Wednesday, November 28, 2007
November 28, 2007
We are in Brunswick, GA. Have been here since November 22, Thanksgiving Day, when Journey blew in on a gale, 37 knots – 42 miles per hour – in St. Simons Sound, then up the Brunswick River being chased by a freighter, veered off the main channel into the
East River, and with the engine in neutral was wind pushed at about three knots into a slip at the Brunswick Landing Marina where dock hands snubbed the rear spring line to a cleat and Journey in full throttle reverse landed without wrecking herself or anything else. The Marina provided turkey and ham, boaters brought pot luck dishes, and we had a good feast an hour after arriving. That night we cooked a turkey breast that we bought two days before, had to be cooked or it would be too late for it.
We had invested a great deal in that turkey breast. The marina at Delegal Creek, our third stop from Charleston, offered a courtesy car to go shopping. Turned out that it was a six-seat golf cart. The four of us, Bill and Judy S, Marlene and me, took off about 4:30, some of us a bit overexcited for grown-ups to have the chance to tool around in a golf cart. It had been warm on the water and we were dressed accordingly. With a golf cart as a courtesy car, surely the store wouldn’t be that far. The marina was part of one of those planned, gated, golf communities with blacktop cart paths snaking along side streets, or a designated part of their shoulders. The sun dropped, the temperature dropped, the cart hummed along at a good 10 miles an hour, the path went on and on and on at least five miles. It was a two hour round trip. I stood by the freshly cooked chickens in the market to warm up. Marlene drove there; Judy drove on the way back with dim headlights lighting the way. I took two paper bags from the store, poked holes in them and used them as a muff.
We rented two cars on Friday, drove to Savannah about 70 miles north, toured, then Judy and Bill departed for Charleston to pick up their car and wend their way home to Boston and we returned to Brunswick. We miss them. They were great crew through southern South Carolina and Georgia, as we snaked through Skull Creek, Calibougue Sound, Cooper River, Ramshorn Creek, Skidaway, Ogeechee, Bear and Newport rivers, Johnson Creek, Sapelo Sound, Front River, Old Teekettle (sic.) Creek, North and Little Mud rivers, Buttermilk Sound, Altamaha River (where we anchored), and the MacKay into the Brunswick River. You can go five miles with two knots of tidal current against you, pass an incoming channel and have two knotswith you. The wind was southwest or non-existent which translated to sailing only four hours out of the 33 in motion from Charleston to Brunswick. That’s the story of the South Carolina, Georgia section of the ICW – nearly Maine-like tides, currents, switchbacks, porpoises, miles of golden marshes, interspersed every once in awhile by a small flotilla of shrimp boats moored to the only land that will support a road and a dock. We saw few cruising boats.
Brunswick Landing Marina is proving to be a great place because of Sherry who runs it and we’ve decided to leave Journey here, head back to Boston on Friday, but return earlier than we expected, mid January or so. Seems that boaters have to pass her test of caring about their boats and behaving. Showers are clean, the laundry is free, it’s reasonably priced, and lots of people are in boats staying long-term. That translates to good security.
For many people a boat is their only home. A couple on a big South African-built catamaran said they intended to only sail for two years. Eleven years and 130,000 nautical miles they are still on their boat, taking shore leave from time to time to help children in the military remodel their many homes. Carl at the local West Marine is “replenishing the cruising kitty” before he and his Irwin head further south.
Chronologies are illusive in casual conversations; people seem not to think much about days, weeks and years, more about seasons. They are nomads – Chesapeake Bay in the summer, Florida or the Bahamas in the Winter. Some go further north, spending the summer in Northeast Harbor Maine. Others shiver at the thought of even trying a summer in New England.
A German immigrant of many years ago was “downsized” by his company sometime in the 1990’s and has lived alone for years on his Whitby 36. Like so many cruisers, he is an engineer, and now does odd jobs on boats, but kept saying that he should have left, but now when it seems like the time is right, another little job for someone gives him an excuse to stay. On his own boat, he said, you go to fix something and it requires making a pile of stuff to clear space to get to it. Then you need a tool, and you build another pile to get the tool out. Then you need a part that has to be ordered and you don’t want to put all that stuff away. “You can’t leave with all of that stuff about and all of those projects pending.” He also said, “You know, live aboards are the lowest forms of life. Nobody wants us. We pollute, we don’t pay taxes.” He lamented that it’s all changed since the hurricanes in Florida wiped out “ma and pa marinas” where live aboards were welcomed. These marinas didn’t have insurance to rebuild, so sold out their waterfront property to developers. Now you can’t find a place to stay. “I should have left,” he lamented, “now it’s too late.” What does one do when you have no place on shore, you can’t find it in yourself to move on, you’re getting older and you’re not wanted for the long-term anywhere?
We’re heading home for awhile, eager to get there, but equally eager to return to this nomadic adventure where we’re learning a new pace in listening and seeing and living that we hope to take wherever we might be. Stay tuned.
We are in Brunswick, GA. Have been here since November 22, Thanksgiving Day, when Journey blew in on a gale, 37 knots – 42 miles per hour – in St. Simons Sound, then up the Brunswick River being chased by a freighter, veered off the main channel into the
East River, and with the engine in neutral was wind pushed at about three knots into a slip at the Brunswick Landing Marina where dock hands snubbed the rear spring line to a cleat and Journey in full throttle reverse landed without wrecking herself or anything else. The Marina provided turkey and ham, boaters brought pot luck dishes, and we had a good feast an hour after arriving. That night we cooked a turkey breast that we bought two days before, had to be cooked or it would be too late for it.
We had invested a great deal in that turkey breast. The marina at Delegal Creek, our third stop from Charleston, offered a courtesy car to go shopping. Turned out that it was a six-seat golf cart. The four of us, Bill and Judy S, Marlene and me, took off about 4:30, some of us a bit overexcited for grown-ups to have the chance to tool around in a golf cart. It had been warm on the water and we were dressed accordingly. With a golf cart as a courtesy car, surely the store wouldn’t be that far. The marina was part of one of those planned, gated, golf communities with blacktop cart paths snaking along side streets, or a designated part of their shoulders. The sun dropped, the temperature dropped, the cart hummed along at a good 10 miles an hour, the path went on and on and on at least five miles. It was a two hour round trip. I stood by the freshly cooked chickens in the market to warm up. Marlene drove there; Judy drove on the way back with dim headlights lighting the way. I took two paper bags from the store, poked holes in them and used them as a muff.
We rented two cars on Friday, drove to Savannah about 70 miles north, toured, then Judy and Bill departed for Charleston to pick up their car and wend their way home to Boston and we returned to Brunswick. We miss them. They were great crew through southern South Carolina and Georgia, as we snaked through Skull Creek, Calibougue Sound, Cooper River, Ramshorn Creek, Skidaway, Ogeechee, Bear and Newport rivers, Johnson Creek, Sapelo Sound, Front River, Old Teekettle (sic.) Creek, North and Little Mud rivers, Buttermilk Sound, Altamaha River (where we anchored), and the MacKay into the Brunswick River. You can go five miles with two knots of tidal current against you, pass an incoming channel and have two knotswith you. The wind was southwest or non-existent which translated to sailing only four hours out of the 33 in motion from Charleston to Brunswick. That’s the story of the South Carolina, Georgia section of the ICW – nearly Maine-like tides, currents, switchbacks, porpoises, miles of golden marshes, interspersed every once in awhile by a small flotilla of shrimp boats moored to the only land that will support a road and a dock. We saw few cruising boats.
Brunswick Landing Marina is proving to be a great place because of Sherry who runs it and we’ve decided to leave Journey here, head back to Boston on Friday, but return earlier than we expected, mid January or so. Seems that boaters have to pass her test of caring about their boats and behaving. Showers are clean, the laundry is free, it’s reasonably priced, and lots of people are in boats staying long-term. That translates to good security.
For many people a boat is their only home. A couple on a big South African-built catamaran said they intended to only sail for two years. Eleven years and 130,000 nautical miles they are still on their boat, taking shore leave from time to time to help children in the military remodel their many homes. Carl at the local West Marine is “replenishing the cruising kitty” before he and his Irwin head further south.
Chronologies are illusive in casual conversations; people seem not to think much about days, weeks and years, more about seasons. They are nomads – Chesapeake Bay in the summer, Florida or the Bahamas in the Winter. Some go further north, spending the summer in Northeast Harbor Maine. Others shiver at the thought of even trying a summer in New England.
A German immigrant of many years ago was “downsized” by his company sometime in the 1990’s and has lived alone for years on his Whitby 36. Like so many cruisers, he is an engineer, and now does odd jobs on boats, but kept saying that he should have left, but now when it seems like the time is right, another little job for someone gives him an excuse to stay. On his own boat, he said, you go to fix something and it requires making a pile of stuff to clear space to get to it. Then you need a tool, and you build another pile to get the tool out. Then you need a part that has to be ordered and you don’t want to put all that stuff away. “You can’t leave with all of that stuff about and all of those projects pending.” He also said, “You know, live aboards are the lowest forms of life. Nobody wants us. We pollute, we don’t pay taxes.” He lamented that it’s all changed since the hurricanes in Florida wiped out “ma and pa marinas” where live aboards were welcomed. These marinas didn’t have insurance to rebuild, so sold out their waterfront property to developers. Now you can’t find a place to stay. “I should have left,” he lamented, “now it’s too late.” What does one do when you have no place on shore, you can’t find it in yourself to move on, you’re getting older and you’re not wanted for the long-term anywhere?
We’re heading home for awhile, eager to get there, but equally eager to return to this nomadic adventure where we’re learning a new pace in listening and seeing and living that we hope to take wherever we might be. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
November 18, 2007
The March of the Escargot
While awaiting our arrival in Charleston, Bill S. looked down from his hotel room on the morning parade of boats leaving Charleston Harbor and reported to us later that assorted craft ponderously queuing up to enter into Wapoo Creek looked like the “march of the escargot.” It’s disconcerting to think of graceful Journey as a lowly mollusk, but it reflects this odd parade of geezers, dropouts, boat bums, and the newly liberated from work crewing motor yachts and sail boats, sliding at a glacial pace through the twists and turns of South Carolina marsh.
The four of us spent two days in Charleston being tourists: buggy ride with too many canned jokes from the driver that weren’t that funny if not downright insulting to we Yankees, a visit to a spectacularly restored 1700’s mansion, two good restaurant meals, pleasant walks in lovely neighborhoods, and a day spent at Middleton Plantation. Journey was docked at the Charleston Harbor Marina that has a 1500 foot face dock on the Ashley River. We walked two full city blocks on floats to go from Journey’s slip to the showers, then another two blocks on floats to get ashore. Lots of amenities, but a marina is a marina is a marina.
