Charleston, South Carolina - 12 kilometres walked
Most cruisers are using a mobile app called Noforeignland. The folks from sailing vessel Hope’s End we met up with the other day – John and Becca – told us about the app before we started our trip. We only really started using it after the Hudson, but it’s turned out to be an extremely effective tool for us. The app is quite straightforward. You set up your boat name and details, write a short paragraph about who you are and your sailing mission, then you can either have the app automatically track your movements, or you can manually check in at each new location, which is what we have been doing. The content in the app is all user generated so when we are heading to a new location we can see a lot of current detail that is simply not available anywhere else – where is the dinghy dock, is there a garbage there, where is the closest laundry and grocery store, which anchorages are good, and so on. We are also able to follow other boats we meet along the way and the app lets us know when their location has changed and how many miles they are away from us. The other thing I’ve recently started doing is initiating chats with boats that are already anchored at a place we are thinking of going to and asking how the anchorage is and how they like the location. In fact, one of the boats I did that with here in Charleston invited us over for drinks and we had a great time with them – Nathalie and Philippe from Montreal. This is yet another example of how technology has really changed the game and vastly improved the information availability and ease of meeting other boaters.
If anybody would like to see where we are and watch our progress just install the Noforeignland app, search for “SeaLight” and then follow us. You can also just use the website too if that's easier or you might even be able to click this link to go directly to our boat. The app looks like a total mess when you first log in, but once you search for a boat or drill into a particular area, it cuts down the clutter. Give it a try, it's pretty cool and will give you some insight into just how many cruisers are out here chasing the sun.
Back to Charleston. Today we walked the Battery, which is a long walkway that extends all the way around the southern edge of Charleston and passes by dozens of classy antebellum (like that fancy word? It means “pre-war” – I learned it here) houses. This neighbourhood oozes refinement, character, and great wealth, some of these old money riches undoubtedly earned on the backs of the African slaves bought and sold here. We left the Battery and wandered through some of the small ancient streets, on slate sidewalks, finding even more decadent houses, one which looked like a slightly smaller version of the White House and had two fake looking, but real grapefruit trees hung heavy with fruit. We’ve also noticed many houses have what look like gas-powered fire lanterns on their porches, stoops, balconies – really everywhere, and I managed to get close enough to one to see the thin, copper gas line running to it, which was rather surprising to me as that sort of thing would be deemed a major fire hazard in Canada and immediately outlawed, despite the old world class it radiates.
Our walk lasted a long time, long enough to build up hunger pangs and when I suggested to Ana we return to the French restaurant for lunch again today, she didn’t hesitate one second. From here we visited the historical society’s museum and learned more about the dreadful yet fascinating history of this city, then stopped in at our new favourite American coffee shop – Bitty & Beau’s, which we were thrilled to discover had a location here. Ana is so supportive of this place that she bought a seven dollar chunk of Rice Krispie cake to go along with our coffee. It was delicious and provided a week’s worth of sugar ration for each of us.
I remained there doing some route planning and gnawing on the cake while Ana left to shop King Street. She was doing some sort of interactive show and tell thing with Stella from the stores, as she wanted to get in on the shopping too, but she’s super cheap just like Ana so I think they just drove each other crazy instead of having a fulfilling hybrid shopping experience.
We walked back through town and along the way our dinner plans got thwarted. Adrian was going to come for dinner on our boat but his toilet had exploded so he was elbow deep in the poo poo and asked if we could postpone. Instead we found the sailing vessel Fulub and had a drink with Philippe and Nathalie in the super cozy cabin of their 1995 Dufour 39’. They seem to be on a similar schedule to us so I expect we will see them again real soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment