2024 Special Events Calendar for Charleston County Parks, Charleston, SC
Click here for 2024 Special Events Calendar for Charleston County Parks
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Click here for 2024 Special Events Calendar for Charleston County Parks
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Click here for January events and programs in your Charleston County Parks
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Click here for The Magic of the Season: Paws N’ Claus & Light the Lake Events
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Charleston County Parks and Recreation
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Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Marina Directory Listing For Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Cooper River Marina
Slip rentals in the Lowcountry are expensive, ranging between about $500 and $1,000 a month for people with boats up to 45 feet long. Transient slips are even more.
Many boat owners in the Charleston area have a love/hate relationship with their marinas. Mostly they love the access to year-round wet slips, fuel docks, pump-outs, dock hands, marina toilets, fish cleaning stations and a degree of security.
They hate it when the bill arrives, though.
Slip rentals in the Lowcountry are expensive, ranging between about $500 and $1,000 a month for people with boats up to 45 feet long. (The biggest motor and sailing yachts can pay much more than that, and transient boats pay a premium rate per foot for access to outside docks.)
Perhaps you’ve noticed that the marinas in the area are full, or nearly so. A few of them are expanding. The opportunities are ripe, and some with deep pockets are investing in Charleston’s marine sector, joining a broader consolidation trend.
The supply clearly is not keeping up with the demand. Part of the reason is population growth. As the region welcomes more residents, some with plenty of disposable income, the number of boats increases, too. Another part of the reason is that waters in the Charleston area are particularly inviting to boaters.
“Boating here is still fantastic on Charleston Harbor,” noted Chuck Laughlin, president of St. Bart’s Yachts, a Beneteau dealer based at the City Marina on the Ashley River. “On any given day you can be one of a few boats out there. It’s still not crowded like Lake Norman outside of Charlotte, where you feel you’re taking your life in your hands.”
And if they are sailboat operators, they can race. The Charleston Ocean Racing Association has registered 30 boats for its annual October “Alice Cup” race between the harbor and Rockville. That’s a big number, much more than in recent years, and it suggests a surging interest in offshore sailing, said Ray Spellerberg, co-owner of the sailboat Celedon. It wasn’t long ago that CORA struggled to generate interest in its offshore races, Spellerberg said.
“It just breaks my heart,” said Rand Pratt, director of operations for Charleston Harbor Marina.
The least expensive is the Cooper River Marina, operated by the Charleston County Parks. The owner of a 30-foot boat who keeps the vessel there long-term will pay a little more than $500 a month.
The others, all privately operated, cost more
Spellerberg keeps his boat at Hobcaw Creek Community Docks which, with just 18 slips, is perhaps the smallest marina in the area. If you define “marina” as a place that includes not just slips but services, too, then maybe Hobcaw would not qualify. All it provides is a power pedestal so boats can charge their batteries while at rest.
“We like where we’re at,” Spellerberg said. He and his co-owner live nearby. “We’re grateful we don’t have to go into a larger marina setting. It can get cost prohibitive.”
He pointed out that marina costs represent only a portion of money boat owners spend each year. Merely keeping a boat in good working order requires significant investment.
And too many new boaters don’t know the rules of navigation, which can make things a bit dicey on the water, Spellerberg added.
The marina operators know the power they wield. And they recognize an opportunity when they see one. In recent years, Safe Harbor Marinas has purchased the City Marina, the Bristol Marina nearby and the City Boatyard on the Wando River. The Dallas-based company also owns marinas in Beaufort, Hilton Head, Port Royal (two) and Pawley’s Island. Overall, it owns 130 marinas, boatyards and other facilities, located in 24 states and Puerto Rico.
Safe Harbor was purchased by Sun Communities in 2020 for $2 billion.
That company isn’t the only one participating in the consolidation of the marina business. Mike Shuler, owner and managing partner of Bohicket Marina Investors, now controls six properties: Seabreeze Marina, St. John’s Yacht Harbor, Bohicket Marina, Isle of Palms Marina, Ripley Light Yacht Club and Old Village Yacht Club. (Shuler didn’t respond to messages left on his voicemail.)
The City Marina is located on public land, owned by the city of Charleston, and leased to Safe Harbor. And guess what? It’s expanding.
Famous for its Megadock, where the mega yachts tie down when in town, the City Marina is adding dockage space that extends toward the middle of the Ashley River.
“We have almost completed the north Megadock,” General Manager David Isom said. “After that, we will start to attach these 100-foot-long concrete finger piers, then start rebuilding the north basin of the marina.”
