So in addition to eating all the food I possibly can, I also spend a lot of time traveling and going on wild adventures all around the world. Sometimes, I forget that Charleston is in and of itself kind of an adventure, and we locals should take the opportunity to treat it as such. In that vein, I decided to do something a bit out of my comfort zone and try the Charleston Speedboat Adventures tour!
hyperlapse harbor from Sydney Gallimore on Vimeo.
It starts out at the Harbor Pointe Marina in West Ashley, kind of near where California Dreaming is. When we arrived, we were greeted by owner Graham pulled out a big laminated map of the Charleston harbor and explained the route we were going to be taking.
TBH I was pretty excited about the laminated map.
Since I’m a big ole wuss when it comes to boating, I brought Elise (aka Cookin’ With Booze) along with me, since she grew up around boats, and the closest I’ve come to driving a boat is reenacting Titanic on the bow of a cruise ship whilst on spring break in college.
RIP Elise’s hat!
How The Tour Works: Graham gave us a quick (but thorough!) tour of the boat and how to work it, and pointed out where to find the safety equipment & lifejackets and how to put them on. Graham drove a boat on his own in front of us as our tour guide, and we were 2 to a boat.
(although Graham says you can fit 3 to a boat… but I think that would be pretty snug unless you’re all Elise-sized)
(how it works, continued) Your job as captain is to keep up with Graham. He communicates via hand signals (which he teaches to you before you get on the boat) the lets you know when to speed up or slow down. Since we were just the 2 boats, he gave the tours by just speaking to us from his boat, but the boats are equipped with radios, so he could potentially communicate with you that way if you’re with a bigger group.
Easy peasy. Just avoid the sandbars and sunken boats littering the harbor.
We passed The Battery and stopped at White Point Gardens for a quick history lesson from Graham. Luckily, it wasn’t super windy, so although we were going pretty fast (and Elise lost her hat!), it wasn’t too choppy!
were having too much fun from Sydney Gallimore on Vimeo.
We kept going and stopped in front of the aquarium (where I used to work in college and where this blog was born!) and Graham gave us some facts about the aquarium and the harbor.
Like how it’s illegal in SC to hold a dolphin in captivity, hence no dolphins at the SC Aquarium!
Then we went around Drum Island and under the bridge, which is a really cool perspective if you’ve never been underneath it!
It’s more impressive from this angle than directly below, trust me.
We also stopped in front of the Yorktown where we got another history lesson (although, since I just visited the Yorktown in December, this was mostly a refresher for me).
Seriously, if you haven’t taken a tour, you really should!
After the Yorktown, we attempted to get close to Fort Sumter, but it got a bit choppy, so we swerved into Shem Creek for a quick trip and Graham gave us a few facts about Ft. Sumter and Shem Creek.
No birds were harmed in the filming of this photograph. Mostly because I wasn’t driving.
On our way back to the marina, we stopped at Castle Pinckney for another quick history lesson, but also mostly so I could take some primo pics of the Cooper River Bridge.
That’s the ticket!
All in all, it was an awesome adventure. It was so much fun to skim along the water and have the wind whip my hair around for 2.5 hours, and my excitement definitely drowned out my fear for most of the excursion. Graham was an awesome tour guide and it was so much fun to see these quintessential Charleston landmarks from a new point of view. If you’re looking for a fun and unique way to explore Charleston, I can’t recommend Charleston Speedboat Adventures (and Graham) enough!
Charleston Speedboat Adventures
56 Ashley Point Dr
Charleston, SC 29407
(843) 800-6003
This looks fun! My office is near Cali Dreaming and we have seen the yellow boats and talked about how cute they were!