Georgetown SC

February 16

View of Front Street. Harbor walk behind buildings. Marina to left. [Picture from Chamber of Commerce]

During the first walk after we arrived, we saw how wrong the young bartender at the last marina was about this town. He said we would see it all in two hours. After getting the boat tied up and plugged in, we walked along the waterfront boardwalk with Coconut and saw many, many things to see and do. In that short walk, we could see Georgetown is historic, friendly, beautiful and charming.

You walk along the board walk, turn the corner at Kaminski House and then stroll down Front to the street side of the waterfront buildings. There are placards indicating the buildings ages and areas’ stories. That clock tower in the center of the top picture is in the Old Market Building, a/k/a The Rice Museum, is on a historic public market built in 1832-1835.

Kaminski House was built about 1769 by a merchant, Paul Trapier, called the King of Georgetown. The house took on the Kaminski name when Julia and Harold Kaminski purchased it in 1931.  Upon Mrs. Kaminski’s death in 1972, it was willed to the City of Georgetown for use as a museum.  It’s also used as an event center. This weekend there is a bridal fair. Lovely setting for a wedding. I hope to tour it, apparently they bring in professional decorators several times a year to change it up. Joe will be thrilled!

Every street leading off the marina is tree lined, mostly majestic live oaks. We are in awe of them. We noted a 500 year old live oak between two houses this morning. I have also learned that live oaks are called “Live” because they keep their green all winter.

The garden designs are also amazing. In our first few walkabouts, we saw many of the historical buildings and homes, including this one from 1737. Holy cow, that’s almost 300 years old! The City was laid out in 1929 and this home is the oldest surviving structure.

It’s fun to see the various boats in places with home ports of places we’ve been. Annapolis, Solomon’s and Deltaville are all in this marina. We are in the Harborwalk Marina. Guess we shouldn’t have been surprised there is a Harbor Walk ….

The woman on the boat behind us, Esther, born and raised here, owns a gorgeous Marine Trader Trawler. It is a very recent acquisition. Her son will Captain the boat. She had a 30′ Willard Trawler previously that recently came back onto the market. However, her Son the Captain comes with his family so a much larger boat was purchased. She lives nearby and comes down to just sit on it. We can see why, “Breathless” is a 47′ beauty and Esther is absolutely the epitome of a southern woman–Charming and lovely. She came back down to the boat a few days later and gave us a tour. This boat has a spectacular interior. The former owners had left everything: wicker porch furniture, rugs, artwork, glassware, bedding….it was tasteful and homey. Besides the fact the boat is fully loaded and ready for cruising. Esther also toured our boat as the Trawler she owned was in Pursuit’s size category. Ours seemed so small after the spaciousness of Breathless.

Ok, the weather. When looking at the radar, the area from the Gulf to the Chesapeake is showing rain, lots of rain. This seems to happen a lot here or maybe it’s where ever we are located! ! Up to this point, we have been pretty lucky and missed most of them. However, it rained most of yesterday and is rain is the forecast for the next several days. Good point is its relatively warm, no wind and as far as rain goes it’s a light one. However, wind and cold enters into the picture tomorrow depending on the website you view. We’ve decided to go to Surf City to retrieve the truck tomorrow. We will drive along the coast and see the towns we drove through heading South on Pursuit. Do you know you can rent a car for $36.75 a day and a U-Haul trailer is 3x that price. Crazy.

Woke up Wednesday to a bit of a scare (besides turning 62), there was an odd smell. Not good. We have a fancy Vacuflush toilet system on this boat with lights to show you how full your holding talk is getting. The light said 1/2 full but we decided to get it pumped out anyway since it had been awhile. Oof, out the back door of the boat it smelled worse! The holding tank is back there, could it be leaking? This my friends is every boaters nightmare! I walked up to the marina’s bathroom and on my way realized the smell carried a long way…. wait a dog gone minute. I know that smell. I don’t know how I know that smell but I do. In my reading, I saw that there is a paper mill plant here. That smell is the pulp being made into paper. Oh what a relief. In between rain, we moved the boat over by the fuel dock and got her pumped out. Life on a boat……. 😏