The guides prattle about ghosts in Charleston among the 11,000 whites who lived in the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. They hawk nighttime ghost tours – but the real ghosts that lurk within their federalist oval parlors, sweeping staircases, sculptured gardens, canopied beds and the exquisite doll furniture – the shades that must always make us quake – are the spirits of slaves. This antebellum aristocracy of refinement, civility, agriculture and trade was a parasite of 70,000 slaves. One home we visited, Russell mansion, was staffed by eighteen slaves. Their skilled craftsmanship in gardening, carpentry and sculpting crown molding and mantelpieces, so evident in the grandeur of this home, was also a money maker. Slaves were rented out to others when the Russell’s couldn’t keep them busy. The Middleton’s several rice plantations made them rich because the hundreds of Africans, listed in a ledger by single English assigned name and their purchase price, brought with them rice from Africa and their hands, arms, legs, feet and backs to cultivate it in the flooded, infested soft mud of the tidal marsh lands of the Waccamaw, Ashley and other coastal rivers. When slavery ended, rice cultivation ended in South Carolina. The mucky soil could support only the soles of slaves in the fields, not machines needed to make cultivation economically viable.
Today, the homes and often the people within them descend from antebellum times that they preserve with zeal for class and history. For me, their shiny, Georgian-silver world is permanently tarnished by the ghost of slavery.
Last night we diverted six miles off of the ICW down the Edisto (ED’-is-toe) River to Bohicket Creek to visit Tom and Janet F., acquaintances of Bill and Judy who took us on a tour of Johns Island and Kiawah Island, bought by the Kuwaitis in the 1970’s, and was thus preserved from the big-condo model of development. It went through a few developer bankruptcies and now is a huge gated enclave of homes, condominiums, golf clubs and beach front. It was our first shore side look at shore front and marsh front properties. Tom and Janet were generous hosts and guides.
Tonight Beaufort, SC, this one pronounced, BEAU-fer.
November 20, 2007
We spent only one night in Beaufort, enough to walk the streets, see the homes and for Bill and I to sit at a sports bar to watch the Patriots slaughter the Bills. Beaufort’s pretty, but we’re a bit saturated with antebellum so moved on after a great breakfast in a café that was a shrine of college, military and confederacy pennants and corn beef hash, grits, and biscuits: fat and starch to provide Journey with more ballast. We motored south on the Beaufort River with Paris Island’s water tower painted 1-800-MARINES to our east, rounded Parish Island Spit at its southern tip, angled across the flood tide of Port Royal Sound and the Chechessee River, getting in a hour or so of sailing in light air, motored into Skull Creek that flows into Call Bougue Sound, a passage with some width that gave us a close reach at the end of the day to Harbour Town Marina.
This has been an atmospheric high pressure voyage with blue skies and light winds that yields low pressure days of motoring primarily through the marsh grass and Palmetto palms. I asked a ranger in Charleston whether palms were indigenous to South Carolina, to which he replied kindly that “we are the Palm Tree State,” which I have since observed on everything from license plates to the local brew.
The ICW in southeast South Carolina and Georgia has fewer man made cuts. Those that are there are kind of nasty so far: shoal and strong currents. Rivers and sounds have some width and depth, twenty to thirty feet at times, which now seems deep, and they give some sailing room. Boat traffic is greatly diminished. We speculate that after Beaufort, NC boats are jumping outside for Atlantic passage with the more numerous outlets to the sea, a strategy that looks attractive for the return north if prevailing southwesterly winds kick in.
The March of the Escargot
While awaiting our arrival in Charleston, Bill S. looked down from his hotel room on the morning parade of boats leaving Charleston Harbor and reported to us later that assorted craft ponderously queuing up to enter into Wapoo Creek looked like the “march of the escargot.” It’s disconcerting to think of graceful Journey as a lowly mollusk, but it reflects this odd parade of geezers, dropouts, boat bums, and the newly liberated from work crewing motor yachts and sail boats, sliding at a glacial pace through the twists and turns of South Carolina marsh.
The four of us spent two days in Charleston being tourists: buggy ride with too many canned jokes from the driver that weren’t that funny if not downright insulting to we Yankees, a visit to a spectacularly restored 1700’s mansion, two good restaurant meals, pleasant walks in lovely neighborhoods, and a day spent at Middleton Plantation. Journey was docked at the Charleston Harbor Marina that has a 1500 foot face dock on the Ashley River. We walked two full city blocks on floats to go from Journey’s slip to the showers, then another two blocks on floats to get ashore. Lots of amenities, but a marina is a marina is a marina.
The guides prattle about ghosts in Charleston among the 11,000 whites who lived in the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. They hawk nighttime ghost tours – but the real ghosts that lurk within their federalist oval parlors, sweeping staircases, sculptured gardens, canopied beds and the exquisite doll furniture – the shades that must always make us quake – are the spirits of slaves. This antebellum aristocracy of refinement, civility, agriculture and trade was a parasite of 70,000 slaves. One home we visited, Russell mansion, was staffed by eighteen slaves. Their skilled craftsmanship in gardening, carpentry and sculpting crown molding and mantelpieces, so evident in the grandeur of this home, was also a money maker. Slaves were rented out to others when the Russell’s couldn’t keep them busy. The Middleton’s several rice plantations made them rich because the hundreds of Africans, listed in a ledger by single English assigned name and their purchase price, brought with them rice from Africa and their hands, arms, legs, feet and backs to cultivate it in the flooded, infested soft mud of the tidal marsh lands of the Waccamaw, Ashley and other coastal rivers. When slavery ended, rice cultivation ended in South Carolina. The mucky soil could support only the soles of slaves in the fields, not machines needed to make cultivation economically viable.
Today, the homes and often the people within them descend from antebellum times that they preserve with zeal for class and history. For me, their shiny, Georgian-silver world is permanently tarnished by the ghost of slavery.
Last night we diverted six miles off of the ICW down the Edisto (ED’-is-toe) River to Bohicket Creek to visit Tom and Janet F., acquaintances of Bill and Judy who took us on a tour of Johns Island and Kiawah Island, bought by the Kuwaitis in the 1970’s, and was thus preserved from the big-condo model of development. It went through a few developer bankruptcies and now is a huge gated enclave of homes, condominiums, golf clubs and beach front. It was our first shore side look at shore front and marsh front properties. Tom and Janet were generous hosts and guides.
Tonight Beaufort, SC, this one pronounced, BEAU-fer.
November 20, 2007
We spent only one night in Beaufort, enough to walk the streets, see the homes and for Bill and I to sit at a sports bar to watch the Patriots slaughter the Bills. Beaufort’s pretty, but we’re a bit saturated with antebellum so moved on after a great breakfast in a café that was a shrine of college, military and confederacy pennants and corn beef hash, grits, and biscuits: fat and starch to provide Journey with more ballast. We motored south on the Beaufort River with Paris Island’s water tower painted 1-800-MARINES to our east, rounded Parish Island Spit at its southern tip, angled across the flood tide of Port Royal Sound and the Chechessee River, getting in a hour or so of sailing in light air, motored into Skull Creek that flows into Call Bougue Sound, a passage with some width that gave us a close reach at the end of the day to Harbour Town Marina.
This has been an atmospheric high pressure voyage with blue skies and light winds that yields low pressure days of motoring primarily through the marsh grass and Palmetto palms. I asked a ranger in Charleston whether palms were indigenous to South Carolina, to which he replied kindly that “we are the Palm Tree State,” which I have since observed on everything from license plates to the local brew.
The ICW in southeast South Carolina and Georgia has fewer man made cuts. Those that are there are kind of nasty so far: shoal and strong currents. Rivers and sounds have some width and depth, twenty to thirty feet at times, which now seems deep, and they give some sailing room. Boat traffic is greatly diminished. We speculate that after Beaufort, NC boats are jumping outside for Atlantic passage with the more numerous outlets to the sea, a strategy that looks attractive for the return north if prevailing southwesterly winds kick in.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
November 12, 2007
Called around and found a marina with a mechanic which was good news. The bad news was it was on the Cape Fear River towards Wilmington, about six miles off of the beaten path of the ICW. He wouldn’t be available until Monday. The batteries had plenty of juice left to run the engine, and we would be able to recharge them by plugging into shore power at the marina. So we sailed a good part of the way south down Masonboro Sound into Myrtle Sound with a strong gusty wind behind and to the west, and we would heel and straighten like a sailing dinghy on a lake coping with an irregular shore line, then headed north, head into the cold wind up the Cape Fear River.
You entered the marina through a twenty foot wide channel cut into the river bank that led to what appeared to be a man-made lagoon bordering an industrial park. Nobody was about except an ancient attendant at the fuel dock that in a movie would be cast as “pops,” and a young couple living aboard a Bombay Express, an interesting boat I had never heard of. We spent a rather gloomy and cold Saturday night.
Awakened Sunday refreshed with enough energy to attempt diagnosis. Determined that in fact the alternator was functioning, and the problem must lie within the voltage regulator that controls the flow of juice to the batteries. A two-amp fuse is in the power supply to the regulator. Took it out and put it back in, and it begin to work properly. Probably nothing more than a tiny bit of corrosion, but not sure about that. I’ll make a call to Joe in Maine, the great guy and specialist in boat electronics generally and on Journey specifically, review the case with him, and see what diagnosis he might offer. We were out of there by noon and made 20 miles going with a two knot current down the Cape Fear River to the St. James Plantation Marina, another man made lagoon surrounded by condos, houses and a golf course, but with a laundry and surprisingly cheap.
There’s a lesson in all of this. Before calling for help, get some rest.
November 13, 2007
On Monday, we had another driving day heading due west and crossing into South Carolina, getting another geography lesson. North Carolina’s coast angles southeast to Cape Hatteras, heads west southwest to Cape Lookout near Beaufort, and then makes a big arc to slightly north of west, curving west, then falls sharply south to Cape Fear, due south of Wilmington, before deciding enough of southern progress, and heading due west again to the South Carolina boarder. We experience these grand curves of coast only vicariously as we skulk along behind dunes and miles of beach houses, which have become the invasive dune grass of the new millennium. They have long stems, hopefully higher than the next big one’s storm surge, topped by one, two or three stories of verandas and screened-in porches. We examine up close those that have spread on the waterway’s shores, but only see the ocean beach front variety as far off silhouettes. They range from handsome to gaudy to ghastly and beg the question: how much America is enough?
