Walking around Charleston and gazing at all the beautiful old homes seems to be required of all tourists--and so we did it. As soon as I figure out how to set up a gallery of multiple photos, I'll put more Charleston homes on it. But for now, here is one of my favorites--and there is something here that is very common in Charleston but that I've never seen anywhere before. Look at the door in the photo on the first floor with the number above it. It looks like a regular front door--but behind it is a porch. The door is leading to a porch from the street, but there must be another door on the porch that leads into the house.
Tomorrow we must wait for a bridge to open at 9am, and then down the waterway we will go. Good thing, we've been eating our way through Charleston; dinner last night at Magnolia's (which we love) and lunch today at SNOB (Slightly North of Broad). Yum! Great shrimp and grits, grilled filet covered with pimento cheese, pecan pie--need I say more.
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I know I should have a photo of Charleston on here, and I'll do so tomorrow.
But now, the snapping shrimp.
Beginning in Southport, we could hear the sound of rice krispies under the boat. Snap, crackle, pop. All night long. Weird--except that this time, we knew what it was--snapping shrimp. The further south we go, the more intense the sound.
According to my reference book, the noise is not caused by krill eating the growth on the hull (we should be so lucky!)--it is the sound of snapping shrimp. The noise is not the claw snapping, it's the cavitation from the water jet made by its high speed closure at 62 mph! This causes changes in the water pressure which create tiny bubbles. When these bubbles pop, the snap, crackle, pop is produced. In warm waters, these shrimp are so abundant they can conceal submarines from sonar. The snapping shrimp snap at 200 decibels; human hearing has a threshold of 120 decibels. So---all night long---snap, crackle, pop.
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Well, we did get out--it was amazing. And had the wind, all 20+ knots of it, on our nose all day so we didn't quite get to Charleston, but that's for tomorrow. Today we travelled through real LOW COUNTRY--where rice and indigo were the main crops for years. It's easy to see how rice thrived here for so long--before the Civil War, rice fields covered mile after mile of these marshes along the ICW. The fields were partitioned by dikes, and slaves worked the rice plantations. Over half the US crop of rice came from SC. Rivers with wonderful names like the Little and Big Pee Dee, Capers Creek, Winyah Bay, North and South Santee Rivers intersect and meander in twists and turns. Isle of Palms began in the early 1900's, when wealthy Charlestonians wanted to leave the city and go to the shore. Today it remains a resort for the area. This marina is a very nice one; we've stayed here on our earlier trips, and tomorrow it is a short sail (motor?) to Charleston.
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While it is not a common thing, it is not unusual to see sights like this (that bring fear into the hearts of power and sail boaters alike!) along the waterway. Whether the result of a hurricane, too much joy-juice, or plain trashing--it's not good. Tonight we are in the lovely town of Georgetown, SC and packed into a marina like sardines in a can. It will be interesting to see how everyone exits tomorrow.
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10/21/2009, Southport, NC
Last night we stayed in Topsail Beach, NC (supposedly named after the top sail on the pirate ships that sailed these waters in days of yore (yore?)). Today it was down the waterway, down the Cape Fear river (yes, there really is a Cape Fear in NC--I guess the movies took place around here) and into the lovely town of Southport. As we passed down the ICW, both Larry and I remarked how many more nice, and very nice, houses we were seeing--many more than in 2006-7. And a surprising few were for sale. But I leave you with a picture of one of the more unusual houses we saw--a house that is memorable and makes everyone smile when they see it.
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