Quick trip to South Carolina for planning the RI Passage
Time share available!
We have a time share in Maine, but also a fair amount of unused weeks. Here’s a thought - go somewhere that’s warm, golf friendly, can invite other family and is part of our network. Myrtle Beach! Time spent in MB and Charleston gets us away from the RI cold, but allows us to scope the harbor. This may be one of the places we stop during passage to RI. Some quick notes: Charleston is a nice town, small. Reminds me of Providence. Very historical with much military overtones: The Citadel, Fort Sumpter, US Coast Guard Base Station. Patriots Point in Charleston Harbor appeared to have a good set-up for catamaran docking. Not many Cats, so they reserved a whole separate dock for them.
Family fun and golfing
Myrtle Beach itself is a golfing / beach town - enjoyed time with the family on the Myrtle Beach boardwalk. We stayed at a vacation resort that had kitchen, living room and two bedrooms; in addition a pool and a mini-golf course. This type of arrangement makes family travel fun and engaging.
Carlos aiming for the scoring greens
We got a chance to visit 3 different golf venues - GrandDaddy Golf Club, Aberdeen CC and TopGolf. See our short video on the conditions at Aberdeen. Not bad, the greens and Tee boxes, even the fairways were green. The outside edges were terribly brown, something attributed to the amount of rain they had...maybe not enough fertilizer in those areas??? Top Golf was the most interesting: an amusement park themed around golf (and of course drinking….)
Charleston is rich with Black History & Black Churches
Charleston hosts an extraordinary amount of Black churches, especially A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopalian). Included is its infamous history around the murder of nine black parishioners by a lone white gunman right in downtown Charleston. Mother Emanuel Church is the oldest AME church in the south and has a particularly striking architecture. There is a moving tribute to those who were killed or wounded at the Charleston International Airport.
Got notice to vacate Marina Jack’s
The time is now to start preparing our selves for the next long passage, bringing Bubista II back to RI. It has been a whirlwind of activity since Marina Jack's (home of Bubista II in Sarasota) told us we need to vacate for an upcoming boat show in April (yikes!). We would like to take it slow coming home....that means we are not going to hire a captain and we are not going to do more than about 2 days straight on the boat. Carlos is carefully planning stops in places we can anchor or moor (avoiding the high cost of slip fees). Also seeking places where we can meet up with friends and family along the way - with a very purposeful stop in Annapolis area to see family.
Keeping track of the planning
Building the itinerary is difficult, because the biggest factor - weather is not specifically known. And, we persevere. We will land in Tampa and get right to work. We have a running excel page with destinations, estimations, maps and other sites to be seen. We continue to build and share this document with crew mates and family, so its “living”.
