October, 2003
Charleston, SC

Well, let me tell you about the Charleston! Can you picture two single young guys, who just spend two months with not so much human contact right in the middle of university town, surrounded by the crop of southern female beauty?! But first things first.

We have purchased during our last stop a inflatable dinghy, actually it's more like a beach pontoon,actually it is a beach toy that can apparently hold 4 people. Me and Johannes are inflating this colorful device on our sailboat to the enjoyment of passing by sailors. Then we paddle in this toy, up to our necks in the pontoon, to the shore. In this case we landed right by the popular jogging spot on the Ashley River in Charleston. I was actually amazed how people can keep straight faces so as to not offend some weird strangers emerging from the river. We had bunch of people jogging by without even blinking. We deflate our thingee, hide it in the bushes and off we go to explore the land.

Charleston I think was our first experience of a true Southern town with big colonial houses and every other store carrying confederate memorbilia. But the highlight was definately the university part where we were souranded without much warning by some few dozens of university girls. I don't want to give an impression of us salivating or anything like that but it has made us aware how socialy deprived we are in some ways. It's a rare treat to talk to someone of our age and even more rare is to have a coversation with someone of opposite sex. We weren't lucky enough to actually talk to anybody but we did spend most of our time in this part of the town.

Well after sunset we made our way back to inflate our pontoon, and sneek back to our boat on the anchor right in front of the Coast Guard.

(M)