Charleston Summary -- Cruise South Days 6,7

Wednesday & Thursday (Nov 17 & 18) in Charleston. Lots and lots of walking around Charleston. Such a great city.  Dinner at SNOB (Slightly North of Broad) Wednesday night. Ate here 7 years ago when cruising South and loved it. Had a salad with carmalized pear that I have been craving ever since. I looked at their menu on line and it wasn't on there, bummer. Went for dinner and one of the items on the "Specials" menu... field green salad with carmalized pear, pistachios, cranberries and blue cheese (I substitute with goat)... don't know if that was exactly the same, but it satisfied my 7 year old craving perfectly.  As far as the rest of the meal... perfect.  A great Malbec to go with it. I'm not getting in to everything I eat, we each have our own tastes. I'm just going to tell you I am a foodie and this is a great restaurant. Whatever you order there should be wonderful. Mind you, I put quality and taste first. I haven't found any secret great bargains yet, just amazing food. After dinner I had planned to go to the Rooftop Bar but when I got there, the music was over and the place was dead. Ended up at a wine bar called Social. It was a popular place. The bartender poured me large pours of a lot of different wines, trying to find one that suited my taste. A lot of of pours. Not really impressed with any of them but it was nice to taste 6 different wines before my tab even started. Ended up doing a flight but didn't drink much of it. Walked the 2 miles or so back to the marina at midnight.  I have walked miles and miles and miles of Charleston, sometimes in the wrong direction, but enjoyed every minute of it. Such a beautiful town. Every street, I look at the houses and say "I could live there". Seems I could live almost anywhere in Charleston.


Took the 11am daily City Dock van ride to West Marine to get a new Shurhold boat brush pole. Saw mine disappear off the bow of the boat the other day while getting ready to wash the boat. There was a Harris Teeter supermarket there so I did a little provisioning and then pushed my cart full of boat supplies and groceries to the drive in ATM at Bank of America. Looked like a homeless person I'm sure. The courtesy van from the marina picked me back up at 12:30... shopping complete. Thursday afternoon Lexi came over and we did a little cell phone photo shoot. I put the picture of us on Facebook... you should see it in the next issue of Marinalife Magazine. Seriously, they asked me to do something for their Member Musing's column. One of the things I have to get is a new charger for my REAL camera. I have seen so many beautiful things that I wanted to capture and a cell phone just isn't cutting it. Lexi and I took the boat up the Ashley River to the next marina to get gas as a sunset cruise. No gas at the Megadock (City Marina), just diesel. Then off to a wonderful dinner at 39 Rue de Jean. Lexi is in her 2nd year at College of Charleston and I asked her to pick someplace she really wanted to go but hadn't been to yet. She gave me a list of 5, all sounded good but we chose 39 Rue de Jean. French influence. Normally I am scared when a restaurant has so many items on the menu, how can they possibly do them all well. I have to say, I have to say they have done it. Wow, everything was so good.

After dinner Lexi and I walked back to the marina, stopping at her house so that I could see it and meet her roommate. Such a great place and "Sami" (roommate) is sweet, funny, smiles a lot and a perfect personality fit with Lexi.  We got back to the marina at 8pm for a night cruise of Charleston Harbor. The water was so smooth and the light of the city and the almost-full moon made it possible to see for miles. We headed out for a 2-hour cruise around Charleston Harbor and up the Cooper River. A friend of Lexi's joined us. He's a boater and was eager to see how fast I could run. Conditions were so perfect and no one other than one larger container ship was in the harbor. We ran back down the Cooper River and across the harbor at 45mph. With a little country music as our soundtrack. Couldn't believe that it was the same harbor as the nasty one I came up a couple days ago. Love night boating with the moonlight. Tied up and got a ride from her friend back to the historical district so I could have a little wine and dessert at Kaminsky's. Walked back to the marina. What a perfect afternoon and evening.