This story first ran in the Post and Courier's online blog edition. But I like it and this is my show so I'm posting it again!
Things have turned quiet at the Charleston City Marina. Gone are the mega yachts, those gleaming white ships made of spotless fiberglass, bright shinny chrome and their perfectly tanned crew members. The cruising crowd has gone south as well. Those retired couples, enjoying their life aboard fuel efficient trawlers that have become the floating equivalent of motor homes.
On the vast and now mostly empty mega dock a straggler of the snow bird procession arrives in a sailboat with a faded yellow hull, that chalks away in a yellow and white cloud of dust. The boat is a 1977 Erwin sloop 28 feet long named Elizabeth. A boat that has been floating since what appears to be time began.
Two weeks before Christmas and I'd swear that his name might as well be St. Nicolas or even Santa Claus. Nick or at least his near likeness is really named George, complete with a pipe whose smoke encircles his head like a wreath, a full neatly trimmed gray beard and a head full of thick silver hair tucked up under a red wool cap.
The rest of the story is here.
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