A Taste of Beaufort

Our last stop in South Carolina was Beaufort.  BEW-fort, as opposed to BO-fort (the city in North Carolina).  Another historic southern town.  As we pulled up, we could see two really old looking ships at the city marina.  Apparently the Nina and Pinta were in town for the weekend, so that was really cool - these ships were reproductions, not originals, but they were hand-built.  So that's something.

Anyway, we were following our usual habit of wandering downtown and stopping at a coffee shop for internet.  We wandered through an art store that had some really cool sculptures - I am a sucka for realistic paintings and abstract sculptures.  Here is one of my favorites.  I admired the art while Kyle inspected the welds.  He was right, it was a crappy welding job.  You can't take the engineer out of the art enthusiast....
I can't get the picture to load correctly so you can enjoy the studio's refreshing attitude toward children.

Later we walked through another art store and were pleased to find that they had an entire room devoted to old charts.  Kyle said his dream home has a large library covered in old charts similar to the ones we found there.  It will be an expensive room to decorate, if those prices are any indication.





We finally made it to the coffee shop and were enlightened to the fact that the weekend activities in Beaufort included a festival, A Taste of Beaufort.  Of course we partook in the activities offered.  Kyle enjoyed a brat from Bricks, a local restaurant.  That brat nearly defeated him.  I managed to find some seafood that did not involve any slimy, disgusting crustaceans from another booth.

In addition, we were educated about South Carolina's official dance, the Shag.  Some of the other activities available included being eaten by a giant inflatable shark and discovering a giant motorhome full of Jelly Bellys.

 Lastly, we were warned about what happens when you leave your teenaged dinghy hanging out with the riffraff at the dinghy dock...such an embarrassment!  Actually, I was fortunate enough to talk to the owners of these dinghies - they were from New Zealand!  Charming accents, and of course their sailboat was fairly easy to pick out as well.

But, after that, it was back on the road again.  Nothing too harrowing, except for that first morning just as we approached the Port Royal Sound.  We heard a noise that...well, it sounded both like a ripping and an explosion.  I can't quite describe it, except to say that if something had tore a hole in the boat, that is what I would have expected it to sound like.  It turned out to be one of our PFDs that inflated because it had been sitting in the sun.  I later tried it on and found that were it to ever explode when it was around my neck, I would feel more like I was choking than being saved from drowning.  Hopefully I'll never get to experience that.

We saw a sailboat fatality.  Oh, the horror! (this is at low tide - at high tide, I'm sure all that's visible is the mast and rigging)

And here is the only place in Georgia that I actually went on land.  Kyle stayed on the boat.  This is an old fort, I just needed to stretch my legs a bit. 

We passed a facility that builds nuclear submarines - they shut down the ICW if a sub is passing through the waters.

Here are some wild horses on Cumberland Island

And what is a blog post without our favorite sunrise and sunset:

And if you've caught on yet, we completely bypassed Georgia and are now in Florida, at Fernandina Beach.