We departed Edisto Island at 8:30 am on a 49 mile trip to Charleston, SC. Luckily, our first 8 miles of the trip was mainly west, which helped us avoid a line of storms coming in from the Atlantic Ocean. We started in pleasant 74F temperature, and it was very slow to heat up to 85F. The clouds slowly built up, but there was no rain so we had a great trip. As our recurring theme, the scenery was dominated by grassy wetlands and pine tree covered islands.
We did pass a small shipyard seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. I do not know if this landing craft was new or whether it was just a new paint job. Seems like an outdated warship in this high tech world.
We did not have to wait for this bridge to open, but we did "hang out" for about 5 minutes while this tug with 2 barges strung out. "Strung out" is barge talk meaning that the barges are in a line as opposed to side by side. We have seen such little commercial traffic since the northern Gulf Coast that it was kind of strange to hear the chatter on the radio. Very soon after going under this bridge, we entered Charleston Harbor. 
When I called the Charleston City Marina on the radio, they said that we would be on the inside of the mega-yacht dock. Well, they were serious! The dock is over 1000 feet (300m) long so they really can handle mega-yachts. My picture of Lucky Us at the dock is a little misleading in that those "small" boats astern of Lucky Us are both about 125 feet long! I did have a problem docking as the strong side wind caught us just as we were about to finish passing the boat behind us... Fortunately 3 of the yacht's crew and the Admiral were able to fend us off. Once we were past them maneuvering returned to "normal", and the rest of the docking process was straightforward. It took me a little while to stop shaking -yeah, like about an hour! As the Admiral later remarked, I have now mentally re-docked the boat enough times that I could do a much better job the next time...
Tomorrow, we will begin to explore this very historic city. Much like Savannah, GA, Charleston was spared destruction in the Civil War, and they were the first city in the U.S. to designate a historic area to be strictly preserved. It looks like we will be here for 5 nights. There is plenty to see plus the Aggie vs Alabama football game is on Saturday, and oh yes, Sunday is my birthday.
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