Nov 8 - Y'all VOTE now! We're in Beaufort SC

Beaufort South Carolina is a quaint old town with dozens of lovely antebellum homes along very quiet residential streets. It's very walkable.  There's a waterfront park with grassy open spaces, brick walkways, and a promenade along the water (see below) with lots of wooden swinging park benches. There are also plenty of eateries along the waterfront with outdoor seating so you can sit and watch boats being carried swiftly along by the strong current. 

Below is the promenade with a guy fishing. The 33' high Ladies Island Bridge is in the background. This is one of dozens and dozens of ICW bridges less than the "newer-standard" 65' high. All cruisers for whom a bridge is not high enough to get under are required to request an opening from the bridge tender, even if the bridge has scheduled openings on the hour or half hour.  This can slow you down a LOT when traveling on the ICW, since most sailboats have masts requiring an opening on lower bridges.

Like most southern towns and cities, Beaufort has magnificent old live oaks like the one above, draped with Spanish moss.  According to locals, winds of 60 mph or more swept through the town during the hurricane and now many of the streets, even weeks after the storm, look like the one below, with piles of branches, marsh grass, chunks of trees and discarded furniture alongside the road. 

Luckily, hardly any man-made structures were damaged in the storm. Below are photos of some typical homes, gardens, churches and so on.   

As you walk the back streets of town you encounter horse-drawn carriage tours that go so slowly you can practically walk alongside and hear the driver's stories. In the photo below is a low-hanging oak limb overhead with a sign warning vehicles to be careful not to hit it. We did this tour last time we were here and the driver let the horse eat Spanish moss hanging from this limb.  

The horses are very friendly...

Many of the residential streets have dead-ends facing the marshy land along the river. This one was near the big house that was used to film "The Big Chill" many years ago. Beaufort has been used as the backdrop for lots of films over the years.  

Here's Jim kissing the hand of a "Miss Beaufort" mermaid sculpture near the Visitor's Center.

Today is election day. We voted long ago by absentee ballot. Today we're hanging out on the boat, reading and doing stuff like this blog so that later we can go into town, visit the museum, take a walk, eat dinner somewhere fun and then maybe watch the election results coming in on TV somewhere. As you may have guessed, there is no TV on this boat :-)

Yesterday a couple of big chunky mustachioed guys on motorcycles kiddingly bargained with us to switch places - we could borrow their motorcycles if they could borrow our boat. They said they wanted to not be on land when Hilary won the election. I asked 'em how we'd know they'd come back and they said "handshake, gentleman's agreement"! Don't think so. But it was fun to have a friendly exchange with a couple of guys from another world.  They said our life looked like fun and wished us well. We said theirs did too and we went our separate ways.