Cruising on Last Dance


This blog archives the adventures of Glen and Jill Moore and provides a means of communication for friends and family. Exploration and adventure have been synonymous with boats and water for centuries. The joy of adventures shared while exploring new places and meeting new people has built a strong bond for Glen and Jill. Last Dance is the platform for the exploration.

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." St. Augustine, 354 - 430

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910

"There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats." The Wind in the Willows, 1908, Kenneth Grahame, 1859 - 1932

"I've never believed speed and ease are conductive to living fully, becoming aware, or deepening memory, a tripod of urges to stabilize and lend meaning to life." River Horse: a log book of a boat across America, 1999, William Least Heat-Moon,1939 -

The Great Loop -- The current adventure is a circumnavigation of the Eastern United States, cruising north up the east coast through New York into Canada, across the Great Lakes to Chicago, navigating multiple river systems south to Mobile, along the Gulf coast to the Florida Keys and back to St. Augustine. This trip by boat is commonly referred to as the Great Loop. Progress and current location are indicated by the red line on the map to the right. It was titled the Traceless Path in recognition of a German sailor we met in St. Augustine who published booklets of his travels with hand-drawn, detailed maps describing his travels across the water as the Traceless Path.



Saturday, March 19, 2011

South Carolina

There are many sights and stories to share as we cruise up the waterways, but there is a limit to our writing time and your reading time.  For South Carolina, the topic we would like to share is home architecture.  Some have written that they would like us to share photos, and this topic lends itself to visual images.  To narrow the topic a bit, we will focus on three areas:  Beaufort, Charleston, and houses along the water.

Beaufort


Pronounced "beau-fert" and not to be confused with Beaufort (Bo-fort), North Carolina, is a small town with much history, located on the southern coast of South Carolina.  The old downtown section is only a couple blocks along one street on the waterfront.  Homes are located on the waterfront and the streets behind town.  The architecture is the old south.


























While not home architecture, the design and construction of an old cemetery wall caught our interest.





Charleston

This city is known for portraying the Old South and celebrates its homes.  Charleston is on a peninsula, bordered by rivers north and south, and facing the Atlantic Ocean to the east through a wide inlet.


We stayed at a marina just across from Charleston, sharing the berths with a boat a bit larger than Last Dance, the York Town.  A water taxi provided transportation across the Cooper River to town.


There are many interesting houses, we will let the few we chose to share speak for themselves.  All these homes are located south of Broad Street, which is the title of a Pat Conroy novel (South of Broad).  We entered South Carolina by the southernmost island, Daufuskie, which was the site of an early Conroy book, The Water is Wide, chronicling his year teaching students on the island, traveling every morning by small boat, and battling the school board.


They have nice cars in Charleston, also.




























A house with no setback, in fact, the front porch is the sidewalk.

On the Waterway


Historic homes are few along the water, but new, varied, and interesting architecture abounds.










The northern end of the waterway passes through Myrtle Beach, which Glen has always likened to Daytona Beach.  Class seems to end somewhere south of that point.  Money still is displayed, but people tend to live in boxes stacked on top of each other.  Below are two of the more attractive stacks of boxes.



A view of South Carolina through a tour of homes.   We hope you have enjoyed cruising with us along the South Carolina waterways.  Not wanting to end with the ugly, below we share some of the most beautiful views in this state, where people do not live.  Two images will end our South Carolina journey, the first on the Wacamaw River and the second was taken at anchor on Cow House Creek.



1 comment:

Darrell and Linda said...

WOW!!!!! The pictures are great! How's the boat doing? Do you have any interesting boat incidents or boating words of wisdom for anyone following in your footsteps? I was talking to a friend who made the trip and he was telling me how to handle the lock and dams on the Erie Canal. He was saying the locks are to the side of the dam. Apparently, he had to throttle up to get through the water flowing over the dam and then make a sharp turn to enter the lock. Sounds interesting. Have fun. I love the blog.