Marooned in Charleston

Charleston Battery

Jimmy Buffet’s “A pirate looks at 40” is becoming my all to cliché theme song ever since I left Black Beards old stomping ground of Cape Fear NC and landed in Charleston.  Yes I am a pirate, 200 years too late, the cannons don’t thunder there is nothing to plunder…..arriving too late, arriving too late and the feeling I felt when entering Charleston on my bucket list quest to do the “Charleston in Charleston”. Only off by 80 years, its long been forgotten. When mentioned on the street people look at you with blank faces as if they have no idea what you are talking about. I guess that’s the natural progression of things, out with the old and in with the new. Although I don’t think that Boston will ever forget the Boston Massacre and to add a parallel to dancing the Charleston in many areas of Boston you will get the same look if you mention the Great Molasses Flood that killed 4 times more people and injured 25 times more than the Massacre did. Great Molasses what? No biggie if you are not that polished on your history all you need to know is that in 1915 a massive molasses tank exploded in the North End causing a tsunami size wave to rip down the streets at 35 mph taking out everything in its path. It was one stickie mess to clean up, taking 87,000 man hours and leaving Boston Harbor brown for 6 months.  If you ever are in the North End on a hot summer’s day, the smell you smell isn’t some old Italian women baking cookies, its 100 year old embedded molasses. Moving back to dancing in Charleston, one old man said it best when he looked at me and said “At my age doing the Charleston consists of me going down town once a week with my lady, walking through the shops, the market and grabbing a bite at one of the cities restaurants”. Normally I would be disappointed but it’s kind of hard to hate the city for modernizing its cultural trends all the while maintaining its architectural history. If you are a shopper or a foodie this should be on your destination list. As always I hit Charleston in my own Anthony Bourdain-ian style of approaching everyplace I visit looking for those cultural food and drinks that are regionally based and although found globally their true essence is authentically found in one spot. Here its shrimp and grits a dish that goes to the top of my favorite list and have also found some other smaller “you can only get it around here” hits like the boiled peanut (said byl peanit), fried pickle (better than what you get at the fair once a year) and sampling a little moon shine.  Southern Sam I am becoming but no fear no matter how much time I spend in the south I will never become a NASCAR fan, like Duke Basketball or get a confederate flag tattoo. Really I am ready to move on but am stuck waiting on engine parts…If you are ever stuck, Charleston is a good place to be marooned.

I am hoping to explore a lot more of Charleston before I go in a week or so.

Boston Below

Taking the 1920's by storm, Rhett rolls into town, Real Rednecks and Holding Fast.

Do they dance the Charleston in Charleston anymore? A question I am planning on answering tonight. Starting my quest with pre-prohibition era hand crafted cocktails at Sips, a small plate comparison between two supper clubs and rounding out the night with Jazz at High Cotton. After a long few days getting here I stepped onto the dock and was greeted by an ebony colored standard poodle. A good omen that once again proves I am in the right place at the right time. I booked a week here but can see why one would fall in love here, stay in love here, buy a house, have children and stay forever. Yesterday afternoon I rode my bike down and got a haircut and a straight razor shave from a real barber, bringing civilization back to my savage styled last 4 days, followed by a strong Irish whisky at the oldest bar in town. I wonder if Rhett Butler would have had a drink here, wiping his mouth on the curtains when he was done, punching a man or two to defend his honor from shifty glances and taking at least 3 ladies home after setting fire to the place. After all there is only one Ms. Scarlett….and no one puts baby in the corner. You have to love his Southern style, Rebel spirit and zeal for life. It’s not like I haven’t had a run in with the local Sheriff already, who after spotting my Northern ways stopped me as I was pulling in.  Ever see the beginning of First Blood. Opening fire on my northern ship like Citadel cadets opening fire on the Union ship “Star of the west” in an act of the Civil war, I was boarded. Found free and clear of any contra band and once again making new friends I moved on into the City Marina. I can’t blame them for stopping me, having run the boat high and hard the day before and tired to the bone, I and the boat looked like we had been flipped upside down, which we were.

    I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read this and support me. I am sorry if I have been slow with updates which are not due to a lack of material but more do to so much going on. Life on the water is completely unpredictable and new every day. Every morning when I wake up I get sucked right into the current that moves these waters and now my life. 

When I got to Wrightsville beach a week ago a friend said to me “be careful these docks have Velcro, we stopped for 2 nights and 21 days later we are leaving”.  I said “one night and I am on the road” 5 days later I left. On Saturday I caught up with an old friend Chris, his family and my old Admin in Wilmington (the town next door), having fun dinners, telling old stories, getting caught up on the new and exploring the town, working hard to check off a list of “must see” given to me by another buddy Brandon who use to live there and true to his word steered us through the Barbary course of fun times and cool places. Although the most adventure we had was a new Trader Joes that just opened in town (there aren’t any in the south) and its reputation preceded it with traffic, manned by police, stretching  around 6 blocks. After Chris dropped us off and headed to Rite Aid to get a new Taylor Swift poster for his office ;) we walked through the hostile parking lot of people who were taking getting their holiday case of Two Buck Chuck as a life quest. (**side note, people south of Maryland don’t care if you are a pedestrian or on a bike. If you are in a cross walk and on foot it’s not their problem silly; get a car**) Once inside it was fun showing Anne all the cool stuff that they have and stocking up on my favorite dark chocolate bars which is the only sweet I carry on board. $150 bucks later I walked out with enough food for, once again, a mission to mars, posing a new problem. How do I get this back to the car. Thank You to the TJ associate who walked us out to the car that was 2 streets over. Cool thing about TJ’s associates, you don’t need to tip them, just spend a min talking about how cool their 300 tats and 12 piercings are. If you don’t know what I am talking about….you have never been to TJ’s.

