Day 28, Sunday, February 17, A Story

After spending the day inside my room work at the hotel working, having a quick lunch at the restaurant on the 15^th floor, I spent the afternoon doing two loads of laundry. That meant going from the seventh floor to the laundry room on the first. I needed to do two loads. There was only one washer and dryer. In between, I imported 474 photos to the laptop and edited 20. I’ve a long way to go.

By the time I retrieved the second load of clothes from the dryer, I was ready for a break. It was 5 p.m. and I wanted to head up to the lounge to see if it was a shag night. I quickly folded the shirts and left the small clothes for when I returned because it didn’t matter if those were a little wrinkled.

Awww, no DJ, no old folks dancing… that was disappointing. I sat at a table on the restaurant side and ordered a Mai Tai and Caesar salad, took photos of the view, and watched a couple freighters leaving the harbor beyond Fort Sumter.

Meckie, one of the waitresses, came over and pointed out the window. “See that rubble out there; that mess just in front of that houseboat and sail boat? That’s the remnants of a boat, all that’s left,” she said and went on with a story.

Some years back, during hurricane season, a storm had caused an exceptionally high running tide which filled the marsh and flooded low lying areas. The restaurant across the way looked like it was floating and people were stranded at the hotel because they could not get out to their cars in the parking lot. People hung out at the restaurant and lounge watching the storm and some were having a few too many.

One of those guys was the owner of a shrimp boat and because of the high water, hadn’t been able to tell how close to the marsh he anchored. As he continued imbibing his favorite beverage at the hotel, the tide went out and left his boat mired in thick mud. The next morning, he and a bunch of others went out and tried to pull his boat out of the mud. Nothing worked. After days and a lot of effort all they could do was to pull out the engine and other parts that would pollute the waters, salvage what they could, and abandon the vessel. The owner retrieved his cargo of shrimp and sold it, but that could not even come close to the loss of his boat.

Six years later, all that’s left of the boat is that bit of rubble just showing above the water at low tide. The owner now lives on the houseboat nearby and sometimes sneaks into the hotel to use the computer.