pushed up on the mud by Hurricane Matthew and have been left, both in Charleston and Beaufort.



This boat is high and true off
Charleston Harbor.

Wrecked, abandoned boats in
Beaufort, SC

I would have been happy to linger in Beaufort. I love the beautiful Maine coast and no coast has compared in beauty until now. They are, of course, very different, but both are stunning. Tomorrow we head for Savannah for a couple of days before heading to Atlanta to see our daughter and her baby and new family for Thanksgiving week.