We pushed because we were eager to rendezvous with Boston friends Bill and Judy S. We identified Bucksport Marina as a good place to meet. They had spent the night at a hotel in Myrtle Beach, only about 20 waterway miles away. We left at 6:30 to make the 10 o’clock hourly opening of a pontoon bridge, a real oddity, and through what is billed as one of the ugliest sections of the waterway called the rock pile, the first real rocks we’ve seen on a shore line since Block Island, RI.
We pulled into Bucksport Marina to be greeted by dockhands, Judy, Bill and two others. When we had spoken earlier they thought they might look for a motel, and join us on the boat once we got to Charleston, but they explained emphatically they would be joining us on the boat. To us Bucksport Marina was a shore side nook along the beautiful Waccamaw River, lined with lush vegetation, a great bonus and visual relief after the dull banks of the canal cut that included the rock pile. To them Bucksport Marina was the end of a very lonely road in the middle of a cypress swamp. As Journey’s food locker was down to red beans and rice, we inquired whether the Marina restaurant would be open that night. The manager said that because there were so many boats in, she had called the cook and he was coming back, and we're we glad he did: fried oysters, shrimp, sweet potato fries, Bucksport sausage that was delicious, and a box of fried chicken to go.
Tonight M. and I ate the fried chicken at anchor another 62 miles mainly south and some east from Bucksport on Graham Creek, having continued down the Waccamaw, into Winyah Bay, then more canals and streams through the spectacular grass lands of the Santee Swamp. Charleston tomorrow and reconnect with Judy and Bill for our long planned tour and first time visit for all of us of this special southern city.
Called around and found a marina with a mechanic which was good news. The bad news was it was on the Cape Fear River towards Wilmington, about six miles off of the beaten path of the ICW. He wouldn’t be available until Monday. The batteries had plenty of juice left to run the engine, and we would be able to recharge them by plugging into shore power at the marina. So we sailed a good part of the way south down Masonboro Sound into Myrtle Sound with a strong gusty wind behind and to the west, and we would heel and straighten like a sailing dinghy on a lake coping with an irregular shore line, then headed north, head into the cold wind up the Cape Fear River.
You entered the marina through a twenty foot wide channel cut into the river bank that led to what appeared to be a man-made lagoon bordering an industrial park. Nobody was about except an ancient attendant at the fuel dock that in a movie would be cast as “pops,” and a young couple living aboard a Bombay Express, an interesting boat I had never heard of. We spent a rather gloomy and cold Saturday night.
Awakened Sunday refreshed with enough energy to attempt diagnosis. Determined that in fact the alternator was functioning, and the problem must lie within the voltage regulator that controls the flow of juice to the batteries. A two-amp fuse is in the power supply to the regulator. Took it out and put it back in, and it begin to work properly. Probably nothing more than a tiny bit of corrosion, but not sure about that. I’ll make a call to Joe in Maine, the great guy and specialist in boat electronics generally and on Journey specifically, review the case with him, and see what diagnosis he might offer. We were out of there by noon and made 20 miles going with a two knot current down the Cape Fear River to the St. James Plantation Marina, another man made lagoon surrounded by condos, houses and a golf course, but with a laundry and surprisingly cheap.
There’s a lesson in all of this. Before calling for help, get some rest.
November 13, 2007
On Monday, we had another driving day heading due west and crossing into South Carolina, getting another geography lesson. North Carolina’s coast angles southeast to Cape Hatteras, heads west southwest to Cape Lookout near Beaufort, and then makes a big arc to slightly north of west, curving west, then falls sharply south to Cape Fear, due south of Wilmington, before deciding enough of southern progress, and heading due west again to the South Carolina boarder. We experience these grand curves of coast only vicariously as we skulk along behind dunes and miles of beach houses, which have become the invasive dune grass of the new millennium. They have long stems, hopefully higher than the next big one’s storm surge, topped by one, two or three stories of verandas and screened-in porches. We examine up close those that have spread on the waterway’s shores, but only see the ocean beach front variety as far off silhouettes. They range from handsome to gaudy to ghastly and beg the question: how much America is enough?
We pushed because we were eager to rendezvous with Boston friends Bill and Judy S. We identified Bucksport Marina as a good place to meet. They had spent the night at a hotel in Myrtle Beach, only about 20 waterway miles away. We left at 6:30 to make the 10 o’clock hourly opening of a pontoon bridge, a real oddity, and through what is billed as one of the ugliest sections of the waterway called the rock pile, the first real rocks we’ve seen on a shore line since Block Island, RI.
We pulled into Bucksport Marina to be greeted by dockhands, Judy, Bill and two others. When we had spoken earlier they thought they might look for a motel, and join us on the boat once we got to Charleston, but they explained emphatically they would be joining us on the boat. To us Bucksport Marina was a shore side nook along the beautiful Waccamaw River, lined with lush vegetation, a great bonus and visual relief after the dull banks of the canal cut that included the rock pile. To them Bucksport Marina was the end of a very lonely road in the middle of a cypress swamp. As Journey’s food locker was down to red beans and rice, we inquired whether the Marina restaurant would be open that night. The manager said that because there were so many boats in, she had called the cook and he was coming back, and we're we glad he did: fried oysters, shrimp, sweet potato fries, Bucksport sausage that was delicious, and a box of fried chicken to go.
Tonight M. and I ate the fried chicken at anchor another 62 miles mainly south and some east from Bucksport on Graham Creek, having continued down the Waccamaw, into Winyah Bay, then more canals and streams through the spectacular grass lands of the Santee Swamp. Charleston tomorrow and reconnect with Judy and Bill for our long planned tour and first time visit for all of us of this special southern city.
Friday, November 9, 2007
November 5, 2007
Retracing Ibis
Last May I signed on for a five day stint as crew with Roland B. on his 17-foot catboat, Ibis, as he made his journey north on the ICW from Florida Bay to Cape Cod, as he put it, joining the waters of Florida and New England that he had sailed so many years, but never navigated the in-between. Day one we went from Oriental, NC to Dowry Creek off of the Pungo River, day two from Dowry Creek to the Little Alligator River, and day three passing Elizabeth City and into the Dismal Swamp Canal. The last three days have been a wonderful reminiscence as we re-visted these places, this time from north to south.
We left Elizabeth City last Saturday about noon, after hemming and hawing over coffee at the Muddy Coffee Shop (that’s the name), whether we wanted to sail again in winds of 25 knots plus on a broad reach and this time across the infamous Albemarle Sound, the very name of which strikes fear in every cruising guide writer. We don’t want to sound tough or anything, but I’m beginning to wonder if these authors ever venture much outside of canals. The one thing that they’re definitely not afraid of is to wax poetically over every marina and town on the waterway.
The wind shifted from northeast to northwest and diminished a bit so we unlaced Journey from her web of doc lines and took off. The wind was dead astern, jib out. Wind increases, jib reefed, course shifts so the wind is on the beam, main out, main reefed, jib reefed more. It was like sailing on a caramel colored milkshake being shaken. Muddy, salty water slopped all over newly polished metal with two to three foot chaotic seas. But, it was a heck of ride, over six knots, at times pressing seven, and a quick one, making 32 nautical miles in 5 hours.
The anchorage we had in mind is just inside the Little Alligator River. We discovered in reading the guide a bit more carefully before approaching that it was good except in strong north or northwest winds. It was still blowing like crazy from the northwest. Oops! The chart showed a very narrow channel of six to eight feet that made big “s” turns went further up the river, then widened in an area of 8 feet deep in the lee of an island. A small trawler type power yacht was ahead of us and had the same idea.
The channel is not marked by buoys or by river banks. The Alligator is several miles across, and the Little Alligator is perhaps a mile wide and appears to be a nice, wide open lake-like body of water. The problem is its knee deep if that. The banks of the channel are submerged mud shoals of five, two, or a foot or less. In some places the charts read zero feet even though you see water.
We crept in for nearly two miles, the helmswoman’s eyes glued to the cockpit chart plotter, and we made it through a tense 45 minutes and set the hook. The wind died to calm. Turned out that there was no need to have done that, but very glad we did. It was our first ICW gunk holing and the sunrise Sunday morning over marshes and mist made clear it was the day the Lord hath made.
We weaved our way back to the Alligator River, then hrough the 20 mile long Pungo River – Alligator River Canal with only two very slight turns before reaching the Pungo River, then up Dowry Creek to the Dowry Creek Marina, for fuel, water, showers and the Colts-Patriots game watched with three other guys who happened to be from Boston. One of them noted that he had seen alligators on the Alligator River, but no pungo’s on the Pungo River. They had burlap bags to catch them just in case. While we watched the game, M. took the marina loner car, cautioned by the marina operator to watch out for deer and bears. She left in a tired Dodge Durango with a dirty windshield, a gearshift that registered neutral when in drive and a low fuel light lit. Unbelievable courage exhibited for a few bags of groceries, including Heinekens for the last half of the game.
Last May Roland anchored Ibis further up the creek in about two minutes, and in three minutes more were sipping our nightly ration of chardonnay. We spent a half an hour maneuvering and tying Journey to the slip’s pilings and dock with eight lines – bow, stern, and forward and aft spring lines on each side - with three people from the marina helping us. Oh, and we had to plug in the AC to recharge the toothbrush.
Today was down the Pungo, to the Pamilico River, a great run and broad reach, into Goose Creek, then motoring Upper Spring Creek, an unnamed two mile canal that goes beneath the Hobucken Bridge, into Jones Bay which leads into the Neuse River on which lies Oriental.
M’s sister and brother-in-law, Mary Caryl and Ron, arrived by car from Minneapolis and were on the dock as we made another complicated tie-up to pilings with the help of a veteran dock master who was worried about more blows from the northwest. We ate at the M and M restaurant in Oriental, the site where we celebrated with Roland his 70th birthday on the eve of departure on Ibis last May. Took a road trip the next day to New Bern, 25 miles away, and visited the first colonial governor’s reconstructed palace and several adjacent homes of mid to late 1700’s vintage filled with museum quality period furniture all of which were the result of efforts in the 1950’s by a dedicated grand dame of New Bern philanthropy. It is well worth noting again how bone-headed Brits taxed the locals, in this instance so the governor could have the cash to add personal quarters on the upper floors, a little addition that the 5,000 pounds the crown had already given him wouldn’t cover. The people of New Bern were so irked they sent a ship of supplies to the more numerous and active rebels in Boston.
