Hilton Head Island: a Swamp Fox burger and resailed

Carol drove us to Charleston last Thursday to pick up GANNET’s sails. 

We stayed the night at the historic Francis Marion Hotel, named after the Revolutionary War general known as the Swamp Fox.  I remembered his name vaguely and found an interesting Wikipedia article about him with some revisionist history.  I believe that people should be judged by the standards of their time, not by those of the ephemeral present.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion

The hotel restaurant is not surprisingly called The Swamp Fox.  We dined there on a shared half pound Swamp Fox burger and salad.  We don’t eat much meat.  I don’t even recall the last time I had a hamburger, but it sounded good to both of us and accompanied by a bottle of Pinot Noir was.

The next morning we rode the National Park Service ship for a tour of Fort Sumter.  The morning was sunny, with a hard blue sky, and cool for this part of the world, 44F/6.6C, and with a 15 knot wind gusting 23, felt colder.  We wore jackets and gloves.

The ride to the fort took thirty-five minutes.

Charleston Harbor is bigger than I expected, but on that morning not busy for what is said to be the eighth busiest container port in the country.

We were on the 9 am boat, the first of the day.  Park rangers accompanied us and raised the U.S. flag over the remnants of the fort, a flag with thirty-four stars, the number of states at the start of the Civil War.

Only the first story of what was a three story brick fort is left.

Some of you may recall that not long ago I read a good book about the events that led up to the beginning of the Civil War, many centered in Charleston, and the bombardment of Fort Sumter, THE DEMON OF UNREST, by Erik Larson.  Without any chance of re-enforcement or resupply, the fort surrendered after three days of bombardment from multiple batteries surrounding it.  Standing there it was obvious they had no choice.

After an hour and a half on the island in which we saw a cannon ball still in a wall and the fingerprints of one of the slaves who had built the fort in a brick, we rode back to the mainland.  The wind was stronger, the white-caps higher, and the ship even swayed a bit.  The return took only twenty minutes.  I think the tide was with us.

Back on land Carol drove us to North’s loft and we picked up the sails.  The bill was a bit higher than I expected, mostly due to their replacing the sacrificial sun strip on the leech of the jib.  It had been exposed to strong sun for six years, so about time.  

Yesterday Carol and I bent the sails on.  I have done this by myself, but some parts of the process are much easier with four arms.  North told me that they probably couldn’t do much about mold stains and they didn’t.  One side of the jib looks pretty good, the other doesn’t.  I have never had sails professionally cleaned before and had no idea of the cost.  For GANNET’s small sails it was $150 each.  Insignificant, but I don’t know that it was worth it.

I am glad to have GANNET resailed.