May 2006
The sights along the ICW are always interesting but you cannot afford to take your eyes off the channel markers for a moment. The depths are always challenging and a further complication is the tidal stream as you approach Charleston in South Carolina. The enormous river systems linked by canal cuts have no locks and the result is a tidal cascade down the coast from one river to the next. The rise and fall is not great but a two knot stream running sideways across a narrow channel does not allow for lapses in concentration!
The shallow water and marshes often mean that the jetty which leads from the house to the boat can be half a mile long or more. Shrimpers are everywhere and sadly the odd wreck can occasionally be seen. Most of the shrimpers are wooden and many are run by black families. The waterside houses become much more sophisticated in this area and we can easily imagine living in many of them. (I wonder where we do live now?)
In a very narrow channel we spotted a pusher tug and work barge approaching the other entrance.
A VHF call revealed that this was styled as a Coastguard Cutter and they were obviously pleased to hear from us and plan how best to pass.

A pusher and barge - but also a Coast Guard Cutter!
Incredibly long jetties are needed in marshy areas with shallow banks to the rivers
A wrecked shrimper just out of the deep water channel
Typical up market riverside house
A shrimper working in the Charleston River with usual escort of pelicans

Approaching Charleston we found a very short canal with 5 knots of adverse tidal overspill from the Charleston River. With the hurricane season not far behind we had not intended to stop in Charleston but we found the first ICW bridge to the north jammed half open. The old mechanism had seized and would not be solved quickly so back we went to the City Marina. We discovered that one of our US in-laws, Elaine Hojnacki, was living here and supper was quickly arranged.

A Fraternity House in Charleston
A Fraternity House in Charleston
A Fraternity House in Charleston
The round congregational church in Charleston
A garden in the old style
The old market houses the Daughters of the Confederacy as well
Typical suburban ante-bellum house
Another view of the congregational round church

Charleston is a beautiful place and much is being done to renovate and preserve the gorgeous ante-bellum buildings. Around the university some of the best dwellings have been taken over as fraternity houses. If you don’t understand the system you need to watch ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ again! The confederacy appears to very much alive here...

We ate shrimp for lunch and for supper with Elaine the skipper treated himself to Shrimp and Grits. It was divine and it was so good to meet with Elaine again and her lovely boyfriend. We shall return!
We left the next day in time for one of the two manual bridge openings of the sick bridge.

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