On Wednesday, November 7, Ron crewed on Journey and MC and M. traveled by car to rendezvous in Beaufort, pronounced BO-fert in these parts. With strong north winds we ran a few miles down the Neuse River, gybed repeatedly to sail east then south in Adams Creek, Adams Creek Canal, Russell Creek, Gallants Channel, and Town Creek into Beaufort. We walked this town of old houses and burial grounds, ate terrific steamed oysters, and then next morning said good bye to M.C and R.
The ICW offers a collector galleries of land and seascapes that display art that changes as dramatically as moving from a room of Picassos to an exhibit of Botticelli. The geometry of Norfolk’s military industry leads to swamps and forests of the Albemarle and Neuse which leads to the sensuous dunes and sea grass that begin a few miles above Beaufort and now dominate the landscape. To navigate these galleries we peer at captions of charts, chart plotters, and guide books and regularly retie our walking shoes of jib, spinnaker and main. Its gallery going without limits and such fine art to see: towns, dunes, islands, cottages, boats, ships, waves and water of all sizes, shapes and colors vivid in the low angle of the late autumn sun that we have seen the day before and the day before and the day before. If we could only sail through life, not in the triteness of ease conveyed by that cliché, but with the vigilance and receptivity to see, truly see.
Today, Friday, November 11 we’ll soon be in Wrightsville beach having left Beaufort yesterday to navigate the ICW as it passes through Camp LeJeune, where jets and that new hybrid helicopter/airplane called Osprey buzzed by and things we’re being blown up. There’s a sign with lights as you approach camp waters that says if flashing don’t proceed on the ICW because their firing live, or who knows, mucking across the ICW to their beach where they practice invasions from the sea. We stayed last night at anchor with about 30 other boats in Mile Hammock Bay which the Marines have dredged for a boat landing (three small navy patrol boat outboards were launched while we lifted anchor this morning).
Hats off…
There are big expanses of shallow water that the dredged ICW channel traverses in a narrow, straight line, and that we traverse watching the little triangle that is our boat move down a white road on the chart plotter, and even with that I ran aground under sail, turned on the engine, left up the sails and added to the heel by leaning off the shrouds, and M calmly deduced to straighten the rudder rather than have it turned, which reduced resistance and, voila!, we oozed back into the channel, which makes me take my first hat off to Bill and Liz T. They did this passage a decade ago in their Southern Cross, Sonnet, before chart plotters. They moved a bronze pelican weight on their charts from navigation marker to marker. Before we left they gave us their guidebooks, the chance to read their log, and their pelican which we hold in trust. Well done you two!
The second “hats off” is to the captain of Ibis. My five days on board were fair winds and for the most part easy seas. Now we’re south of North Carolina’s inland seas, putting along behind barrier islands in swift currents, timing bridge lifts, slowing and speeding for passing power boats, watching the depth finder move up and down and there are two of us. Roland did a lot of this in a 17 foot boat that one of his crew noted requires a centipede to sail it, on big and small bodies of water, read the guide books, and cooked, most of it solo. Quite an achievement.
There is art, but there’s also kitsch on the ICW as the photos show. Marlene just called from the cockpit that I have to see something. I looked, saw and heard the following exchange on the radio:
“There’s a giant giraffe.”
“Come again.”
“There’s a giant giraffe.”
“That’s real cute.”
We’re anchored now in Wrightsville Beach and discovered our alternator seems to have quit this afternoon, and we’re headed in the morning for a marina with a mechanic in Wilmington. Our special needs engine has acute episodes on Friday’s. Must be the stress of the week. M. noted considerately, that for the third chilly night in a row, I have started the propane heater without removing a rubber shock cord, that goes from its stainless steel flue to hold the head door tight while sailing. It doesn’t smell good. Stay tuned.
Retracing Ibis
Last May I signed on for a five day stint as crew with Roland B. on his 17-foot catboat, Ibis, as he made his journey north on the ICW from Florida Bay to Cape Cod, as he put it, joining the waters of Florida and New England that he had sailed so many years, but never navigated the in-between. Day one we went from Oriental, NC to Dowry Creek off of the Pungo River, day two from Dowry Creek to the Little Alligator River, and day three passing Elizabeth City and into the Dismal Swamp Canal. The last three days have been a wonderful reminiscence as we re-visted these places, this time from north to south.
We left Elizabeth City last Saturday about noon, after hemming and hawing over coffee at the Muddy Coffee Shop (that’s the name), whether we wanted to sail again in winds of 25 knots plus on a broad reach and this time across the infamous Albemarle Sound, the very name of which strikes fear in every cruising guide writer. We don’t want to sound tough or anything, but I’m beginning to wonder if these authors ever venture much outside of canals. The one thing that they’re definitely not afraid of is to wax poetically over every marina and town on the waterway.
The wind shifted from northeast to northwest and diminished a bit so we unlaced Journey from her web of doc lines and took off. The wind was dead astern, jib out. Wind increases, jib reefed, course shifts so the wind is on the beam, main out, main reefed, jib reefed more. It was like sailing on a caramel colored milkshake being shaken. Muddy, salty water slopped all over newly polished metal with two to three foot chaotic seas. But, it was a heck of ride, over six knots, at times pressing seven, and a quick one, making 32 nautical miles in 5 hours.
The anchorage we had in mind is just inside the Little Alligator River. We discovered in reading the guide a bit more carefully before approaching that it was good except in strong north or northwest winds. It was still blowing like crazy from the northwest. Oops! The chart showed a very narrow channel of six to eight feet that made big “s” turns went further up the river, then widened in an area of 8 feet deep in the lee of an island. A small trawler type power yacht was ahead of us and had the same idea.
The channel is not marked by buoys or by river banks. The Alligator is several miles across, and the Little Alligator is perhaps a mile wide and appears to be a nice, wide open lake-like body of water. The problem is its knee deep if that. The banks of the channel are submerged mud shoals of five, two, or a foot or less. In some places the charts read zero feet even though you see water.
We crept in for nearly two miles, the helmswoman’s eyes glued to the cockpit chart plotter, and we made it through a tense 45 minutes and set the hook. The wind died to calm. Turned out that there was no need to have done that, but very glad we did. It was our first ICW gunk holing and the sunrise Sunday morning over marshes and mist made clear it was the day the Lord hath made.
We weaved our way back to the Alligator River, then hrough the 20 mile long Pungo River – Alligator River Canal with only two very slight turns before reaching the Pungo River, then up Dowry Creek to the Dowry Creek Marina, for fuel, water, showers and the Colts-Patriots game watched with three other guys who happened to be from Boston. One of them noted that he had seen alligators on the Alligator River, but no pungo’s on the Pungo River. They had burlap bags to catch them just in case. While we watched the game, M. took the marina loner car, cautioned by the marina operator to watch out for deer and bears. She left in a tired Dodge Durango with a dirty windshield, a gearshift that registered neutral when in drive and a low fuel light lit. Unbelievable courage exhibited for a few bags of groceries, including Heinekens for the last half of the game.
Last May Roland anchored Ibis further up the creek in about two minutes, and in three minutes more were sipping our nightly ration of chardonnay. We spent a half an hour maneuvering and tying Journey to the slip’s pilings and dock with eight lines – bow, stern, and forward and aft spring lines on each side - with three people from the marina helping us. Oh, and we had to plug in the AC to recharge the toothbrush.
Today was down the Pungo, to the Pamilico River, a great run and broad reach, into Goose Creek, then motoring Upper Spring Creek, an unnamed two mile canal that goes beneath the Hobucken Bridge, into Jones Bay which leads into the Neuse River on which lies Oriental.
M’s sister and brother-in-law, Mary Caryl and Ron, arrived by car from Minneapolis and were on the dock as we made another complicated tie-up to pilings with the help of a veteran dock master who was worried about more blows from the northwest. We ate at the M and M restaurant in Oriental, the site where we celebrated with Roland his 70th birthday on the eve of departure on Ibis last May. Took a road trip the next day to New Bern, 25 miles away, and visited the first colonial governor’s reconstructed palace and several adjacent homes of mid to late 1700’s vintage filled with museum quality period furniture all of which were the result of efforts in the 1950’s by a dedicated grand dame of New Bern philanthropy. It is well worth noting again how bone-headed Brits taxed the locals, in this instance so the governor could have the cash to add personal quarters on the upper floors, a little addition that the 5,000 pounds the crown had already given him wouldn’t cover. The people of New Bern were so irked they sent a ship of supplies to the more numerous and active rebels in Boston.
On Wednesday, November 7, Ron crewed on Journey and MC and M. traveled by car to rendezvous in Beaufort, pronounced BO-fert in these parts. With strong north winds we ran a few miles down the Neuse River, gybed repeatedly to sail east then south in Adams Creek, Adams Creek Canal, Russell Creek, Gallants Channel, and Town Creek into Beaufort. We walked this town of old houses and burial grounds, ate terrific steamed oysters, and then next morning said good bye to M.C and R.
The ICW offers a collector galleries of land and seascapes that display art that changes as dramatically as moving from a room of Picassos to an exhibit of Botticelli. The geometry of Norfolk’s military industry leads to swamps and forests of the Albemarle and Neuse which leads to the sensuous dunes and sea grass that begin a few miles above Beaufort and now dominate the landscape. To navigate these galleries we peer at captions of charts, chart plotters, and guide books and regularly retie our walking shoes of jib, spinnaker and main. Its gallery going without limits and such fine art to see: towns, dunes, islands, cottages, boats, ships, waves and water of all sizes, shapes and colors vivid in the low angle of the late autumn sun that we have seen the day before and the day before and the day before. If we could only sail through life, not in the triteness of ease conveyed by that cliché, but with the vigilance and receptivity to see, truly see.
Today, Friday, November 11 we’ll soon be in Wrightsville beach having left Beaufort yesterday to navigate the ICW as it passes through Camp LeJeune, where jets and that new hybrid helicopter/airplane called Osprey buzzed by and things we’re being blown up. There’s a sign with lights as you approach camp waters that says if flashing don’t proceed on the ICW because their firing live, or who knows, mucking across the ICW to their beach where they practice invasions from the sea. We stayed last night at anchor with about 30 other boats in Mile Hammock Bay which the Marines have dredged for a boat landing (three small navy patrol boat outboards were launched while we lifted anchor this morning).
