Charleston, SC

Wednesday we flew from Salisbury, MD to Charleston, SC. It was a long flight, almost too long. We had headwinds so it was a bit slow.

The weather the past two days hasn't been that great for flying so we are still here. The winds at 3,000-6,000 feet the past two days have been forecasted at 35-50 knots. That's pretty windy that low. That would be a great tailwind but it wouldn't have been for us.

Some friends of Dan's live in Charleston. He met them a few years ago when he helped them sail their boat up from Antigua to Newport. So on Wednesday night we had dinner with Norie & Jim. We went to nice seafood restaurant in downtown Charleston that the woman at the airport suggested. It pretty was good.

Norie & Jim are building a new house here. They bought an old house on the Intracoastal Waterway a couple years ago. It had been empty for 7 years. They hoped to renovate it but ended up knocking it down and building a new house. They hope to be finished in a couple months.

Here a couple photos of it. (Yes we got the cameras back in action).

And here's a photo of their schooner, Metani.

We've also had tours of a couple aircraft here at the Charleston Executive airport. On Thursday, an 8 passenger charter jet came in. We were talking with the two pilots about their lives as charter pilots and about the plane. One of them took us on board for a look. He didn't offer to take us up for a flight, not sure why. Maybe because it's $3,000 per hour!

The US Coast Guard has a rescue helicopter stationed at Charleston Exec. So we went over to see if they would give us a tour and they did. There is only one full time person there. He showed us around the front of the building. The helicopter is from the Savannah CG station. The flight crews from Savannah rotate up to Charleston every 24 hours. Lucky for us the chopper was there and they weren't going anywhere right away. So the pilot gave us a tour of his ship.

We didn't get in the chopper and hope to NEVER have to get in one. We thanked the flight crew for their service and told them we hope to NEVER see them up close in action!

In their hanger, they have life vests from the boats they have rescued people from. The vests have the boat name and the number of people saved.

We hope to start heading South again tomorrow, we'll see.

Turns out there is an O'Charlies just down the road. If you remember, we found one in Ohio last July and liked it. So we're headed there for dinner tonight.

Southbound

Hello, is this thing on? Is anyone still out there listening?

Remember back in August when we were in Gulf Shores, AL and supposed to head to Florida? Pete said that August was not the right time to be in Florida, the winter is. Well now it's winter so he wants to head South. So that's what we are doing.

The plan is for Florida and the Bahamas. Today we left the New Bedford airport and headed back to our last stop in August, Salisbury, MD. The sky was pretty clear this morning so we went down the CT coast at 8,500 feet to about Bridgeport, then took a left towards Sandy Hook, NJ. We followed the NJ coast down past Cape May, over the entrance to the Delaware Bay and into Salsibury.

NYC wasn't right under us this time but just off the right side. We went right over JFK airport. Sorry no pictures this time. The one camera we had handy seems to have a bad memory card.

We planned on going another 200 miles or so into NC but there was rain on the radar down in Norfolk. So we are staying the night. Same hotel as in August and we are going to the same restaurant too. Pete really liked it. The Market Street Inn (in Salisbury).

Tomorrow we hope to get to Charleston, SC. A family that Dan sailed with a few years ago lives there and are building a new house. We hope to see it.

After that it will be on to Florida. Not sure what stops we'll make in FL this week. We fly to Abaco in the Bahamas a week from today (Tuesday the 28th). We've got a reservation at the Abaco Inn for 6 nights. Should be nice and warm.