Welcome to Daufuskie, do you want a beer?

Visit of Charleston, meeting with famous multihull boat designer Jim Brown and unforgetable evening evening on Daufuskie islannd with our new friend Erik…

It’s Monday morning and we are waking up on motor noises – finally! Three weeks on the same place were enough! Rudders are working, motor too, sun is shining and our mood is getting much better :)

After two days of pleasant sailing in canals of intercoastal waterway we are stopping in Charleston, SC. Joe thinks we should see and enjoy it here and we go for a walk to the city where the civil war began. The architecture is really nice, historical and is visible that people take care how they frontyards look like. In the park we see the canons and weapons – here it all started in 1861.

We come back to he boat after dark, take shower, fill water tanks. In the morning we are leaving before sunrise and to the first swing bridge we get at 7:10 and … we are turning around, because they don’t open it between 7 an 9am :) Around noon we meet a trimaran Scrimshaw. Joe talks with them on radio and finds out that aboard is the famous trimaran designer and propagator of mulihull boats – Jim Brown. They find out that they went to the same college with Joe and that’s a good reason to meet – so after a while in a foggy weather we anchor together with them and Jim comes to visit us on his cayak. We have a tee together and a great conversation for more than an hour. Seeing 80year old Jim going to his unstable kayak from our board more than 2feet above water – we would be a little afraid of getting wet, but he’s done it probably million times – but still respect.

The rest of the day we continue together and in the evening we stay tied to a little empty dock on island Daufuskie. Right after getting to the dock a young smiling guy greets us: Welcome to Daufuskie island – do you want beer? Erik is repairing his small sailing boat and in one week wants to sail to Bahamas.

We have a guided tour on Scrimshaw which is really very smartly designed boat with great use of space. We also visit Eriks boat and Jim gives him couple practical advices from his experiences of boat building.

Erik invites us on a ride around the island on his electric golf cart and because the battery is only half charged, we are taking a gasoline generator with us (we’ve got a hybrid car now :).

Daufuskie is a small island with 100 inhabitans on one side and a resort on other side. They wanted to have a luxury place here but in reality only a lot of money has been investd here – artificial beach built (which is now ocean again) and houses are falling apart and empty. But the surrounding is still nice ang grass on the golf cuurt well cut :)

After having our usual beans-and-potatos-from-cans dinner we go with Erik to see more of the island. Downtown is empty, but the pub is open and beer is only 2$. Erik tells us about plans to going to Bahamas – fishing and enjoying time. He says he is rich – he’s got good friends, golf cart, sailboat which he can repair by himself… so isn’t rich in money but in happiness. He wants to travel and enjoy our beautiful Earth… He’s simly a great young man with a great meaning of life.

Then we continue to another bar – we ride the golf cart in total darkness (at least we took a small headlamp with us:) and through the foggy front window isn’t possible to see, but Erik obviosly knows the whole island well. In the second bar are more people and also beer is more expensive. From the ceiling are hanging 1-dollar bills with messages and signatures and outside is a good game – you should swing a ring on rope and hit a hook… really a good game to play with beer in front of pub :)

When the cart is charged we continue exploring offroad sandy parts of the island. We get to big dumpsters. Erik thinks people throw away good things because the just don’t want them anymore – and after a while he finds a old hifi which we are taking with us. On the way we need to stop two times after hearing strange noise when the thing fell out of the cart :)

We had a great time, but after some time it was getting cold and returned to the boat, but maybe we will meet on Bahamas again…

After two more days we arrive to St. Augustin – oldest city in USA. It has really beautiful historic downtown which is  in the evening light with Christmas lights. It is a great store here – Sailors’s exchange – where you can buy really cheap good things. We bought goggles and snorkles and Joe some Bahama charts – now we are really prepared for Bahamas :)

> PHOTOS <

From Wilmington to St. Augustine we made 770km in 9days

We are sending greetings to Lacey! :)