lowcountry idyll

I felt it before I heard it: a low-frequency vibration that seemed to originate from the unimaginable depths of Earth. I was in my stateroom, the master in the after section of Freedom, getting ready for dinner aboard. “What the … ?” I said and then peered through the starboard portlight, right into the Plimsoll line of a loaded container ship. The ship’s diesels, each the size of a small cottage, thumped rhythmically as a gaggle of tugs shepherded her progress westward up the Savannah River on the border of South Carolina and Georgia.

, tied up at the municipal pier a short distance east of the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, rested quietly in the shadow of formed an emotional connective tissue between the 21st and the 18th centuries. Passersby stopped dead in their tracks to admire her elegant Edwardian profile and fine finish.