Some old concrete walls, remnants of the original marina design that can disrupt the current flow, soon will be removed, he added. That will make it easier and safer to tie up to the new floating docks, which don’t hinder the current, and perhaps help minimize silting.
The new slips are meant for longer and wider boats, Isom said.
When all is said and done, the City Marina will be among the largest in the country. Add up the space on both sides of the new Megadock and you get the equivalent of one mile of linear dockage, he said.
Other marinas are getting bigger, too.
Seabreeze, located on the Charleston peninsula in the shadow of the Ravenel Bridge, just added dozens of powerboat slips. And Shuler now is hoping to build a yacht club on that end of Johns Island, near Bohicket Marina.
Charleston Harbor Marina, too, is planning an expansion that will add dozens of slips on the south side of the site, according to Pratt. It’s already installed new breakwaters that are wider, deeper and offer better protection from westerly weather.
“We’re primarily trying to protect our investment,” he said. Though the added revenue certainly is another reason.
The future could see more linear dockage on the north side of the marina, meant to accommodate a growing number of catamarans, Pratt said. Plus College of Charleston Sailing, which is based in the marina, is looking to grow, he said.
Demand is high for space, and the marina maintains a wait list, though the wait period isn’t crazy yet, Pratt said.
A big challenge is updating the marina to keep pace with changes in boating behavior and design. Boats are bigger now. A marina designed 35 years ago might not be sufficiently equipped to accommodate all of today’s boaters.
Not all marinas are built alike. Most rely on long wooden pilings along which the docks float up and down according to the tides. At City Marina, the water must rise 17 feet before the docks slip off the top of the pilings and float away.
Charleston Harbor Marina instead relies on a Swedish design developed to manage the big tidal swings of the North Sea. The docks are held in place not by pilings but by crisscrossed chains anchored to the harbor floor. The marina’s only pilings are support structures for powerboat lifts. Some were recently added to bring the total number of mechanical lifts to 42.
Needless to say, upgrades are expensive. So is regular maintenance, especially in an area with a soft bottom that sometimes needs dredging and the annual threat of tropical storms. Pratt wouldn’t name a figure saying only that his annual operating costs were “astronomical.”
It doesn’t cost that much to maintain a mooring field. There’s a new one in the Wando River, 1 River Landing, near the Daniel Island Yacht Club. For a 30-foot boat, you pay $275 a week, $475 a month or $4,320 a year. (Bigger boats pay more.)
Laughlin said business is good. The demand for his Beneteau sailboats and powerboats remains pretty high. There was an uptick in sales during the pandemic, despite a manufacturing shortage because of COVID’s impacts on factories trying to keep their employees safe.
When he started out 36 years ago, a big Beneteau cost perhaps $150,000, he said. Today it’s approaching $7 million.
It’s worth noting that many boat companies have manufacturing operations here in South Carolina. The state Department of Commerce recognizes 28 boat makers headquartered here, including a few big ones: Scout, Sportsman and Key West. (Beneteau had a factory in Marion, but closed it in 2020. The facility was purchased by a Canadian swimming pool company which, like boat manufacturers, molds fiberglass.)
As of the beginning of 2023, the total number of registered recreational boats in South Carolina was about 360,000, according to the Department of Natural Resources. A little more than 317,000 are powerboats; 2,000 are sailboats.
Many powerboats are kept in dry stack marinas, of which there are several in the area. Perhaps the majority of powerboats are trailered and kept in driveways. Owners ease them in and out of the water at designated boat ramps.
A recent trend affords recreational boaters the chance to get on the water without owning a vessel. Boat clubs are on the rise. Pay a membership fee and get access to a fleet of small powerboats. The City Marina is home to two such clubs. Seabreeze has one, too. Fortunately for them, the powerboat market is strong. The pandemic inspired some people to invest in new boats. Now that the worst of COVID is past and the market is leveling off again, there’s some excess inventory, noted Isom. What will happen to those vessels?
“The boat clubs are going to start buying them up,” he said.
Which means we’ll see even more people on the water, many with little boating experience. And that means an increase in the “danger level,” as Spellerberg has warned.
He hopes they will learn the etiquette and the rules before they throttle up.
Click here for Latin American Festival set for Oct. 8 at Wannamaker County Park
Charleston County Parks and Receation
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Click here for August Events and Programs in your Charleston County Parks!
