We have been in Charleston exactly a week today. After docking at the Cooper River Marina, we’ve had our heads down, working to get the boat clean inside and out. It now has two more coats of varnish on the toe-rails and all the seats, and the cupboards are clean and empty. This part of being a cruising sailor is not the part you usually write home about. I prefer the stories, the action, the people and yes, even the disasters to write about.

So, I’ll tell you a story about taking a long hot shower at the marina and then, clean clothes without varnish or cleaning agents on them, and then a trip to see the Hunley. It is across the street from the marina where we are going to keep the boat this summer, Pierside Marina, a mile up the Cooper River from where I am sitting right now. Here’s a little history to fill in the gaps in your elementary school history classes. The Hunley was built in Mobile, Alabama in 1863. When the Civil War started, it was moved to Charleston to be used as a strategic advantage in the blockade of Charleston by the Union ships.

The Hunley was the first submarine to ever sink an enemy ship in battle. It was an engineering miracle; having almost all the necessary equipment; pumps for ballast, air tubes for fresh air, trim tabs and rudder for steering, a compass and mercury depth meter to help pilot the sub that modern submarines have. It was powered by 8 men seated and turning hand cranks which then turns a chain that rotates the propeller. Now for the hard stuff, it was about 40 feet long but only 48 inches in diameter. The tallest man was 6’1” with most of the others in the 5’6-8” in height. The captain, Lt. Dixon, was in the front, where the compass, depth meter and a single candle were located to help him navigate.

The water taken on to submerge the sub went onto the floor and was then pumped out to raise the sub. There were hatches to open when on the surface and when partially submerged, there were two 1 ½ inch metal tubes to pump air in (probably not enough). The candle gave light, but also told them when the oxygen was too low so they needed to surface.

So, why all the fuss about this boat? Well, it was a success for one thing. It left the dock in darkness on February 17th, 1864 and submerged, coming out of the harbor and sneaking up on the USS Housatonic. On the Hunley’s bow was a long star-shaped harpoon holding a barrel with 135 pounds of explosive. The Union ships were blockading Charleston, making the city under siege. This submarine was the Confederate’s strategic surprise. It hit the Housatonic, which burned for three minutes and then sank. The Hunley surfaced, showed a blue lantern as a signal to the shore that the mission was a success. Then, it disappeared for over 100 years.

Many people thought they could find it, but until the National Underwater Marine Agency, started in the 1970s by author Clive Cussler, finally found it on May 3, 1995. Nobody could locate her, even Cussler had been looking for it for 15 years. One of the NUMA archeologists, Harry Peccorelli, dove on the site and reached out and touched the Hunley. He reported to the people up top that it was something, but surely not the Hunley. Oh, he was so wrong.

The Hunley was buried under 3 feet of silt, and was only able to be found using a magnetometer, dragged by a boat in a grid pattern until it sensed the large amount of iron at the site. The one thing that kept the submarine and all of its contents preserved so well was that it was buried in silt after only 25 years underwater (a short time archeologically speaking). The captain and crew were in there as well as maps, navigation aids, and much more.

Peaches looked at the chart in the restoration site, showing an X where the Hunley was found in 28 feet of water. It is just to the right of the breakwater, going into Charleston Harbor, near the last set of buoys. We’ve gone by there two years in a row. The Hunley was just a bit further out from where it sank the Housatonic. Most people had been looking for it between the shore and the site of the sinking. The ship is in a large tank of water, has been emptied and is undergoing another 7 years of desalinization before it can be brought to the surface and shown to the public.

Enough history! A good site is www.hunley.org where the Friends of the Hunley have their site. There’s a lot to read and look at there, even a video of the recovery.

The other site in Charleston we have been, other than the Super Wal-Mart for storage boxes, is a place called the Madra Rua Irish Pub (the Red Fox Irish Pub). We met Kirby and Suzie there last Wednesday for dinner (one of their favorite places). It is only a couple of miles from the Marina, but is in a renovated area quite unlike the industrial and run down low rent area surrounding the old Navy base. The area has the word Yuppie written all over it, and was awesome. Peaches had a true gin and tonic (we’d been out of gin for a while) and I had a Harp Ale on draft. Then over a lot of stories, ours and theirs, came the food. Peaches had a real honest Irish Shepherd’s Pie. I had the very best corned beef, cabbage and potatoes ever. It was a conflict over eating and talking, and the eating won all of us over. A great place if you come to Charleston.

We will be heading north by next Friday, hoping to see a few friends on the way up the coast. We will be home by the 12th as the Budget rent-a-truck has to be in Buffalo by then. Yep, we had to rent a truck to save the shock absorbers on the Odyssey. So much stuff and so little space to store it! Check out the picture of the boat at Cooper, only half empty and the waterline is so far out of the water!

One more plug for the book. It is available at Authorhouse.com now, just go to the book store section and look for 6 Knots. We will have some to sell when we get home. I actually haven’t seen a copy yet, but others say it came out fine. Hope you check it out. SO, for now, Star of the Sea, Out.