Charleston, day 2 – City Marina, admin day

Tuesday, 19 June: Move to City Marina and pick up rental car in the evening.
Very peaceful night at anchor, no wash from cargo ships here. We set alarm for an early wake up, as we need to move from anchorage to the Charleston City Marina. Due to the strong tidal currents through the floating docks, the best time to go in is at slack water, which today would be 7.30am or 1.30pm. We chose the first option.
We call the marina on VHF to instruct us where we need to enter. They point where our berth is, but after they say “it’s a tight place”, Glen wants to see it first before we motor in. So a short dinghy trip later, the berth meets Glen’s approval and we have a plan.
When we pull up the anchor we are a bit twitchy, as we have been previously warned that there is lots of debris on the bottom of the river in that area and chances are 20-50% we will get caught on something. But we were in luck, and anchor comes up no problem.
In the marina we go stern to in a slick maneuver, and we can’t help thinking yet again how easy it is to tie alongside rather than with mud lines on the bow like we did everywhere in Europe.
Being in the marina means we can connect to shore power and we happily do so. Such a bliss to have the AC to cool the boat, and us. Our plan was to moor then go to town for further exploring, but having to choose between the hot and humid outside and the cool AC inside the boat, we give in and stay on board. Walk can wait till the weekend.
Check in formalities into the marina was a very quick affair, and Natalie the dock master was very accommodating. Then time for some admin, Glen keeping busy on the decks and Oana doing several loads of laundry. What a bliss to have industrial size washing machines and tumble dryers! And so cheap too, US$1.75 per load compared to EUR9 in Martinique for instance.
By 4pm we are ready to leave Cloudy Bay alone, hoping she will behave herself while we are away, and go pick up the rental car which we will have for 3 days. We are pleasantly surprised to get a Jeep instead of the small compact car we originally booked. But at the same time, we giggle thinking how  often we will have to fuel up, as cars here are far from being economic, especially a 4WD.
We head off inland to Greenville, where we visit Caroline and her family. She is Glen’s friend since school days. It is a 3.5h long drive, through miles and miles of forest, all very pretty.
Mid evening we arrive at Caroline and David’s. A very pleasant house situated in shady trees. We spend the evening chatting, drinking and having a wonderful BBQ by their pool, surrounded by glows from fire-flies.
By bed time we are both pooped. We haven’t had a good night’s sleep for several days now.