Dateline: Charleston, South Carolina and at Sea
November 1, 2007 2155 hours
The ship docked in Charleston at 7:00 a.m. we heard the overhead announcement and went back to sleep. We were awakened by someone scratching in the stateroom next to us and decided the gods were trying to tell us something. So we pulled some clothes on and headed out to explore Charleston, South Carolina…
As we mentioned before, last night was formal night and we had dinner with our friends Tim and Cindy and Steve took some pictures of us all dressed up with no place to go! You can check out the pictures at our Google Picassa Photo album! Don’t we make a cute couple?
As most of you know, Steve and I walk everywhere and we come up with our own tours but today was going to be different. We had found a tour about slavery in Charleston on the Internet before we left for this trip; we booked the tour and were really excited about walking through Charleston and hearing the history of the slave trade. In preparation for our trip to the South Steve recently re-read the “Classic Slave Narratives,” as many of the great heroes of that book were brought ashore, lived in or around, and escaped to freedom from Charleston. As we got off the ship there was a vendor signing up people for a horse drawn carriage tour of historic downtown. We decided to try that and quickly signed up. Our tour was set for 12:00 noon, we knew it would be cutting it close as the other tour was set for 1:30 but we figured we could make it work. We had an hour to go before the carriage tour was set so we thought we would walk through town. Charleston has a five block “Market” otherwise known as a TUPAS (totally useless piece a __it) factory and we walked through looking at all of the souvenirs available. Steve was taking pictures and he happened upon a woman weaving a basket, he took her picture just in time for her to start yelling expletives at him and telling him to take his camera and get the heck out of dodge. Pretty interesting…I just walked along and waited for him and the lady to work things out!
After that encounter, we wandered away from the market and found some really beautiful examples of southern architecture and no screaming people and Steve took pictures to his hearts delight. We finally meandered back to where we were supposed to catch the horse carriage and after about 20 minutes, we realized we weren’t going to be able to make that tour and still be on time for the slavery tour so we went back to the vendor and got our money back. Our day was not going as well as we thought but we decided to persevere and we were rewarded for our efforts.
We met Mike our tour director he proceeded to explain the “real” version of the slave trade in South Carolina. It was certainly an eye-opener, you could tell he has done his research and having been born and raised in Charleston he really did know what he was talking about. Some of the facts that you are not told about in history class were fascinating. We were given the opportunity to see where the slaves were kept while waiting for the auction block, many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were heavily involved in the slave trade in Charleston, while we all were taught that cotton was king during the 1800’s the fact is that rice is what really fueled the slave market, we also learned that of the 19 million slaves brought from Africa, 7 million died and only 500,000 were brought to America. The rest of the slaves were in Brazil and scattered in Haiti and Barbados. We also learned that because of some of the “back-room” politics that went on while the Constitution was being written, Virginia and South Carolina controlled the office of the President for 24 years, gives one something to think about when you think about the current resident of the White House and some of those who are looking to be President next November. We also learned that Eli Whitney watched his wife clean her hairbrush with a comb and invented the Cotton Gin which made it possible for people to produce cotton more efficiently. Charleston was the largest and most active slave port in North America for well over one hundred years and the City had one of the larges free black populations of any southern city prior to the Civil War. Another big surprise was that of the 3,000 “free” Blacks in Charleston, more than 400 adopted the horror of their white counterparts and owned slaves of their own! This tour really enlightened both of us about the horrific life suffered by the slave population and really put into perspective the idea of the “good old boy’s network” that began LONG before we were here.
Finally after the tour we found the Charleston City Hall building and had an opportunity to go through the Council Chambers. What a wonderful place. Built in 1801, we found a docent who explained all of the paintings and artifacts found in the room. There were half dozen signed and dated ORIGINAL oils of our early Presidents. We wish the photos we took of these priceless paintings had come out better, but there was a strict rule about no flash photography in the room. Enjoy the pictures on our Google Photo Album. Included in this room was what remained of a picture of Queen Victoria touching her crown, the rest of the painting was destroyed during the 1866 earthquake. I didn’t realize they have earthquakes here but they do, usually a dozen a year. But the big natural disaster they endure is fires, followed by hurricanes. Speaking of, we are watching carefully Tropical Storm Noel. Although it appears it will miss us, it looks like it is going towards the Bahamas and then heading north to New Brunswick. Maybe everyone will get a real life perspective of a hurricane from a couple of Californians but we hope not!!
We managed to get back to the boat in time for the “sailing party” and Steve got some great pictures of Fort Sumter, and the cityscape of Charleston and we called it a day. We put away the camera and headed up to Jimmy (otherwise known as the Horizon Court Buffet). We have decided that Princess should build a shrine to honor Steve as he has become a glutton! With so many choices you can pretty much have a 15 course dinner without really trying! We are open to ideas of what the shrine should look like, if you are creative and would like to help us with the design send us an email. We’ll post your design idea in a future blog. If you can draw the design, that would be even better. Steve is thinking of a large white cross with “RIP Steve” and a perpetual candlelight vigil at our favorite table, with a large bowl of cinnamon ice cream and some peanut butter cookies.
Steve has also been working on the beginnings of a new mystery book. It begins with a gang of old people riding Rascals…the rest is history. When we go to dinner there are hordes of Rascals parked all over the 14th deck by Jimmy. If I were you, don’t take a cruise for a while. Last I heard he was talking about “Hell’s Rascals” taking over a cruise ship and making plans to take on George and Dick! More when he finishes his Cuban cigar!!
We dropped our pilot at the Atlantic and are heading south again into the Saragossa Sea. The wind is negligible, but we have some pretty big swells rocking the ship tonight.