In the days that followed I met so many new friends in Wrightsville. On Tuesday I went out onto the water for a perfect day. Fishing over a wreck where we could see the bottom and the fish, we caught everything from a puffer to sharks and a prize porgy. When we caught our fill headed to Carolina Beach for a late lunch among the million dollar boats and 2 dollar rednecks, catching my first up close  glimpse of the real thing. And this is where I call people out. Tim Lind, Alicia, Sarah, Cheryl, JD and Dad….you are not real rednecks. (Even you Dan D ….Rednecks don’t fly around in Gulf Streams and deal with misbehaved third world politicians, you may have an accent and can skin a buck in 20 min flat…but) For a while I was convinced that you were, but now realizing that you embody the American spirit and action but no matter how much you go to stage coach, country thunder or how big your boots are, you have no idea what a true southern redneck is until you see one in the wild. That and you are all to pretty. I love the North Carolina accent, its smooth, rolls and not snotty like South Carolina’s, but found out that you can’t understand real rednecks!  Coming in off the water in their boats covered in branches and grass so thick that it really looks like a piece of land, rifles a shot gun and a forty five sticking out from the side, usually with some sort of kill under tarp, they are friendly, talkative, laugh a lot and you have no idea what the heck they are saying. I just do what I always do with any indigenous people: smile shaking my head up and down and follow Earnest Hemmingway’s advice on dealing with Latin culture from For Whom the Bell Tolls : Offering the men Tobacco and leave the women alone. While heading down the ICW I was startled by guns being shot on shore 100 yards from me, with 3 gun men and dogs chasing a dear, all along I was thinking “hey guys…ummm I am here, right friggin next to you”, half ducking half wanting to see.

Damn Yankees….no wonder it took you 4 of the 5 years of the Civil War to take Charleston leaving it to men like Rhett to take. The waterways are like a maze with beauty that lulls you into a false since of surreal living. If the gators don’t get you, know that the tides rip stronger than anything I have ever seen , and if all that doesn’t get you the sand bars will. Now back to my grounding. After a night of sitting on anchor in a small creek among miles of golden grass where once dark I screamed with excitement and a spot light as gators jumped and made crazy sounds in a feeding frenzy all around, I got up early to make my final 30 mile march on Charleston. In a misty morning I snapped a few pics fired the engine and headed into the ICW. Within a mile I was cruising mid channel and hit an unmarked shoal, unable to back off with the tide dropping quickly, I knew I was stuck. Quickly I called back to Venture who was just about to leave anchor and draws more water than me to stay put. After sitting there for 45 min the boat was laying enough on its side that I could start cleaning it form the dink and at a certain point I wanted to get into the now one foot of water in order to do a better job. As I stepped on the rail of the dink I noticed that I cut my foot somewhere in the chaos and watched the blood run into the water, my survival skills kicking in as visions of gators from a mile around hitting the water upon smelling my blood caused me to jump back into the dink (And I never thought I learned anything from watching Croc Dundee.) after an hour Vic and Susie showed up in there dink to help. We spend the next 5 hours stringing lines to keep the boat from being pushed further into shore in the heavy winds and current potentially making it impossible to get off. It was  a hard day and I want to thank them for all their help…looking back we actually had a lot of fun. That night I went down for the count by sundown.

I love living a life that you can’t buy. And I only told you ¼ of the story.  

Hernan the Conquistador, foul play in the Canadian Monarchy and a friend of Sean Penn's

One afternoon I stopped by an expedition styled motorsailer in my dinghy to find out the story of this interesting looking boat. Standing on the transom steps stood Robert. In his early 50’s, hair dyed to its original black, fit, with an ex-military feel, he was friendly and invited me aboard.  Sitting on the back deck he told me a wild story of mystery and foul play surrounding the boats original Canadian owner and “Heir to the Seagram’s fortune”, how he acquired her in Monaco in 1982 and his expeditions since. You don’t have to know every line in the God Father to know that anyone who is given something because someone owned them money, it wasn’t a good thing. The inside of the boat was dark and creepy. Strange tribal masks and odds from around the world hung with no pattern on the walls. With authority he talked more about his experiences, his trials at sea, diving for treasure, fighting pirates….. and……and …..his eyes blinking rapidly as if trying to remember where he was, who I was….. his mind started to skip…..his stories…. started,started,started getting stranger. Clearly he was only playing with half a deck, but when he told me he knew where Cortez’s lost fleet was, his master plan to secretly excavate its treasure and smuggle it out of South America, I knew he was only a quarter there.  My guess is that somewhere in his life he probably knew Pablo Escobar and broke the cardinal rule of trafficking; sampling his cargo along the way.

Starting up the dinghy he untied my lines and said “you should come back later and have a drink”.  "No, I dont think so. I already have my story", I thought. But apparently "Sean Penn" has already bought the movie rights.

USCG photo take while rescuing Robert off Cape Hatteras.