Hats off…
There are big expanses of shallow water that the dredged ICW channel traverses in a narrow, straight line, and that we traverse watching the little triangle that is our boat move down a white road on the chart plotter, and even with that I ran aground under sail, turned on the engine, left up the sails and added to the heel by leaning off the shrouds, and M calmly deduced to straighten the rudder rather than have it turned, which reduced resistance and, voila!, we oozed back into the channel, which makes me take my first hat off to Bill and Liz T. They did this passage a decade ago in their Southern Cross, Sonnet, before chart plotters. They moved a bronze pelican weight on their charts from navigation marker to marker. Before we left they gave us their guidebooks, the chance to read their log, and their pelican which we hold in trust. Well done you two!
The second “hats off” is to the captain of Ibis. My five days on board were fair winds and for the most part easy seas. Now we’re south of North Carolina’s inland seas, putting along behind barrier islands in swift currents, timing bridge lifts, slowing and speeding for passing power boats, watching the depth finder move up and down and there are two of us. Roland did a lot of this in a 17 foot boat that one of his crew noted requires a centipede to sail it, on big and small bodies of water, read the guide books, and cooked, most of it solo. Quite an achievement.
There is art, but there’s also kitsch on the ICW as the photos show. Marlene just called from the cockpit that I have to see something. I looked, saw and heard the following exchange on the radio:
“There’s a giant giraffe.”
“Come again.”
“There’s a giant giraffe.”
“That’s real cute.”
We’re anchored now in Wrightsville Beach and discovered our alternator seems to have quit this afternoon, and we’re headed in the morning for a marina with a mechanic in Wilmington. Our special needs engine has acute episodes on Friday’s. Must be the stress of the week. M. noted considerately, that for the third chilly night in a row, I have started the propane heater without removing a rubber shock cord, that goes from its stainless steel flue to hold the head door tight while sailing. It doesn’t smell good. Stay tuned.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
October 31, 2007
Norfolk was terrific. The Waterside Marina, run by the city is adjacent to a waterfront park, a sort of restaurant mall, and the downtown with the slogan: safe, clean and friendly, and it is. There’s an upscale mall a few blocks away - usual stores, but good for replacing some clothing necessities - a first class supermarket, and a diner a block away with a cheap breakfast: two eggs, bacon, toast and coffee, $4.00.
We received a wonderful missive from our friend Roland who witnessed Boston’s celebration of the Red Sox World Series victory. He captured the transformational excitement of great public celebrations. Maybe the high of these things is there is so little in American life these days that takes us out of ourselves into joyful community - no ideologies or politics, only celebration.
We listened to the series on ESPN radio streamed on the web first by a station in Connecticut and, when that failed, a station in Austin, Texas. We’d almost forgotten the magic of baseball on the radio that allows imagination to create a picture more vivid than any television.
First day on the waterway…
Yesterday we motored from Norfolk to Coinjock, North Carolina through the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, North Landing River, Coinjock Bay and North Carolina Cut (another canal) where lies Coinjock which is mainly two marinas for transients: clean, basic Motel 8 equivalents on the waterway.
We trailed the crowd of boats. An aerial bridge for trains that cruising guides say is always up, went down in front of us, sat there an empty span, then a coal train crawled on it, stopped, rested, stretched and then grudgingly went on. The bridge was empty, but stayed down. A guy walked down two flights of a steel stairs from the operator’s house the middle of the span at the pace of a retiree going down the front porch steps to retrieve ora newspaper, moseyed along the span looking down and to the side as if he was trying to find something, disappeared from view and the bridge went up too late for us to make the Jordan Highway aerial bridge two tenths of a mile away that only opens on the half hour, about 29 minutes from when we arrived.
A single hander named Tony on a home-built, one-of-a- kind 40 foot sail boat was also caught and liked to holler advice as we circled and waited. He became our best friend at the Great Bridge Lock, 8 miles further on, where we politely allowed other boats to enter ahead of us. They filled both sides. We called on the radio asking advice, received none, eased in between the two lines of tied boats, assuming we could raft, and M. informed me that I was being yelled at by the lock tender, who wondered just where we thought we were going. Yelled back that we thought we could raft. Yelled in response was “not without permission of another boat,” and behold, Tony on the starboard side who allowed us to raft.
Without hollering or yelling while waiting for the lock to left us from tidal to the non-tidal water beyond, we learned that Tony some years ago took an early retirement from being an economics professor at a Boston university, a job he hated. He now raises 50 Morgan horses in New Hampshire, has made this trip at least 15 times, and was heading to the Caribbean and perhaps beyond. The only reason he was in the ICW and not offshore is he wanted to make some progress south while waiting for tropical storm Noel to move up the coast. His wife, hired hands and volunteers take care of the farm and she’ll probably meet him somewhere by driving their 40 foot motor home.
Tony thought he would make Coinjock that night. We needed to stop to pump fuel in and to pump “other” out at a Marina just beyond the locks and lost site of Tony, and later didn’t find him in Coinjock to our regret.
There are good manners on the waterway. Most power boats approaching from behind, call Journey on the radio, and alert us that they will pass us on port or starboard, some saying “one whistle” or “two whistles.” One is the signal for passing on starboard, two for passing on your port side. We slow, so they can get by faster. We rocked quite a bit after one power boat went by and he radioed apologies for throwing more wake than he expected. Trawler yacht captains, the closest subspecies to sailors, are the politest.
Elizabeth City
The voyage on Wednesday, Halloween, was from Coinjock to Elizabeth City, via a short trip on an unusually placid (5 knots out of the southeast) Albemarle Sound, then backtracking a bit up the Pasquotank River to Elizabeth City. Roland B. and I sailed by Elizabeth City last May on Ibis, his 17 foot catboat, on our way to the entrance to the Dismal Swamp route of the ICW with not enough time to stop in what is billed as a cruiser-friendly city with lots of interesting old homes. Cruising guide author and guru, Claiborne Young, writes: “It’s difficult to overstate the enthusiasm Elizabeth City has for developing a rapport with the cruising community.”
Well I guess so! Mayor-elect, Steve Atkinson, helped us into another tricky piling slip without smacking the bow on the steel bulkhead of the waterfront, told us all about what to see and do, and where to eat. He stopped by again this morning and we learned more. He came to Elizabeth City in 1999 after a career as head of purchasing for several Ford Motor plants based in the Norfolk area. Was quickly asked to join the planning commission, became its chairman, decided to run for Mayor and beat the incumbent.
Painted on Elizabeth City’s water tower is its slogan: “Harbor of Hospitality,” that grew from a man named Fred Fearing who created a group of volunteers that began in 1983 to give roses to arriving boaters. He died just a week ago at age 95, but Steve and other volunteers are committed to continuing to give roses and host wine and cheese parties for cruisers. Steve also has big dreams of public-private partnerships to expand services to boaters, attract conferences and create jobs.
No wine and cheese party for us from the friendly volunteers as the dismal swamp canal route of the ICW closed the day before we arrived and there wasn’t the usual influx of eight boats or more coming out of the swamp canal lock that dumps boats a few miles upstream from Elizabeth City into the Pasquotank. We took on a bit of celebrity for our effort of backtracking to visit here.
Two fellow cruisers, Brian and Sue, invited us to an ad hoc bring your own wine and cheese gathering that continued through dinner. They are from Marblehead, MA, also first time cruisers on the ICW. They left today. We’re laying over likely a couple of days to wait out up to a 40-knot blow out of the northwest. We won’t test Albemarle Sound’s reputation.
Last, it was another high-risk day. We both got haircuts, me at Sammy’s, twelve bucks; Marlene at Stillwater’s Salon and Spa, bucks almost equal to the best of Boston. Guess whose came out the best.
Norfolk was terrific. The Waterside Marina, run by the city is adjacent to a waterfront park, a sort of restaurant mall, and the downtown with the slogan: safe, clean and friendly, and it is. There’s an upscale mall a few blocks away - usual stores, but good for replacing some clothing necessities - a first class supermarket, and a diner a block away with a cheap breakfast: two eggs, bacon, toast and coffee, $4.00.
We received a wonderful missive from our friend Roland who witnessed Boston’s celebration of the Red Sox World Series victory. He captured the transformational excitement of great public celebrations. Maybe the high of these things is there is so little in American life these days that takes us out of ourselves into joyful community - no ideologies or politics, only celebration.
We listened to the series on ESPN radio streamed on the web first by a station in Connecticut and, when that failed, a station in Austin, Texas. We’d almost forgotten the magic of baseball on the radio that allows imagination to create a picture more vivid than any television.
First day on the waterway…
Yesterday we motored from Norfolk to Coinjock, North Carolina through the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, North Landing River, Coinjock Bay and North Carolina Cut (another canal) where lies Coinjock which is mainly two marinas for transients: clean, basic Motel 8 equivalents on the waterway.
We trailed the crowd of boats. An aerial bridge for trains that cruising guides say is always up, went down in front of us, sat there an empty span, then a coal train crawled on it, stopped, rested, stretched and then grudgingly went on. The bridge was empty, but stayed down. A guy walked down two flights of a steel stairs from the operator’s house the middle of the span at the pace of a retiree going down the front porch steps to retrieve ora newspaper, moseyed along the span looking down and to the side as if he was trying to find something, disappeared from view and the bridge went up too late for us to make the Jordan Highway aerial bridge two tenths of a mile away that only opens on the half hour, about 29 minutes from when we arrived.
A single hander named Tony on a home-built, one-of-a- kind 40 foot sail boat was also caught and liked to holler advice as we circled and waited. He became our best friend at the Great Bridge Lock, 8 miles further on, where we politely allowed other boats to enter ahead of us. They filled both sides. We called on the radio asking advice, received none, eased in between the two lines of tied boats, assuming we could raft, and M. informed me that I was being yelled at by the lock tender, who wondered just where we thought we were going. Yelled back that we thought we could raft. Yelled in response was “not without permission of another boat,” and behold, Tony on the starboard side who allowed us to raft.
Without hollering or yelling while waiting for the lock to left us from tidal to the non-tidal water beyond, we learned that Tony some years ago took an early retirement from being an economics professor at a Boston university, a job he hated. He now raises 50 Morgan horses in New Hampshire, has made this trip at least 15 times, and was heading to the Caribbean and perhaps beyond. The only reason he was in the ICW and not offshore is he wanted to make some progress south while waiting for tropical storm Noel to move up the coast. His wife, hired hands and volunteers take care of the farm and she’ll probably meet him somewhere by driving their 40 foot motor home.
Tony thought he would make Coinjock that night. We needed to stop to pump fuel in and to pump “other” out at a Marina just beyond the locks and lost site of Tony, and later didn’t find him in Coinjock to our regret.