November 1, 2007 2155 hours
The ship docked in Charleston at 7:00 a.m. we heard the overhead announcement and went back to sleep. We were awakened by someone scratching in the stateroom next to us and decided the gods were trying to tell us something. So we pulled some clothes on and headed out to explore Charleston, South Carolina…
As we mentioned before, last night was formal night and we had dinner with our friends Tim and Cindy and Steve took some pictures of us all dressed up with no place to go! You can check out the pictures at our Google Picassa Photo album! Don’t we make a cute couple?
As most of you know, Steve and I walk everywhere and we come up with our own tours but today was going to be different. We had found a tour about slavery in Charleston on the Internet before we left for this trip; we booked the tour and were really excited about walking through Charleston and hearing the history of the slave trade. In preparation for our trip to the South Steve recently re-read the “Classic Slave Narratives,” as many of the great heroes of that book were brought ashore, lived in or around, and escaped to freedom from Charleston. As we got off the ship there was a vendor signing up people for a horse drawn carriage tour of historic downtown. We decided to try that and quickly signed up. Our tour was set for 12:00 noon, we knew it would be cutting it close as the other tour was set for 1:30 but we figured we could make it work. We had an hour to go before the carriage tour was set so we thought we would walk through town. Charleston has a five block “Market” otherwise known as a TUPAS (totally useless piece a __it) factory and we walked through looking at all of the souvenirs available. Steve was taking pictures and he happened upon a woman weaving a basket, he took her picture just in time for her to start yelling expletives at him and telling him to take his camera and get the heck out of dodge. Pretty interesting…I just walked along and waited for him and the lady to work things out!
After that encounter, we wandered away from the market and found some really beautiful examples of southern architecture and no screaming people and Steve took pictures to his hearts delight. We finally meandered back to where we were supposed to catch the horse carriage and after about 20 minutes, we realized we weren’t going to be able to make that tour and still be on time for the slavery tour so we went back to the vendor and got our money back. Our day was not going as well as we thought but we decided to persevere and we were rewarded for our efforts.
We met Mike our tour director he proceeded to explain the “real” version of the slave trade in South Carolina. It was certainly an eye-opener, you could tell he has done his research and having been born and raised in Charleston he really did know what he was talking about. Some of the facts that you are not told about in history class were fascinating. We were given the opportunity to see where the slaves were kept while waiting for the auction block, many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were heavily involved in the slave trade in Charleston, while we all were taught that cotton was king during the 1800’s the fact is that rice is what really fueled the slave market, we also learned that of the 19 million slaves brought from Africa, 7 million died and only 500,000 were brought to America. The rest of the slaves were in Brazil and scattered in Haiti and Barbados. We also learned that because of some of the “back-room” politics that went on while the Constitution was being written, Virginia and South Carolina controlled the office of the President for 24 years, gives one something to think about when you think about the current resident of the White House and some of those who are looking to be President next November. We also learned that Eli Whitney watched his wife clean her hairbrush with a comb and invented the Cotton Gin which made it possible for people to produce cotton more efficiently. Charleston was the largest and most active slave port in North America for well over one hundred years and the City had one of the larges free black populations of any southern city prior to the Civil War. Another big surprise was that of the 3,000 “free” Blacks in Charleston, more than 400 adopted the horror of their white counterparts and owned slaves of their own! This tour really enlightened both of us about the horrific life suffered by the slave population and really put into perspective the idea of the “good old boy’s network” that began LONG before we were here.
Finally after the tour we found the Charleston City Hall building and had an opportunity to go through the Council Chambers. What a wonderful place. Built in 1801, we found a docent who explained all of the paintings and artifacts found in the room. There were half dozen signed and dated ORIGINAL oils of our early Presidents. We wish the photos we took of these priceless paintings had come out better, but there was a strict rule about no flash photography in the room. Enjoy the pictures on our Google Photo Album. Included in this room was what remained of a picture of Queen Victoria touching her crown, the rest of the painting was destroyed during the 1866 earthquake. I didn’t realize they have earthquakes here but they do, usually a dozen a year. But the big natural disaster they endure is fires, followed by hurricanes. Speaking of, we are watching carefully Tropical Storm Noel. Although it appears it will miss us, it looks like it is going towards the Bahamas and then heading north to New Brunswick. Maybe everyone will get a real life perspective of a hurricane from a couple of Californians but we hope not!!
We managed to get back to the boat in time for the “sailing party” and Steve got some great pictures of Fort Sumter, and the cityscape of Charleston and we called it a day. We put away the camera and headed up to Jimmy (otherwise known as the Horizon Court Buffet). We have decided that Princess should build a shrine to honor Steve as he has become a glutton! With so many choices you can pretty much have a 15 course dinner without really trying! We are open to ideas of what the shrine should look like, if you are creative and would like to help us with the design send us an email. We’ll post your design idea in a future blog. If you can draw the design, that would be even better. Steve is thinking of a large white cross with “RIP Steve” and a perpetual candlelight vigil at our favorite table, with a large bowl of cinnamon ice cream and some peanut butter cookies.
Steve has also been working on the beginnings of a new mystery book. It begins with a gang of old people riding Rascals…the rest is history. When we go to dinner there are hordes of Rascals parked all over the 14th deck by Jimmy. If I were you, don’t take a cruise for a while. Last I heard he was talking about “Hell’s Rascals” taking over a cruise ship and making plans to take on George and Dick! More when he finishes his Cuban cigar!!
We dropped our pilot at the Atlantic and are heading south again into the Saragossa Sea. The wind is negligible, but we have some pretty big swells rocking the ship tonight.
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