Charleston Harbor boat ride.… (SC)

Cool and blustery this morning, perfect day for a Charleston boat ride.

We carpooled in with Ed and Susan, crossing a beautiful new suspension bridge.

We boarded a pontoon tour boat with our group for a look at Cooper River and the Charleston Harbor. The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, commissioned in 1943 and now a museum ship, is here. We young people know her best as the Apollo 8 recovery ship.

Charleston Harbor is much larger than, say, San Diego Bay but the surrounding town much smaller. Charleston’s population is about 110,000 – less than Roseville. The metro population is maybe 600,000. From the harbor the views toward land are more of low-rise buildings, some dating back to the 17^th century.

Since the 1930s Old Charleston has had a rule that nothing over 75 years old gets torn down. Maybe this would be a good place to retire.

Our guide took us to a crab pot, the picture showing only a portion of the catch after only a few days. This was the first time we’ve actually seen blue crabs, famous on this seaboard.

The crabs were then tossed overboard, albeit perhaps a quarter mile from their last position of freedom. The guide said the empty shells were caused by feeding whelk.

The old island fort is Fort Sumter, which was fired upon by South Carolina forces, starting formal fighting in the Civil War. Of course, it had to be fired on again toward the end of the war, so the Union could retake it from the Confederacy. So the 1860s were tough on it. Our guide was nice but this is roughly her total commentary: “I’m not an expert on Fort Sumter, but I believe it used to be a little taller.” (She was right, we later confirmed at the Fort Sumter visitor center.)

Our boat landed us on Morris Island as countless migratory birds flew about. Marcia has done a lot of shell hunting on this trip, and this time she found long-coveted conch shells, intact. We also saw several horseshoe crabs, dead or sluggish, it was hard to decide; or perhaps it was a defense posture.

Not shown are the many dolphins that surfaced around our boat, diving before I could click the shutter. This looked great but was perhaps more exciting to the mid-states members of our caravan.