Charleston

So feeling somewhat re-integrated into land living from our time in Ft Lauderdale and with finally getting an okay weather window to move on, we did so. It was a 2 day jaunt up to Charleston, South Carolina. Needing to put EcstaSea up for the summer out of the Caribbean hurricane season, we decided on Charleston as we have our family there. Richard's mom,  2 sisters and families all live in the Charleston and Sullivan's Island area. And after a challenging winter with the crossing and adjusting to the Caribbean, we were more than ready to fall into the loving embrace of family. We spent several weeks in a marina right next to downtown Charleston as we explored the possibilities available for Esea's haul out and summer storage. We love the southern charm of Charleston with it's easy way of being, not to mention it's fantastic restaurants.

And since most of the family had never seen EcstaSea, it was great fun to introduce her to them.

Richard, his sister Judy and husband Paul, with his Mom sharing around the table in the Salon…..

Sister Vicki and partner, Pam when they came to visit us in port…..

We happened by chance (hmmm, is there such a thing?) to find out that Kevin Costner and his band Modern West were going to play a concert here in Charleston in a few days. Our special and dear friend Larry Cobb is the drummer in the band and so we gave him a call. We had spent a week or so with the band a few years ago when they and we were all in Monte Carlo at the same time. So we know and love all of the band members and always have had great fun with them. And generous as always they gave us and the family front row seats to the concert.

Kevin Costner rolling his sleeves up at the beginning of the concert….

 Kevin pouring champagne and toasting the audience  at the end of a fantastic concert….

We had a life raft on the boat that had expired so we bought a new one for the Atlantic crossing. But we carried the old one with us also. But after arriving without the need of either, we decided to deploy the old one in Judy and Paul's  swimming pool. We thought it would be good to see how it worked and to salvage anything useful out of it before discarding it. So it was a fun day in the pool seeing what we "NEVER" want to see again---a life raft deployed!!

We found a great boatyard up river in which to haul Esea out and store her on the hard for the summer. So all is well and we spent some extra time enjoying our wonderful family at their beachfront home on Sullivan's Island.

We also celebrated our wedding anniversary by going to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Magnolia's.

Now it's time to journey on to our desert sanctuary in Tucson. We are ready to come home…..