There are good manners on the waterway. Most power boats approaching from behind, call Journey on the radio, and alert us that they will pass us on port or starboard, some saying “one whistle” or “two whistles.” One is the signal for passing on starboard, two for passing on your port side. We slow, so they can get by faster. We rocked quite a bit after one power boat went by and he radioed apologies for throwing more wake than he expected. Trawler yacht captains, the closest subspecies to sailors, are the politest.
Elizabeth City
The voyage on Wednesday, Halloween, was from Coinjock to Elizabeth City, via a short trip on an unusually placid (5 knots out of the southeast) Albemarle Sound, then backtracking a bit up the Pasquotank River to Elizabeth City. Roland B. and I sailed by Elizabeth City last May on Ibis, his 17 foot catboat, on our way to the entrance to the Dismal Swamp route of the ICW with not enough time to stop in what is billed as a cruiser-friendly city with lots of interesting old homes. Cruising guide author and guru, Claiborne Young, writes: “It’s difficult to overstate the enthusiasm Elizabeth City has for developing a rapport with the cruising community.”
Well I guess so! Mayor-elect, Steve Atkinson, helped us into another tricky piling slip without smacking the bow on the steel bulkhead of the waterfront, told us all about what to see and do, and where to eat. He stopped by again this morning and we learned more. He came to Elizabeth City in 1999 after a career as head of purchasing for several Ford Motor plants based in the Norfolk area. Was quickly asked to join the planning commission, became its chairman, decided to run for Mayor and beat the incumbent.
Painted on Elizabeth City’s water tower is its slogan: “Harbor of Hospitality,” that grew from a man named Fred Fearing who created a group of volunteers that began in 1983 to give roses to arriving boaters. He died just a week ago at age 95, but Steve and other volunteers are committed to continuing to give roses and host wine and cheese parties for cruisers. Steve also has big dreams of public-private partnerships to expand services to boaters, attract conferences and create jobs.
No wine and cheese party for us from the friendly volunteers as the dismal swamp canal route of the ICW closed the day before we arrived and there wasn’t the usual influx of eight boats or more coming out of the swamp canal lock that dumps boats a few miles upstream from Elizabeth City into the Pasquotank. We took on a bit of celebrity for our effort of backtracking to visit here.
Two fellow cruisers, Brian and Sue, invited us to an ad hoc bring your own wine and cheese gathering that continued through dinner. They are from Marblehead, MA, also first time cruisers on the ICW. They left today. We’re laying over likely a couple of days to wait out up to a 40-knot blow out of the northwest. We won’t test Albemarle Sound’s reputation.
Last, it was another high-risk day. We both got haircuts, me at Sammy’s, twelve bucks; Marlene at Stillwater’s Salon and Spa, bucks almost equal to the best of Boston. Guess whose came out the best.
Monday, October 29, 2007
October 26, 2007
Big disappointment today. We’re not with Bill and Bev R., friends who were to fly in yesterday from San Diego and join us yesterday for a week of sailing the end of the Chesapeake and into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Bill has a pinched nerve in his neck, coupled with the threat of California brush fires roaring in canyons nearby. They received a reverse 911 call “suggesting” they evacuate. When we spoke on Tuesday they were trying to decide what to take with them – albums, policies, wills, some thought of a few prized rugs. Bill said that being outside was like standing in front of a campfire and their patio was covered with ash, and he described the mandatory evacuation line as only a good golf shot away from there house.
Last night all was well. They had evacuated for only a day, their house was spared, and they were struck by the extraordinary acts of kindness and mobilization of resources in response to people’s needs. Their church, a mile down the hill towards the ocean, had packed up sacred things and other essential goods, but it too was spared. Bill’s likely even more motivated as head of this year’s stewardship drive.
With the exception of the company of Lynn and Ken, Deltaville wasn’t much. The marina had retro loaner bicycles with fat tires, coaster breaks, and big baskets. We tooled into town with the cycling postures of Miss Gulch (who morphed into the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz). Deltaville is a long strip of boat-related businesses, gas stations, and a restaurant or two, and then it started to rain, so back to the boat and the decision to head out the next day. The forecast predicted showers and winds 15 to 20, but out of the north to northeast, with some rain and visibility of one to three miles. We would be on a broad reach, wind behind us on our stern quarter instead of beating to windward and it would put us further south in Yorktown. Besides, these conditions on the Bay when air and water are both above 70 degrees do not bring on hyperthermia as they do in Maine.
Winds turned out to be consistently 22 to 27 with gusts up to 30 and sloppy seas up to five feet. We sailed with a reefed jib only, averaged well over six knots, and discovered Journey downwind in these conditions is no fuss, no hassle as much as she is a good boat for beating to windward in heavy weather. Journey’s is as intent about her work as her helmswoman, only occasionally do they allow waves to push her beam on the wind, and both suffer the slurp of seawater, dousing the cockpit and the mate from head to tow. Gee I wish I was better at the helm so that I could help.
Arrived in Yorktown only to be turned away by the marina where we had reserved a space because their basin on the south shore of the river was rolling with swell aggravated by tidal currents. They radioed that it would be worse at night and suggested a marina on Sarah Creek, across the river and in the lee of the storm. Next day the marina folks offered to drive us to the visitor’s center for Yorktown which is a hub of trolleys and shuttle busses that made it easy to tour Yorktown and Jamestown on Friday and Saturday.
October 29, 2007
Invasive species
Dave B. had told us of conservationists’ concern about phragmites australis, a perennial, coarse wetland reed that has grown in New England for millennia, but now is forcing out indigenous plants in the tidewaters of Virginia and Maryland. It’s uncertain why. Clearly it’s a tenacious plant, sending out both seeds and tendrils. Some scientists think that there may be a new genotype, others wonder about human development activities. State conservationists plan to wipe it out by using herbicides that would allow native plants to return.
Turns out that the stories of both Jamestown and Yorktown are fundamentally about the most invasive life form on the planet. Extensive and impressive displays, recent archeology, and actors in living history museums tell in remarkable candor of the stealth settlement of Englishmen in Jamestown in 1607, where settlers were instructed to look as if they were not staying, but to stay and claim, how they manipulated and overwhelmed native Americans, how Africans were rapidly reclassified and legislated from being indentured servants to slaves as the essential machines that drove the cash crop of tobacco. The initial invaders had a high mortality rate, but the tendrils of ships kept supplying new ones until the indigenous people were overwhelmed.
One hundred and seventy four years later, only about 20 miles away, the offspring of these settlers and many others like them, now American colonists, defeated Cornwallis, ending the revolutionary war. It too is a story of invasion, this time by organized armies. The British army invading to maintain its hold, the continental army and its French allies invading the peninsula between the York and James rivers to expel them.
The acreage along the Chesapeake Bay consumed by the formalized manpower and machines of invasion dwarfs the wetlands occupied by phragmites. Journey has passed by Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Naval Academy, Patuxent River naval air station, Langley Air Force Base, and now Norfolk – Portsmouth, VA, where the whopper invasion machines of them all dwarfed her on her passage last evening as we ran up Norfolk reach to our berth at Waterside Marina at downtown Norfolk.
We seem to understand as little about why phragmites has become an invasive species as why we are. We just keep doing it, applying vast resources and technology to be the best at it in the world with so little understanding of the ecosystems – social, cultural, religious – that we invade.
We rest on this beautiful crisp cool morning at mile “0” of the Intracoastal Waterway in Norfolk, having made another “near gale” passage yesterday from York River to Norfolk, and now welcome the adventure of the twisty rivers, canals, inland seas, live oaks and sphagnum moss that lies before Journey carrying her southern invaders.
Big disappointment today. We’re not with Bill and Bev R., friends who were to fly in yesterday from San Diego and join us yesterday for a week of sailing the end of the Chesapeake and into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Bill has a pinched nerve in his neck, coupled with the threat of California brush fires roaring in canyons nearby. They received a reverse 911 call “suggesting” they evacuate. When we spoke on Tuesday they were trying to decide what to take with them – albums, policies, wills, some thought of a few prized rugs. Bill said that being outside was like standing in front of a campfire and their patio was covered with ash, and he described the mandatory evacuation line as only a good golf shot away from there house.
Last night all was well. They had evacuated for only a day, their house was spared, and they were struck by the extraordinary acts of kindness and mobilization of resources in response to people’s needs. Their church, a mile down the hill towards the ocean, had packed up sacred things and other essential goods, but it too was spared. Bill’s likely even more motivated as head of this year’s stewardship drive.
With the exception of the company of Lynn and Ken, Deltaville wasn’t much. The marina had retro loaner bicycles with fat tires, coaster breaks, and big baskets. We tooled into town with the cycling postures of Miss Gulch (who morphed into the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz). Deltaville is a long strip of boat-related businesses, gas stations, and a restaurant or two, and then it started to rain, so back to the boat and the decision to head out the next day. The forecast predicted showers and winds 15 to 20, but out of the north to northeast, with some rain and visibility of one to three miles. We would be on a broad reach, wind behind us on our stern quarter instead of beating to windward and it would put us further south in Yorktown. Besides, these conditions on the Bay when air and water are both above 70 degrees do not bring on hyperthermia as they do in Maine.
Winds turned out to be consistently 22 to 27 with gusts up to 30 and sloppy seas up to five feet. We sailed with a reefed jib only, averaged well over six knots, and discovered Journey downwind in these conditions is no fuss, no hassle as much as she is a good boat for beating to windward in heavy weather. Journey’s is as intent about her work as her helmswoman, only occasionally do they allow waves to push her beam on the wind, and both suffer the slurp of seawater, dousing the cockpit and the mate from head to tow. Gee I wish I was better at the helm so that I could help.
Arrived in Yorktown only to be turned away by the marina where we had reserved a space because their basin on the south shore of the river was rolling with swell aggravated by tidal currents. They radioed that it would be worse at night and suggested a marina on Sarah Creek, across the river and in the lee of the storm. Next day the marina folks offered to drive us to the visitor’s center for Yorktown which is a hub of trolleys and shuttle busses that made it easy to tour Yorktown and Jamestown on Friday and Saturday.
October 29, 2007
Invasive species
Dave B. had told us of conservationists’ concern about phragmites australis, a perennial, coarse wetland reed that has grown in New England for millennia, but now is forcing out indigenous plants in the tidewaters of Virginia and Maryland. It’s uncertain why. Clearly it’s a tenacious plant, sending out both seeds and tendrils. Some scientists think that there may be a new genotype, others wonder about human development activities. State conservationists plan to wipe it out by using herbicides that would allow native plants to return.