Charleston County Parks and Receation
Register in advance at www.CharlestonCountyParks.com
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A newly-proposed ordinance in Charleston aims to prevent people from abandoning boats. Our thanks to Ted Arisaka for submitting this article.
Aside from the costly removal process, Rudy Socha said abandoned vessels also pollute water with lead, fiber glass, sewage, and debris. Socha is the CEO of the nonprofit Wounded Nature-Working Veterans, which assists in removing the boats.
Click here for Proposed permit would crack down on abandoned boats in Charleston
As I understand, in the 2021 SC Legislative session, HB 3865 which became law in Act 77 established "template" regulations that SC municipalities could elect to adopt and enforce. I believe this was to avoid having each municipality have its own variation of anchoring regs (distances, time frames). Ostensibly Charleston County would adopt Act 77. Link https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=3865&session=124&summary=B
Click here for Lowcountry Cajun Festival April 13 at James Island County Park! Get tickets today
AREA SPONSORING MARINAS
Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Marina Directory Listing For Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Charleston Harbor Marina
SOUTH CAROLINA – CHARLESTON HARBOR – CHARLESTON PARADE OF BOATS: Special Local Regulation and Marine Event.
The City of Charleston’s annual Parade of Boats will be held on the waters of Charleston Harbor on December 10, 2022 from 4 p.m. through 8 p.m. This event will consist of approximately 35 powerboats with decorative light displayed on a parade route throughout the harbor. Participating vessels will assemble in Commercial Anchorage B and begin its northern route around Commercial Anchorage A, continuing through Bennis Reach, beyond Patriots Point to the Ravenel Bridge. The parade will then transit south down through Tidewater Reach, and will conclude at City Marina east of the James Island Connector. A special local regulation established in 33 CFR 100.704 will be in effect for this event. No persons or vessels may enter, transit through, anchor in, or remain within the designated event area unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Charleston or a designated representative. Vessels are
advised to transit with caution in the vicinity. Official event patrol can be contacted via VHF Channels 16 and 78.
For questions or concerns regarding this notice, please contact Sector Charleston Waterways Management Division at (843) 740-3184 or the Sector’s 24-hour Command Center at (843) 740-7050.
Palmetto Park Jam is back this fall! Grateful Dead tribute band The Reckoning returns to headline this live music event at Mount Pleasant Palmetto Islands County Park on Sunday, Oct. 23.
Palmetto Park Jam featuring The Reckoning is back on Oct. 23
Charleston County Parks and Recreation
Sarah Reynolds |
Public Information Coordinator Charleston County Park &
861 Riverland Dr | , | Charleston | , | SC | 29412 |
Primary: | 843-762-8089 |
sreynolds@CCPRC.com | | | CharlestonCountyParks.com |
Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Marina Directory Listing For Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Cooper River Marina
Wappoo Creek Bridge with a 33ft closed vertical clearance crosses the AICW south of the Ashley River/ICW intersection.
Click here for MSIB 24-22 Temporary Deviation – Wappoo Cut Bridge 15OCT.docx
Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Bridge Directory Listing For Wappoo Creek Bridge
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Wappoo Creek Bridge
AREA SPONSORING MARINAS
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Charleston Harbor Marina
Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Marina Directory Listing For Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Cooper River Marina
Charleston County Parks, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, and Wannamaker County Park host a Latin American Festival. The perfect Fall outing!
Click here for Latin American Festival Oct. 9 at Wannamaker County Park! Celebrate the tastes, music and traditions of Latin America and the Caribbean
Sarah Reynolds |
Public Information Coordinator Charleston County Park &
861 Riverland Dr | , | Charleston | , | SC | 29412 |
Primary: | 843-762-8089 |
sreynolds@CCPRC.com | | | CharlestonCountyParks.com |
AREA SPONSORING MARINA
Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Marina Directory Listing For Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Cooper River Marina
Charleston County Parks, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, is proud to announce the return of Wine Down Wednesdays.
Click for Wine Down Wednesday is back! Sept. 7, Oct 5 & Oct. 19 at Old Towne Creek County Park
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Public Information Coordinator | |||||||
Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission | |||||||
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Charleston County Parks, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, is proud to announce the return of Summer Entertainment Series beginning in June. Fun for kids and grandkids at James Island and Wannamaker County Parks.
Charleston County Parks’ Summer Entertainment Series is back in June
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Charleston County Parks, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, announces the return of three Yappy Hours at James Island County Park. Pooches and owners are invited for an evening of live music, drinks and off-leash fun. First Yappy Hour is April 21st.
