Woke up at 8.00am as usual, looking forward to spending the morning at leisure before the Borealis arrived in Charleston, South Carolina at 12.30pm. Previous experience with arrival into the USA had told us that it would be mid-afternoon, however, before we were able to disembark; the US immigration process is extremely detailed and thorough.
We had never been to Charleston before. It is one of the USA’s oldest port cities founded in 1670, depicted in its cobbled streets, horse-drawn carriages and pastel-painted three storey houses. We were booked to do the Charleston Ghost Walk later on, which certainly sounded interesting and would also allow us to get some exercise!
After breakfast, then, we had a walk around the deck and just spent some time pottering around the vessel. We joined in with the Baggo as usual, but to make it more interesting they changed the rules slightly; for example, each team had a maximum of 20 seconds to throw their four beanbags, or you had to use your non-dominant hand to play or throw the bags over your shoulder. It was all great fun with some interesting results; Trevor and I were knocked out in the second round. 😊
Afterwards we went up for some lunch and were excited to see land ahoy! The Borealis slowly made her way into port; she was the only cruise ship in today. We looked along the harbour and we could see a pleasant tree-lined area to walk in. Our first impressions were very favourable. The weather, however, was much cooler than we had expected, only about 4 or 5 degrees Celsius.
Noticing that my phone now had a signal (!!) with AT&T, I switched on my data and was besieged by a flurry of emails and text messages. We hadn’t had a signal at all during the sea days, not even on the Cellular at Sea network which is usually the case. So we’d been cut off from the world for the last nine days, which was not necessarily a bad thing.
Soon the Borealis was made fast for the rest of today and our stay overnight. All we had to do now was wait until our deck number was called before we could disembark and go through immigration. Obviously, those who were booked on any excursions were called first, and it was a long, long wait. To cut a long story short; those on Deck 7 starboard were not called until 3.00pm.
We disembarked the ship and brought our passports, shipboard cards and ESTAs to security to be checked. We had our photos taken and, in Trevor’s case, his fingerprints, then we were finally allowed through! We were now in the United States of America, and our time was our own! 😊
As our Ghost Walk wasn’t until 7.15pm we had a few hours to spend ashore exploring, so I opened the GeoCache app on my phone to see if there were any caches nearby, and there was one only 175 metres away. It took us along a narrow walkway, with old mellow brick and stone walls and houses set back within rustic gardens behind wrought-iron gates. We found the geocache; it was hidden within part of a crumbled stone high up in a wall. I added my name to the log, then entered it into the app. Mission accomplished! 😊
Afterwards, we retraced our steps and made our way into the main town. There were some fabulous grand old buildings, one of them, the United States Customs House, seemed to dominate the place wherever we went. There were also lots of unique and colourful shops selling hand-made soaps and cosmetics or wooden handicrafts. One shop even sold men’s bow-tie and cummerbund sets made out of pressed peacock feathers. Very unusual.
We also saw several horse-drawn carriages offering to take tourists for an hour-long tour of the city, with commentary. We decided we needed the exercise more than the horse, however, and we politely declined. 😊
We bought some postcards and decided to have a freezing cold pint of American beer while I wrote them out, so we looked around for an attractive bar. We saw one called “Mac’s Place” and went inside. There were separate booths with tables along one side of the room, and long wooden tables and chairs down the centre. There was also a row of high stools at the bar, above which was a series of television screens showing various sports or reality programmes. The barmaid greeted us cheerfully as we each took a bar stool; we liked the atmosphere in Mac’s Place immediately.
I ordered a pint of Miller High Life which went down a treat; Trevor had some sort of novelty beer with fruit flavouring added to it. We enjoyed our drinks so much we had another. Other people from the Borealis wandered into the bar and nodded to us. We decided we would come back here tonight after the Ghost Walk.
After our drinks we decided we’d better go back to the Borealis and have an early dinner, as we had to be back ashore for quarter past seven. We ate in The View buffet, then returned to 7055 and I changed from my flip-flops into stout trainers with socks and my puffa over my denim jacket, as it was surprisingly cold out there; only about 2 degrees. As we disembarked the Borealis once again just after seven o’clock, we saw that those people whose cabins were on decks 1 or 2 were only going through immigration now!
The Ghost Walk was in small groups, and our guide introduced himself as Roy. He explained a bit about Charleston’s history and its dark and gruesome past. Charleston was a major slave trade port in the late 1700s but, as slaves were regarded as ‘property’ and not people (disgraceful!) they were never given a proper burial; instead, their bodies were just dumped at sea and left to decompose. It was said that passing ships could smell Charleston long before they reached this port.
Another heavily haunted location is the famous Charleston Powder Magazine. This is a gunpowder magazine and museum at 79 Cumberland Street. Completed in 1713, it is the oldest surviving public building in the former Province of Carolina. It was used as a gunpowder store through the American Revolutionary War, and later saw other uses, including as a weapon store. The Powder Magazine was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989.
During the Battle of Charleston in 1779, despite warnings that several of the stored firearms were still loaded, no-one listened – and the inevitable happened. A musket discharged, setting off a chain reaction that would cause 5,000 other muskets to also discharge. It also caused 180 barrels of gunpowder to explode. The incident destroyed six homes and left 200 people dead. It is said that the massive explosion caused the dead bodies, and body parts, to rain down upon Charleston in a gruesome shower, some of the bodies coming to rest on the church steeple. The ghosts of some of these unfortunate souls are believed to haunt Charleston to this day.
Walking through the darkened streets and looking at some of the churches and cemeteries we passed, we decided we would come back and see what this area looked like in the daylight.
The talk lasted about two hours and was very interesting, if somewhat disconcerting. As Roy started to take the party back to the ship, we decided to break from them now and return to Mac’s Place, after thanking Roy and giving him the customary tip.
Arriving at the pub, we saw it was doing a lively trade. Several of the crew from the Borealis were enjoying their time off in there and, as we sat on bar stools once again and enjoyed the beer, cruise director Simon and several of the entertainments team arrived. They were probably very pleased to be able to get off the ship and enjoy a change of scenery! 😊
It was great in the bar, and it was 11 o’clock before we arrived back at the Borealis, along with several crew members. We walked around to the main entrance of the cruise terminal in the cold, only to find it closed. We therefore had to go in via a side entrance; not a soul was around. It did allow me to get some great bow shots of the Borealis, all lit up at night.
Once we were back inside the blissful warmth of the Borealis, we went straight up to The Observatory on Deck 9, where the karaoke was in progress. I wasn’t originally going to get up and sing but was persuaded to do so by some of the other singers. I therefore put my name down to do Alejandro by Lady Gaga; it’s not a song I’d ever sang in karaoke before, but I think it went down quite well. 😊
We stayed in the Observatory until around midnight, then made our way back to 7055 which was nice and still and quiet for a change. Normally, we would have propped open our balcony door, but the temperature was expected to drop below zero tonight, as Charleston was forecasting a cold snap, so we didn’t want to freeze in our beds. 😊
Nonetheless, we slept very well, and looked forward to exploring more of Charleston in the morning.