A Tale of Two Charlestons

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That sums up our visit to Charleston in a neat and tidy nutshell. The city of Charleston is lovely, and totally worth the visit. But we had a couple of nasty mishaps that put a real crimp in our experience.

Traveling down the ICW has been a truly unique trip for Valkyrie’s crew members. Formerly accustomed to traveling mostly under sail in wide bodies of water, we are now motoring down narrow channels and rivers, passing under numerous bridges and enjoying the view of the relatively close shoreline on both sides. We have of course motored through canals plenty of times on our way up to Maine in previous summers, but the longest of those – the Chesapeake Delaware Canal – takes about two hours to get through. What’s different here is that we are doing this all day long, every single day. It’s kind of like driving a noisy truck down a scenic highway from Virginia to Florida, but only at about five miles per hour. Rick is mostly at the wheel, but I spell him from time to time so he can get a break.

Although the weather has remained cold even as we make our way south, the flora and fauna have been changing to reflect a warmer climate. We see pelicans galore, live oak trees draped with Spanish moss, and palm trees, most of which are obviously transplanted ornaments and not truly indigenous, at least before we arrive in Charleston.

After almost two weeks of exhausting, non-stop eight to nine hour days, we pull in to Charleston harbor, ICW mile 469, and slide in to the fuel dock. It’s late in the day, and we’re both happy to have made it here. We are short on all supplies – fuel, food, water, ice, etc. – and we plan to take a slip at the marina and enjoy a couple of days here, replenishing our larders as well as our psyches.

After filling the forward diesel tank, Rick sends me down below to watch the level on the main tank; we don’t have a gauge on that one to tell us when it’s full. After a minute or two, I hear from up above, “Shit!” “Oh my God!” and, “What a disaster!”

“I just put diesel fuel in the water tank.”

Holy moly. The only good thing about this is that I wasn’t the one who did it.

The filling ports for the two tanks – diesel and water – are right next to each other. They’re labeled, but look so much alike that Rick has long intended to paint one of them a bright color so as to help prevent a mistake from being made between them, but he just never got around to doing it. Now, in his bleary-eyed stupor, the unthinkable has happened. One of our water tanks has a gallon or two of diesel fuel in it.

If we try to empty our water tanks, we’ll be dumping contaminated water into the Charleston harbor. Definitely not a good idea. But even simply emptying the tank would not solve our problem. We’d still be left with a stinky tank that would ruin our water, possibly forever. We made our way to the slip, and went online right away to Google a solution to our problem. The online experts were decidedly unhelpful. The only mention of “diesel in the water tank” we could find had just one thing to say: Forget it!  The tank is toast. Basically, replacing the tank is the only sure-fire way to get rid of the diesel smell. This would be a big, expensive and time-sucking job, probably putting an end to our Bahamas plan. We could just not use that tank, close it off and only use the port side water tank. But that cuts our water capacity in half. Big. F-ing. Problem.

Last year, Rick put some internal ports on those water tanks so that we could have direct access when we wanted to clean them. We both thought this was a big mistake at the time, because unfortunately, the ports leaked. But since then Rick has solved that problem, and now we are damned lucky to have that port. We can use that big hole in the top of the long rectangular tank to get the fuel out! Diesel is lighter than water, and rises to the top in a red layer, not unlike oil on top of vinegar in salad dressing. Rick patiently skims off the diesel with a coffee cup, pouring the fluid into old empty containers. This takes a couple of hours.

After all that skimming, we have two empty gin bottles filled with our wayward diesel fuel, and not even a trace of pink in the tank water. But the smell of diesel is still strong. We add dishwashing soap, scrub like mad, and then pump it all out. This sequence, over and over. Fill, scrub, rinse, repeat. Now we have water that smells of diesel fuel and dishwashing soap. We decide to let the tank sit overnight, and go out to get some dinner.

Colonial  Lake, Charleston

Charleston is a paradise for foodies. I ran an online search for “best restaurants”, knowing that there would be many, but thinking that finding something within walking distance would narrow down the options to two or three. Boy was I wrong. My head was spinning, trying to decide between twenty-five or so. During our stay we ate at three very different places, one funky Asian, one upscale chic, and one low-country brunch with biscuits and grits, all fabulous. In between these meals, we took a very entertaining and informative “Gullah” tour, looking at the architecture, slave roots, and influence of African culture on the city.

Fish Stew Provençal at Fig

Part of the reason we decided to stay for a few days in Charleston was that I needed to fly back to Baltimore. I’ve had an ongoing problem with my neck and shoulder, and my doctor wanted MRIs of both. I had the neck MRI when we were in Baltimore in October, but unfortunately, my health insurance company wouldn’t approve the one for my shoulder. After much fighting, my doctor finally got them to OK the shoulder MRI, but of course, we are now on a boat in the ICW. I managed to get flights in and out from Charleston all in the same day, and off I went, badabing, badabang, badaboom!

All went well, until my third Uber ride of the day, back to the Baltimore airport. I said goodbye to the very nice driver, then entered the airport to stand in the security line, and when I tried to find my phone which held my boarding pass, I realized I had left it in the Uber car. D’oh! I’ll just call the driver – wait, I don’t have a phone to call him with! What the hell, even if I could call somehow, the phone number for him is in my phone.

Maybe I can call Uber directly? I run around the airport, looking for a pay phone. Apparently, they have gone the way of the dinosaurs and no longer exist. The airport information desk is empty. I try the “courtesy phone” in the airport lobby, but it only connects to 911 or airport offices. I run back outside, hoping the driver realizes my mistake and is coming back. No go. I run back in, now starting to panic.

After about an hour of running around, I go to the Southwest Airlines ticket counter. The lady there gets me a paper boarding pass, and lends me her own cell phone. But who do I call? “Call your own number, maybe he’ll answer.” Duh. Why didn’t I think of that? The driver doesn’t pick up at first, I have to keep coming back and re-borrowing that phone, but eventually he does answer. It’s now too late for him to come back to the airport - he is Ubering someone to DC – but he promises to mail the phone, general delivery to our next stop (Beaufort, South Carolina).

Meanwhile, Rick had been laboring on the water tank problem in my absence and worked a genuine miracle. His inspired solution? Use the one thing we have in abundance on the boat – GIN!!! He emptied the tank of all water, then swabbed the inside with a cloth soaked in Gordon’s, the idea being that the alcohol would help to evaporate the last minuscule traces of diesel oil. We had to keep the tank open to let it dry, and we had to repeat the gin treatment a couple of times, but the tank is finally clean and the water tastes fine! Gin really is the cure for EVERYTHING.

 

"Chin-chin!"