Click link for Yappy Hour: A Party in the Dog Park this Spring!
This security zone is beneath the Ravenel Bridge which is parallel to and north of the Waterway’s east/west path through Charleston Harbor. Our thanks to Officer Chad Ray for this notice.
SECURITY ZONE – COOPER RIVER BRIDGE RUN
Cooper River and Town Creek Reach, Charleston, SC
The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary security zone on certain waters of the Cooper River and Town Creek Reaches, near the Arthur Ravenel Bridge during the Cooper River Bridge Run on Saturday, April 2, 2022 from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
This temporary security zone prohibits persons and vessels from entering, transiting through, anchoring in, or remaining within the security zone unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Charleston or a designated representative.
In addition, Commercial Anchorage C will be utilized for the event’s planning and staging. Marine traffic is encouraged to use Commercial Anchorages A, B, and D, if needed.
This MSIB can be viewed at https://homeport.uscg.mil/port-directory/charleston. For questions or concerns regarding this MSIB, please contact on scene security assets via VHF-FM Channel 16, Sector Charleston Waterways Management Division at (843) 740-3184, or the Sector’s 24-hour Command Center at (843) 740-7050.
LCDR Chad Ray
USCG Sector Charleston
Waterways Management Div., Chief
(843) 323-7761
Charleston County Parks, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, is proud to announce a new yoga program beginning in April.
New Sunrise Yoga program coming to Charleston County Parks in April
Click Here To View the South Carolina Cruisers Net Marina Directory Listing For Cooper River Marina
Click Here To Open A Chart View Window, Zoomed To the Location of Cooper River Marina
Wine Down Wednesday series returns for Spring 2022. Wine, live music and food trucks at Old Towne Creek County Park. Charleston County Parks is A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR!
[WEST ASHLEY] – Charleston County Parks is excited to bring back a spring full of Wine Down Wednesdays at Old Towne Creek County Park! Take a much-needed “hump day” break and enjoy Wine Down Wednesday on March 16, March 30, April 13 and April 27 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Wine Down Wednesday is a family friendly event where guests can enjoy live music while exploring this unique county park off Old Towne Road in West Ashley. Admission fees also cover wine and a commemorative wine glass. At each event, two food trucks will also be on site with items available for purchase.
The Spring 2022 Wine Down Wednesday music and food lineup is:
Admission for Wine Down Wednesday is $20 per person in advance, and $25 the day of the event.
Guests are encouraged to bring their own chairs, tables and blankets. Dogs are welcome, but must remain on a leash at all times. If an event is canceled by Charleston County Parks, a refund will be provided. Outside alcohol is prohibited. Outside food is allowed.
Old Towne Creek County Park is located in West Ashley off Old Towne Road and is open for special events only. Wine Down Wednesday is a great opportunity for the public to be able to explore and enjoy this site. Old Towne Creek features 67 acres of beautiful open fields complemented by groves of live oak trees. The park will undergo construction later in 2022.
For more information on Wine Down Wednesday, or to register for this event, visit CharlestonCountyParks.com. This event is brought to you by your Charleston County Parks.
Owned by the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC) and only open currently for special events, Old Towne Creek County Park is located at 1400 Old Towne Road, Charleston, SC 29407. The mission of CCPRC is to improve the quality of life in Charleston County by offering a diverse system of park facilities, programs and services. The large park system features over 11,000 acres of property and includes six regional parks, a skate park, three beach parks, four seasonally-lifeguarded beach areas, three dog parks, two landmark fishing piers, three waterparks, 19 boat landings, a climbing wall, a challenge course, an interpretive center, a historic plantation site, an equestrian center, cottages, a campground, a marina, as well as wedding, meeting and event facilities. The park system also offers a wide variety of recreational services – festivals, camps, classes, programs, and more. For more information on CCPRC, call 843-795-4386, or visit CharlestonCountyParks.com.
Images courtesy Charleston County Parks. High-resolution photos available upon request
Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission / 861 Riverland Drive / Charleston, SC 29412 / (843) 795-4386
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Charleston County Parks, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, proudly introduces a 5K trail race series held at some of its most treasured parks for trail runners and walkers.
Charleston County Parks debuts 5K trail race series
Explore the Lowcountry’s best trails in 2022
Sarah Reynolds
Public Information Coordinator Charleston County Park &
861 Riverland Dr | , | Charleston | , | SC | 29412 |
Primary: | 843-762-8089 |
sreynolds@CCPRC.com | | | CharlestonCountyParks.com |
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