June 28-July 2             Beaufort, South Carolina

We flew into Savannah and drove to Beaufort to reunite with   The Bottom Line.  We were eager to return to our beautiful boat and were pleased to see it clean and well maintained.  The antique gold upholstery on the sofa in the salon had been changed to beautiful orange-red tweed that gave a subtle but colorful lift to the décor.  We had engaged an upholsterer in Beaufort and had fabric shipped to him.  The entire matter was negotiated over the phone.  We were very pleased that he did what he said he would do, in the time requested, and at a fair price.  We were also very excited to unbox our new bicycles, two Dahon foldable bikes especially designed for mariners.  The frames are aluminum and the wheels are stainless steel.  They are extremely well crafted and weigh only 25 pounds. 

We gave the bikes a good trial on the following day when we rode for several hours through the historical neighborhoods of Beaufort.  We loved visiting the church cemeteries with graves decorated with American and Confederate flags to denote veterans from each of those armies.  We visited the grave of Robert Small, a Black leader who captured a Confederate boat during the Civil War and turned it over to the Union Forces.  He was rewarded for this with a cash payment sufficient to buy the grand home where he had served as a slave before the war.  He became a state celebrity and schools, streets, and monuments were dedicated to him.  Besides becoming an outstanding business person, he served in local and state political offices.

Beaufort has some outstanding restaurants but we enjoyed Emily’s so much that we returned there a second time.  In addition to regular entrees, they specialize in a long list of tapas.  We utilized the remainder of our time in that lovely town doing some routine maintenance on the boat, riding our bikes, completing some office work, and continuing the re-decorating project for the master stateroom.