Nov 12 – 13

November 12 West of Watts to Beaufort

We had a nice sunrise this morning.

While Mike was pulling up anchor, he found something tangled around the chain. At least it came off easily and we left the anchorage at 06:45

Here are some photos captured of our day on Persuasion:

A beautiful morning on the water

A motor sailing kinda day on the Coosaw River.

A restricted military operations zone

A slide on a dock. Our grandkids would love that

Sad to see a home destroyed by fire

A lovely home being built with a double veranda

Looking over at Lady’s Island. We anchored there on our last trip

Lady’s Island Swing Bridge (also known as Woods Memorial bridge) joining the island to Beaufort

Beaufort

We stopped at the marina after we went through the bridge, fueled up and got water. There is an 8 foot tide here so we decided to take a mooring ball. It is first come, first serve, and they only had a couple left. We were welcomed here too; not by dolphins this time but by Paperbird!

We hooked the mooring ball at 11:30 and just in time too because the rain started. And it rained off and on all day. We got a text from Lyn on Paperbird saying that they would be going in for breakfast early in the morning with the folks on Calliope. That sounded like a great plan!

Today we travelled 28.23 nm.

November 13 Out and about in beautiful Beaufort

This morning Paperbird picked us up at 07:30. We were pleased to meet Glenn and Debbie from the sailing boat, Calliope. As we walked to the restaurant, I snapped some photos of Historic downtown Beaufort along the way.

 

We ate breakfast at Blackstone’s Cafe. These little painted chairs out front captured my eye.

 

It is a really neat spot. And at 08:00 they ring a bell and you stand up, face the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

 

Here are the six of us; the breakfast was great.

We then decided to take a horse and carriage ride. We had a few minutes to wait for the next ride, so we walked along the waterfront. Here is a better picture of the Lady’s Island Swing Bridge. This was made famous by Tom Hanks who ran across this bridge in the movie Forrest Gump. (actually the lady talking to us on the carriage ride, told us that while the movie was being filmed, there was a sign on it that read “Welcome to Mississippi” which confused people) lol

Beaufort has a beautiful waterfront park. On November 11th, they had the Marine Corps Band here celebrating veterans.

This photo is looking out into the mooring field. Persuasion is way out there somewhere.

While waiting, I got to pet the horse. He was very friendly. Soon our carriage ride was ready and we headed out. Our lady was great with all the history of the homes and the area.

 

She told us so much that it is impossible to remember it all. Beaufort was founded in 1711 and has maintained its antebellum architecture and small town atmosphere. So many of the beautiful homes here were really only summer homes for the rich folks. A lot of money came from the rice that was planted in the tidewater areas of South Carolina.  Because the rice was yellow, it was sold as Carolina Gold Rice. I had read before that Charleston became a very rich city from the rice fields. The sad part is that slaves were brought by ships into the port at Charleston, many from western Africa who were familiar with the planting and harvesting of rice. The slaves manned the rice fields in South Carolina and folks were getting very wealthy off the Carolina Gold Rice. We had a blog a few days ago which showed some of the abandoned rice fields.

Beaufort Arsenal

 

Lots of live oak trees

 

Beautiful garden

 

The Chocolate Tree (this business provided the chocolates for the Forrest Gump movies and sends Tom Hanks chocolates every year for his birthday; actually 75% of Forrest Gump was filmed in Beaufort, not Alabama where the story takes place

Houses with holes in the basements. The rumour was that they were there for muskets; although it was never confirmed

A synagogue and churches

 

Beautiful homes (the last week of October every year, you can tour some of these historic homes; many of which are private residences)

 

After the tour, Paperbird dingied us back to the boat and we took our own dinghy down off the bow. We had thought about going outside on the ocean from here and would need to leave it up.  It is a 20 hour crossing and we would not have to go through Georgia. The winds would not be favourable for that until Friday so we decided we would continue on down the ICW.

After lunch, we dingied in for showers and then talked for a while to a couple from Halifax that are in a rally with 20 other boats heading down the ICW to Florida. We also ran into another couple that we had met in Annapolis. The sky was threatening rain. We made it back to the boat and got the dinghy up on the dinghy tow just as it started pouring. We are leaving early in the morning. We will meet up with Paperbird and Calliope in St. Mary’s. They both plan to leave Friday and do the ocean crossing to there.

Beaufort is a lovely city and should you ever find yourself there, make sure you take the horse and carriage ride through Historic Beaufort. I’m sure you will really enjoy it.