"2003 Cheaper by the Week - November 15-20" Mount Pleasant Travelogue by grandmaR

Gas dock rest room signs

We normally only stay 4 or 5 days in with our children, but at this marina it is so much cheaper by the week that we are going to stay a week. It is also cheaper to rent a car for a week.

Normally our son works 2nd shift Thursday through Monday and has Tuesday and Wednesday off. That's what we've based our schedule on- to be here Saturday and leave next Friday. But we find out that his hours are going to be different this week. He's working 2nd shift Saturday and Sunday and the working first shift Monday through Friday.

I look at our registration slip and our dates that we are staying here are wrong, so I go get it changed. We are not very far from the gas dock, which is good because I don't have so far to walk to the bathrooms there. They have green and red markers as men and women's signs.

Charleston Maritime center across the Cooper River

Our daughter is having trouble getting email to me - pocketmail seems to have put filters on without telling me. We get our rental car from Enterprise, and Bob stopped by Radio Shack to buy a cable. He watered the batteries and then we went to our son's house and got our schedules organized. We left when he went to work after I downloaded email, and we picked up the prescriptions that had been forwarded by our daughter.

We then went down to the Charleston Maritime Center (picture shows it right next to the aquarium and the Ft. Sumter dock where we were two years ago) and visited CSY 33 deLight who was docked there. Max was not on the boat, but we waited around a bit and found that he'd been taking a shower. Then we went out for dinner together. We ate at Vickery's.

Shem Creek from the Trawler restaurant

There is a wireless network in the marina, which I eventually get to work (I've never used one before). Bob washed the boat. He says the alternator bracket is broken and he can find no one in Mt. Pleasant who will do the welding.

We left the boat at noon and he went to Walmart and Home Depot. Then we got caught in a motorcycle cavalcade. We went to our sons and stayed until he left for work. We went to the Trawler Restaurant in Shem's Creek and got gas for the car.

Bridge over Cooper River to Charleston side

I called Dell and after 1.5+ hours on the phone being shifted from one person to another around and around, and reducing me almost to tears, I finally gave up on getting credit for the RW drive which makes the black Dell hang, and ordered another one.

Bob went out - still unable to find anyone in Mt. Pleasant to weld his bracket and drove all the way back to Summerville where the Caterpillar place did the welding for him for free. They gave it to him red hot (on a wire) and he quenched it in a mud puddle so that he could put it in the car without burning it up.

He also found the phone number of a Perkins place and ordered a replacement bracket. He reinstalled the bracket on the engine.

While I was downloading email in the main office, I heard about a guy who worked for DNR who'd been out in a boat about 45 minutes away who had a heart attack, and was being brought in to the marina. Reportedly, the Coast Guard refused to come and get him - he died.

We didn't go to our sons because he was working 4 to midnight Sunday and then 8-4 on Monday.

We went up to Andolini's Pizza and got pizza but couldn't eat it all and brought it back to the boat.

Marina on a dead calm day from shore

They delivered my RW drive to the boat. They also delivered Bob's new bracket, but in spite of the fact that he spelled the name of the boat for them 3 times, they sent it to "Roady Ann" and the marina couldn't figure out who that was (I put my slip number on my order). So we didn't get that until Nov 19th (the next day).

We went to our son's house and we got two of the packages that our daughter sent, but not the photoworks package. We then went to watch our grandson's basketball team practice and had dinner at Burger King afterwards.

Construction on the Cooper River Bridge to Chastwn

Bob insisted we'd have good wind and should go outside down to FL on Friday. The boat in the next slip left to go to the Bahamas today.

Bob drove over to Shem Creek and bought some shrimp and steamed them. Our son came over after work (he works right across the river from us) and we ate them.

Looking down the marina dock

Bob found that his part had arrived. We went to the commissary and exchange and then swung by our son's house but the last package had not yet arrived. It never did come and I had to order a replacement.

We took them to Oscar's in Summerville for dinner.

Friday November 21st. Bob convinced me to go outside, so we cast off and left

the harbor