Turns out that the stories of both Jamestown and Yorktown are fundamentally about the most invasive life form on the planet. Extensive and impressive displays, recent archeology, and actors in living history museums tell in remarkable candor of the stealth settlement of Englishmen in Jamestown in 1607, where settlers were instructed to look as if they were not staying, but to stay and claim, how they manipulated and overwhelmed native Americans, how Africans were rapidly reclassified and legislated from being indentured servants to slaves as the essential machines that drove the cash crop of tobacco. The initial invaders had a high mortality rate, but the tendrils of ships kept supplying new ones until the indigenous people were overwhelmed.
One hundred and seventy four years later, only about 20 miles away, the offspring of these settlers and many others like them, now American colonists, defeated Cornwallis, ending the revolutionary war. It too is a story of invasion, this time by organized armies. The British army invading to maintain its hold, the continental army and its French allies invading the peninsula between the York and James rivers to expel them.
The acreage along the Chesapeake Bay consumed by the formalized manpower and machines of invasion dwarfs the wetlands occupied by phragmites. Journey has passed by Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Naval Academy, Patuxent River naval air station, Langley Air Force Base, and now Norfolk – Portsmouth, VA, where the whopper invasion machines of them all dwarfed her on her passage last evening as we ran up Norfolk reach to our berth at Waterside Marina at downtown Norfolk.
We seem to understand as little about why phragmites has become an invasive species as why we are. We just keep doing it, applying vast resources and technology to be the best at it in the world with so little understanding of the ecosystems – social, cultural, religious – that we invade.
We rest on this beautiful crisp cool morning at mile “0” of the Intracoastal Waterway in Norfolk, having made another “near gale” passage yesterday from York River to Norfolk, and now welcome the adventure of the twisty rivers, canals, inland seas, live oaks and sphagnum moss that lies before Journey carrying her southern invaders.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
October 23, 2007
When we left the dock at Deep Creek yesterday at high tide, the fathometer showed 0.0 feet under the keel. We mushed off, no running hard aground, successfully slalomed the channel, waved goodbye to Dave and Jeanette B. and to an incredible four days of visits with them, Carol and Bill S., and Dick and Nancy L., all who became neighbors and friends 35 years ago when we rented a house in suburban Baltimore and landed amongst some of the nicest people on the planet. Dave and Jeanette now spend their summers at a rambling, comfortable shore house, parts of which date to the 1800’s on a working waterman’s creek. Yes, children, we reminisced about all of you and all of theirs…you cute little nippers.
A non-working water front
Buildings built on pilings in deep creek to house crabs while they shed or molt into soft shell crabs are empty and some are falling down. In Maine, we will see almost at any time during season, a dozen lobster boats working within our view at Teel Cove. We’ve only seen about that many crab boats over the past two weeks, some rigged for clamming or harvesting oysters. Dave said the crabs are just gone and so far the experts are silent as to why. Crab picking plants are closed down, not just temporarily, but permanently. The economy, as in much of Maine, is driven by people who are called locally “come heres,” many of whom are retired.
Crab boats are beautiful things. Their roofs give them the look of a Thames launch, but their prows, while not as robust as lobster boats, are proud and serious. They have two helm stations, one in the cockpit and another aft on the starboard side, so the waterman can operate the boat while pulling his crab pots. The boat pictured is a crab boat rigged with tongs for either oysters or crabs.
We have been beating to windward the last two days. From Deep Creek we worked across and down the bay hoping to make Deltaville on the Western Shore, but went into Indian Creek off of Fleets Bay. The cruising guides reported a marina or the option of anchoring well up the creek. We choose the later. It was like parking a tent camper in a prosperous suburban cul-de-sac with ranch style homes and well tended lawns. Instead of curbs, our watery street was bordered by neatly laid stone rip wrap or wooden timbers and each lot seemed to have a dock with various combinations of sail boats and power boats, the equivalent of a two car garage. It was still, peaceful and a good nights rest. I almost expected the paper to be delivered. A surprise was that next to the marina was a grain elevator with two barges tied to its docks, a vestige of working water front. Indian Creek was once the site of a steamship landing.
On Tuesday we again beat down the Bay to Deltaville, 9.5NM as the crow flies, 19NM by the shortest water route. We sailed 25NM to get there and, ironically, that’s real progress. We were greeted as planned by new friends and long-time cruisers Ken and Lynn W. who you may recall we first met in Shelburne, NS.
When we left the dock at Deep Creek yesterday at high tide, the fathometer showed 0.0 feet under the keel. We mushed off, no running hard aground, successfully slalomed the channel, waved goodbye to Dave and Jeanette B. and to an incredible four days of visits with them, Carol and Bill S., and Dick and Nancy L., all who became neighbors and friends 35 years ago when we rented a house in suburban Baltimore and landed amongst some of the nicest people on the planet. Dave and Jeanette now spend their summers at a rambling, comfortable shore house, parts of which date to the 1800’s on a working waterman’s creek. Yes, children, we reminisced about all of you and all of theirs…you cute little nippers.
A non-working water front
Buildings built on pilings in deep creek to house crabs while they shed or molt into soft shell crabs are empty and some are falling down. In Maine, we will see almost at any time during season, a dozen lobster boats working within our view at Teel Cove. We’ve only seen about that many crab boats over the past two weeks, some rigged for clamming or harvesting oysters. Dave said the crabs are just gone and so far the experts are silent as to why. Crab picking plants are closed down, not just temporarily, but permanently. The economy, as in much of Maine, is driven by people who are called locally “come heres,” many of whom are retired.
Crab boats are beautiful things. Their roofs give them the look of a Thames launch, but their prows, while not as robust as lobster boats, are proud and serious. They have two helm stations, one in the cockpit and another aft on the starboard side, so the waterman can operate the boat while pulling his crab pots. The boat pictured is a crab boat rigged with tongs for either oysters or crabs.
We have been beating to windward the last two days. From Deep Creek we worked across and down the bay hoping to make Deltaville on the Western Shore, but went into Indian Creek off of Fleets Bay. The cruising guides reported a marina or the option of anchoring well up the creek. We choose the later. It was like parking a tent camper in a prosperous suburban cul-de-sac with ranch style homes and well tended lawns. Instead of curbs, our watery street was bordered by neatly laid stone rip wrap or wooden timbers and each lot seemed to have a dock with various combinations of sail boats and power boats, the equivalent of a two car garage. It was still, peaceful and a good nights rest. I almost expected the paper to be delivered. A surprise was that next to the marina was a grain elevator with two barges tied to its docks, a vestige of working water front. Indian Creek was once the site of a steamship landing.
On Tuesday we again beat down the Bay to Deltaville, 9.5NM as the crow flies, 19NM by the shortest water route. We sailed 25NM to get there and, ironically, that’s real progress. We were greeted as planned by new friends and long-time cruisers Ken and Lynn W. who you may recall we first met in Shelburne, NS.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Annapolis and beyond
We took a town mooring in Annapolis, just north of the bascule bridge on Spa Creek. Annapolis is Maryland’s state capital, home of the United States Naval Academy, a well preserved historic district and a place that’s crazy about boats. The Harbor Master efficiently guides you to a city mooring, and one of the city’s boats is soon by to collect a modest fee. The city also has a roving pump out boat to empty holding tanks, so you don’t have to leave your mooring. It’s not that marinas aren’t available. There are at least 25 on Spa Creek and Back Creek containing thousands of boats and most of them are sail boats.
“Creeks” in Chesapeake Bay parlance are not streams with noticeable current, rather more like inlets off of “rivers,” which are inlets off of “sounds” which are bodies of water off of the Bay proper. All are characterized by shallow water. We’re becoming quite accustomed to tooling along at 6 knots with 7 or 8 feet of water under our keel, and not blanching at the prospect of crossing a bar showing 8 feet of depth. It’s a far cry from Maine where white knuckles appear if the fathometer drops below 15. Little wonder, it’s rock not mud!
We missed the in-water sail boat show by a week. The power boat show was on, so the harbor was packed with people. We chose not to go, took a trolley tour to get an overview and did a good deal of walking. Several homes were pointed out to us that have been in the same families since the 1700’s.
We made contact with two great people. Turns out that on the mooring next to ours was a Canadian boat that is captained by a former commodore of the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron in Halifax. We joined the Squadron when we visited Halifax in August and left Journey on a Squadron mooring for almost two weeks while we headed north in Jay and Janet’s boat. Bill R. and his wife Leona (she was away for a few days) are heading south and we had two great visits with Bill and look forward to reconnecting.
We also saw Ian, the son of one of our neighbors in Maine, is an Annapolis resident, sailor and owner of a motor boat. Ian gave us a first-rate tour of the Creeks and marinas in his runabout. It’s always great fun to see people in their places, where they work, play and love to be.
On Sunday we left Annapolis for Oxford Maryland, across the Bay below the Chesapeake Bridge to the Eastern Shore, a peninsula that includes Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We covered thirty miles in light air with the reaching spinnaker up and pulling beautifully almost to Oxford. We arrived late and left early as we have a mission to get another 60 miles down the Bay by Thursday for our rendezvous with old friends from Baltimore.
Monday we motored thirty miles further down the bay to Solomon Island, another dense boating complex, but enough room to anchor. Enough of docking fees for awhile.
Bucking the pace and the wind
There is a tension in sailing that has nothing to do with wind, waves, shoals and the soundness of the boat. It is a tension that derives from the fact if one truly sails a sail boat to get somewhere, it is a project alien from a lifetime of getting from A to B as fast and efficiently as possible. We are like Mennonites, shunning modernity in an archaic mode of transportation. The challenge is to quit doing that simple calculation that precedes every road trip, dividing the distance by speed to yield the time it will take to get there. It is to wean ourselves from straight line thinking, from that life long habit of trying to better the average mile per hour of the last time you made the trip. We’re gradually learning not to travel A to B, but to plan to go from A to options B, C, or D, whichever the wind allows and to not worry about how fast we will get there. I don’t feel that I do justice to what a shift in thinking this is for all of us and its implications for a more contemplative life.
