Trawling the ICW, day 0
This is a diary of my second trip on the ICW. Unlike most of my
writing, this will be more "pictures" than "writing". The first day is
decribed on this page. To see other days of the trip, click on the
proper box at the bottom of this page.
After spending 2 weeks on the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) the previous
year traveling south from Charleston, I was very interested in seeing
the ICW north of Charleston. I got the opportunity to do exactly that
in the spring of 2008. Captain Frank, the skipper of the Grand Banks 36
"Sea Smoke", had taken me south on that trip 6 months earlier, and was
now offering to take me north on a similar trip. After spending winter
in the Bahamas, Frank was joining the flock of other "snow birds"
migrating north for the summer. He was looking for crew, and I was
delighted to accept. On a sunny Sunday morning in April, I jumped in a
rental car and headed out of Norfolk for Charleston.
Having made this trip once before, I was interested in traveling a
different route for at least part of the trip. I therefore turned off
of I-95 a little sooner this time, and headed for Myrtle Beach. I drove
to the ocean shore area, and spent 80 minutes walking the beach. It was
your typical ocean front tourist destination. There were high rise
condos, one after another, running down the beach. The main drag had
hotels, motels, restaurants, golf courses, and an amusement park. The
beach was very nice sand, and though the water was a little on the cold
side, a few swimmers were still out there playing in it. Most were just
enjoying the beach and the sun. One thing that did surprise me was the
lack of black people on the beach. It seemed strange to be in the "deep
south" and find no Negroes on the beach. Anyway, I did my walk, saw the
sights on the main drag, and headed south toward Charleston. I stayed
in a Charleston motel that night.
I spent most of the next day being a tourist in Charleston. First stop
was the tour boat to Fort Sumter. It was an interesting tour, and I
learned several interesting "fun facts". For one thing, Fort Sumter is
not right in front of the city of Charleston. It is way out in the
harbor toward the ocean. You can see it from the Charleston shoreline,
but it is quite a ways out there. Charleston harbor, although a major
East Coast port, has a lot of low, sandy areas. Several forts were
built on some of these low lying sand flats. But, not Fort Sumpter.
Originally, the only thing on the current site of Fort Sumter was
water. However, the military weenies thought the spot would be a dandy
location for a fort. So, they starting dumping rocks in the water.
Eventually, enough rocks formed an island, and later a fort was built
on top of the rocks.
When the Civil War rolled around, the Union forces were not even
hanging out in Fort Sumter. They were in one of the other forts in the
Charleston harbor area. The Union commander realized that his small
command was "history" if he stayed where he was and the natives got
restless. So, he relocated to lonely Fort Sumter in the middle of the
night. A few days later, the Confederate forces were blasting the
dickens out of Fort Sumter. The Union troops were well protected from
the shells, but they had 2 big problems. For one thing, there was no
grocery store in the fort. For another thing, most of their ammo was
stored next to the officer's quarters. Ammo next to officer's quarters
is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, the officer's
quarters were very much on fire from all the shelling. Not good. After
a few days, the Union officer sent up the white flag so he could
concentrate on fire fighting. The fort was a mess, but interestingly
enough, none of the Union troops were killed by the shelling.
Confederate troops ended up with the fort, but the poor fort was in for
a lot more use and abuse when the Union Navy arrived. And, Fort Sumter
was not the only target of the Union guns. One of the near-by forts was
featured in the final battle in the Civil War movie "Glory". And,
Charleston itself was on the receiving end of Union Navy guns for
months and months. But, the Confederate forces were stubborn and never
were driven out by the Navy. It was General Sherman, fresh from his
tour of Atlanta, who finally convinced the Confederate army to
withdraw.
After the Fort Sumter tour, I walked around the city for a few hours,
and then went on a guided walking tour. Charleston is a delightful city
for walking tours. It is big enough that there is lots of history and
old houses to see, but small enough that you can reach an awfully lot
of it on foot. There are cobble stone streets that came to the city by
sea. The stones were originally used as ballast in the ships which were
headed to Charleston to pick up cargo. I thought that was kind of cool;
some of Charleston's streets could have had a "made in England" sign on
them.
But, the coolest of the cool in Charleston has to be the houses. They
are old, and they are amazing; block after block of them. Being
basically a "boat guy", I don't normally get very excited about houses.
But, even I was impressed by the classy old houses in Charleston.
Whether you do a walking tour, a horse drawn carriage tour, or a
mini-bus tour, Charleston is a great place to check out.
At the end of the day, I turned in my rental car and grabbed a cab to
the marina. There, I met Captain Frank and his brother Rich, who had
been crewing for Frank on the northbound trip from Florida. We walked
to a near by marina and had a great meal before returning to the boat.
The next day was very windy, so we did another day of museums and house
touring. The house we toured was designed to be "balanced". Living on a
boat, the idea of "balance" seems like a pretty reasonable thing, but
this architect went way "overboard" with the concept. If a room in this
house had a door on one side of a wall, the architect "balanced" the
wall with a door on the other side. But, the second door was a "false
door". It didn't open. It was there simply for visual "balance". How
embarrassing to go through life as a door that doesn't open. Another
strange thing about the monster house was the absence of guest
bedrooms. I guess all the visitors came from the local Charleston area,
and there was just no need for overnight accommodations. Or, maybe the
owners just weren't all that keen on overnight guests? Who knows.
Anyway, Frank and I enjoyed our tour, Rich caught a flight home, and by
the end of the day we were ready to continue north toward Frank's
summer home in Baltimore.
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