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We arrived in Charleston on 12th June and spent our first night there in Charleston City Marina, which is within walking distance of town. It was also necessary for us to clear into the USA here, so a call was made to the Customs and Border Protection office and within 2 hours, 2 officers came to the boat and processed our entry.

Charleston, (originally named Charles Town in colonial times), is a great place to be, so we decided to stay a few days. We anchored out in the river, opposite the marina for the remainder of our time there.

Charleston figured prominently in both the American war of independence and the civil war and the majority of the town dates back to the 19^th century.

We met up with the yacht Infinity, owned by a young couple, Frank & Gretchen whom we had seen in Marathon in the Florida Keys but met in Long Island in The Bahamas. They were also heading north, eventually to Maine for the summer.

We set off for Beaufort on 15 June, again going out into the Atlantic and heading north for 200 nm. We left early to take advantage of the ebb tide out of the harbour, which took us out at over 7 knots on full sail.

We sailed all the way in 32 hours. For the first time we hoisted our spinnaker. The sail came with the boat but we had never had the opportunity to use it. After creating something of a funky rig to get it up, all went well for about 5 hours. We were doing up to 9+ knots in a fairly light wind. Dream On looked good with this giant two tone pink and orange sail out in front. Then, after 5 good hours, the sail shredded leaving Dream On gift wrapped in two tone pink. It took us an hour to retrieve it all.  

Having seen very few dolphins in The Bahamas, we encountered a very large pod out hunting on this trip. They were leaping out of the water, with some head down, flapping their tails on the surface to herd the bait fish.

Frank and Gretchen on board Infinity had left Charleston at the same time and we had been in sight of them until we lost our spinnaker. They arrived in Beaufort about 3 hours ahead of us.

The town of Beaufort  was named by the original owner of the land, a Mr. Turner, after his friend the Duke of Beaufort.

We anchored in Taylor Creek along the Beaufort waterfront. The cut from the Atlantic into Beaufort is the main southern entry into the inland waters of Cape Hatteras. Once inside the harbour, the water divides into the southerly and northerly sections of the Intracoastal Waterway and the Taylor Creek.

The Creek is narrow so we had to anchor close to the opposite uninhabited shore. Although the water was deep, we were very close to that shore which was reinforced by rocks. Fortunately, the prevailing breeze swung the boat around away from the shore when the tide turned. The shore close to us was a sandy peninsula between Taylor Creek and the sea, inhabited only by wild ponies and birds.

The yacht Infinity was anchored just upriver from Dream On.

When we went ashore, we met an English couple, Duncan and Elaine. They had sailed from the UK into the Caribbean and were heading north. We were invited to drinks on board the following day. Duncan also gave us some local information, including the fact that the very good maritime museum in Beaufort provides a free courtesy car to visiting sailors for a couple of hours at a time to make trips to the supermarket.