Solomon Island to Crisfield
The wind wasn’t right on the nose so we made better progress on our course on one tack than the other, but we tacked all day in five to ten knots in warm air, understanding more deeply why this Bay is a sailing Mecca. We anchored off the Marina in Crisfield, MD, the “Crab Capital” of the world. Thirty-five years ago we visited this isolated eastern shore community and saw skipjacks, the last sail boats to be used for commercial fishing, on weighs and docks at a salty, working waterfront. Crab and oyster fishing have so dramatically declined, that there are few working fishing boats of any kind, and now the town has succumbed to multi-story condominiums on the water front, that look more like a 70’s model cities revitalization effort; new construction abutting abandoned store fronts and eateries with a smattering of antique stores. A sun bleached architects rendering occupies the window of one such store front envisions markets, pedestrian malls and marinas.
We were told by the marina operator that Crisfield sees few transients as the western shore offers anchorages and marinas much closer off the southern route down the bay. For us, it was a perfect stop before another 27 trip south to Deep Creek, VA, to visit old friends from Baltimore days.
Getting to the Bottom of Deep Creek
Yesterday, October 18, the wind was straight out of the south, directly on our nose as we headed down Tangier Sound to Pocomoke Sound to Deep Creek. We needed to be at the Creek at high tide. When we turned east into Pocomoke Sound the wind freshened and we were dong 7 knots, reefed and still moved us faster than we wanted so we entered the creek about an hour and a half before high. It is a buoyed, zigzagging ,dredged channel that the chart claims is 75 feet wide with four feet depth at low tide that was negotiated splendidly to the point immediately in front of our friends house on the creek at green marker number 17. In front of us were pilings, the channel was to say the least ambiguous. It is now clear that we should have gone to starboard instead of port. Squish! We have now experienced our first grounding, an almost pleasant mush of an experience compared to the jarring kiss of hitting ledges in Maine.
Our seamanship was witnessed by our friends, Dave and Jeanette, who were of course watching for us. Dave reported that he was on the phone with one of their sons and told him that “I’d better get off as I’m about to get another call.” We couldn’t reach Karl Wendly at Deep Creek Marina and Boatyard, and Dave went to track him down and soon enough both arrived in Karl’s power boat. Efforts to Kedge journey off with her anchor were not succeeding, and to our great pleasure with great ease Karl pulled Journey free and to his dock, with no harm done only embarrassment. It had been raining off and on, and Jeanette reported that as she watched us stuck in the mud, a rainbow arched over Journey. A good omen.
We took a town mooring in Annapolis, just north of the bascule bridge on Spa Creek. Annapolis is Maryland’s state capital, home of the United States Naval Academy, a well preserved historic district and a place that’s crazy about boats. The Harbor Master efficiently guides you to a city mooring, and one of the city’s boats is soon by to collect a modest fee. The city also has a roving pump out boat to empty holding tanks, so you don’t have to leave your mooring. It’s not that marinas aren’t available. There are at least 25 on Spa Creek and Back Creek containing thousands of boats and most of them are sail boats.
“Creeks” in Chesapeake Bay parlance are not streams with noticeable current, rather more like inlets off of “rivers,” which are inlets off of “sounds” which are bodies of water off of the Bay proper. All are characterized by shallow water. We’re becoming quite accustomed to tooling along at 6 knots with 7 or 8 feet of water under our keel, and not blanching at the prospect of crossing a bar showing 8 feet of depth. It’s a far cry from Maine where white knuckles appear if the fathometer drops below 15. Little wonder, it’s rock not mud!
We missed the in-water sail boat show by a week. The power boat show was on, so the harbor was packed with people. We chose not to go, took a trolley tour to get an overview and did a good deal of walking. Several homes were pointed out to us that have been in the same families since the 1700’s.
We made contact with two great people. Turns out that on the mooring next to ours was a Canadian boat that is captained by a former commodore of the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron in Halifax. We joined the Squadron when we visited Halifax in August and left Journey on a Squadron mooring for almost two weeks while we headed north in Jay and Janet’s boat. Bill R. and his wife Leona (she was away for a few days) are heading south and we had two great visits with Bill and look forward to reconnecting.
We also saw Ian, the son of one of our neighbors in Maine, is an Annapolis resident, sailor and owner of a motor boat. Ian gave us a first-rate tour of the Creeks and marinas in his runabout. It’s always great fun to see people in their places, where they work, play and love to be.
On Sunday we left Annapolis for Oxford Maryland, across the Bay below the Chesapeake Bridge to the Eastern Shore, a peninsula that includes Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We covered thirty miles in light air with the reaching spinnaker up and pulling beautifully almost to Oxford. We arrived late and left early as we have a mission to get another 60 miles down the Bay by Thursday for our rendezvous with old friends from Baltimore.
Monday we motored thirty miles further down the bay to Solomon Island, another dense boating complex, but enough room to anchor. Enough of docking fees for awhile.
Bucking the pace and the wind
There is a tension in sailing that has nothing to do with wind, waves, shoals and the soundness of the boat. It is a tension that derives from the fact if one truly sails a sail boat to get somewhere, it is a project alien from a lifetime of getting from A to B as fast and efficiently as possible. We are like Mennonites, shunning modernity in an archaic mode of transportation. The challenge is to quit doing that simple calculation that precedes every road trip, dividing the distance by speed to yield the time it will take to get there. It is to wean ourselves from straight line thinking, from that life long habit of trying to better the average mile per hour of the last time you made the trip. We’re gradually learning not to travel A to B, but to plan to go from A to options B, C, or D, whichever the wind allows and to not worry about how fast we will get there. I don’t feel that I do justice to what a shift in thinking this is for all of us and its implications for a more contemplative life.
Solomon Island to Crisfield
The wind wasn’t right on the nose so we made better progress on our course on one tack than the other, but we tacked all day in five to ten knots in warm air, understanding more deeply why this Bay is a sailing Mecca. We anchored off the Marina in Crisfield, MD, the “Crab Capital” of the world. Thirty-five years ago we visited this isolated eastern shore community and saw skipjacks, the last sail boats to be used for commercial fishing, on weighs and docks at a salty, working waterfront. Crab and oyster fishing have so dramatically declined, that there are few working fishing boats of any kind, and now the town has succumbed to multi-story condominiums on the water front, that look more like a 70’s model cities revitalization effort; new construction abutting abandoned store fronts and eateries with a smattering of antique stores. A sun bleached architects rendering occupies the window of one such store front envisions markets, pedestrian malls and marinas.
We were told by the marina operator that Crisfield sees few transients as the western shore offers anchorages and marinas much closer off the southern route down the bay. For us, it was a perfect stop before another 27 trip south to Deep Creek, VA, to visit old friends from Baltimore days.
Getting to the Bottom of Deep Creek
Yesterday, October 18, the wind was straight out of the south, directly on our nose as we headed down Tangier Sound to Pocomoke Sound to Deep Creek. We needed to be at the Creek at high tide. When we turned east into Pocomoke Sound the wind freshened and we were dong 7 knots, reefed and still moved us faster than we wanted so we entered the creek about an hour and a half before high. It is a buoyed, zigzagging ,dredged channel that the chart claims is 75 feet wide with four feet depth at low tide that was negotiated splendidly to the point immediately in front of our friends house on the creek at green marker number 17. In front of us were pilings, the channel was to say the least ambiguous. It is now clear that we should have gone to starboard instead of port. Squish! We have now experienced our first grounding, an almost pleasant mush of an experience compared to the jarring kiss of hitting ledges in Maine.
Our seamanship was witnessed by our friends, Dave and Jeanette, who were of course watching for us. Dave reported that he was on the phone with one of their sons and told him that “I’d better get off as I’m about to get another call.” We couldn’t reach Karl Wendly at Deep Creek Marina and Boatyard, and Dave went to track him down and soon enough both arrived in Karl’s power boat. Efforts to Kedge journey off with her anchor were not succeeding, and to our great pleasure with great ease Karl pulled Journey free and to his dock, with no harm done only embarrassment. It had been raining off and on, and Jeanette reported that as she watched us stuck in the mud, a rainbow arched over Journey. A good omen.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
October 12, 2007
We arrived in Annapolis, MD yesterday after a rollicking 25 NM sail from Fairlee Creek with the wind out of the northwest on our beam with gusts up to 27 and at speeds over 7 knots. The same wind speeds in Nova Scotia produced, well spaced 9 to 10 foot waves that lifted Journey and set her down like burly movers with a chest of drawers. Chesapeake waves are like Chinese soldiers; what they lack in stature they make up for in numbers. Even with lots of fetch they only build to two to three feet, but slap your beam and spew into the cockpit, bumpy, lumpy, fast, foul-weather sailing. Compared to motoring it was heaven topped off by our arriving by chance as the 17th annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race was mustering for its start at 1:00 just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge heading to Portsmouth, VA.
Journey lies on an Annapolis town mooring up Spa Creek, past a bascule bridge that opens only on the half hour.
Marinas
On our way from the Bohemia river to Annapolis we tacked 8 miles further down the Bay and turned east into the Sassafras River for 8 miles to reach Georgetown and Fredericktown, notable for being burned by the British during the War of 1812, and for nothing being developed in the last 195 years except marinas, hundreds of slips, including massive covered slips filled with big square-stern power boats.
Passing down the bay, nearly every creek that a boat can creep into has a forest of masts. There are thousands and thousands of boats in slips, hanging on lifts and on moorings. Anthony Bailey wrote rather snobbishly in The Inside Passage cited earlier: “Waterway veterans know well, a marina is an excellent place for local owners to park a boat...but in general they aren’t any more interesting than motels or trailer camps – in fact, they tend to attract a similar clientele, which seems to go on the water to watch TV, take showers, do laundry in coin-operated machines, and plug innumerable gadgets and appliances into 110 volt ‘shore current.’” We certainly want to appear to be “veterans” at this, but in Georgetown we did laundry and took showers. The only reason we didn’t plug is we opted for a mooring that would be cooler, but we certainly did in Cape May to keep electronics charged that Bailey couldn’t conceive of when he wrote his book in 1963: two cell phones, three rechargeable cameras, laptop, chart plotter, VHF radio, stereo, five pumps, cabin lights, navigation lights, refrigeration and an electric tooth brush. We saw a boat that had a massive array of solar panels and two wind generators that looked like a portable power plant. Is this stuff essential? By no means all of it. Is it useful and fun? Yes, so far, but we'll watch it doesn't become all c0nsuming. Footnote: Cape May Marina has a trailer park attached!
The great thing is the thousands of boats are in their slips or on their racks this time of year, but the marinas are open and not only offer household services, but a full range of mechanical services. We spent a little more time and money ourselves in Georgetown with a special needs engine counselor helping fix the oil pressure sensor and now are confident that our little darling will do well from now on. