December 7-8, 2017 — After watching the Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown episode on Charleston, we decided this would be a good pit stop for our offshore run to North Palm Beach. Thach plotted a straight-line course which took us as far as 35-miles off the South Carolina coast. Turns out that a straight line is not necessarily the quickest path between two points – at least in terms of comfort. Our Windy weather app, which had indicated a max of 20 knot winds, turned to 30 knots from the West across the beam by day two. Emmanou is designed and built to handle worse conditions than these, with the stabilizers working overtime, but the crew less so. A bit like the perceived steepness of a ski slope, a 20-degree roll feels a lot more severe, with objects sliding off their seemingly secure setting. Approaching the entry to Charleston we changed course to reduce the time taking weather across the beam, arriving Ashley Marina in the morning.
A short Marina shuttle ride later we were by the counter of the Waffle House wolfing down Pecan Waffles and Steaks, biscuit and gravy a la Bourdain. After that morning’s over-indulgence Karin was unable to rouse Thach and Tony from their comatose state to go out for Shrimp and Grits in town that evening. The next day we caught the evening light show of boats and followed the advice of a bar-tender/actor called Jaimie, and went to see a one-man show by Rodney Lee Rogers called Fully Committed where he plays a reservation manager at a high-end NY restaurant and 40 other characters over an intense 90 minutes. Exhausted we grabbed a drink at Proof next door on King Street. Thus fortified we headed for to Husk restaurant to live out the next leg of the Bourdain experience – a reservation that was secured through Karin’s dogged efforts – where we tried local specialties, including pigs ears (sweet and crunchy) and duck confit leg. We finally got our Shrimp and Grits for Sunday Brunch before heading back out for our final offshore run to North Palm Beach.
