Anyone in Charleston?

[rbyham]

Greetings. Yes this is my first post. We have been lurkers here for several months but thinking now about jumping in. By jumping in I mean my wife and I being 58 years young and newly moved from inland Colorado to lovely coastal Charleston are considering a cruising lifestyle. We have limited boating experience mainly lake boating with a short (2 yr) stint of ocean/bay sailing. The ICW at our feet here and cruising would be a completely new experience. We are curious as to how to go about this. Powered feels the way to go at this stage in our lives so we have been researching trawler type boats along the east coast. What we would love to do is to meet someone already doing the powered cruising thing out of Charleston. Having never even set foot on anything bigger than 24' we would love to experience something powered in the 32'-40' range and have an opportunity to learn first-hand what the liveaboard/cruising life is like. I mean just how loud is the Lehmann? If there is a somebody out there that would be willing to introduce us to this new world and available in the Charleston area for a meet and greet please PM us. Thanks.

 

[CPseudonym]

Welcome aboard!

I am on the West coast but the wife and I became familiarized by chartering. That would be the prudent first step. There are many ways to charter but the easiest is a skippered day charter with a local company. Power and sail in a variety of sizes is available at most major port facilities. Take a day trip with each and see what interests you more.

After that there are any number of schools that can train you in the safe operation of your chosen style. Many on this site grew up in the boating lifestyle but some of us coming at it a little later in life find these classes shorten up the learning curve quite a bit.

Searching this site you'll find a wealth of knowledge on many topics that may help guide you but there is no substitute for getting out on the water and seeing if it suits you.

 

[rwidman]

I probably wouldn't take you out for a boat ride, but if you would like to drop by our marina, we would be happy to talk to you and show you around our boat.

 

[psneeld]

I'll probably be down in the Charleston area twice this winter...coming and going.

If you want to send me a PM so we can exchange emails/phone numbers to stay in touch....we can see about getting together and maybe a short ride up or down the ICW as we are transiting.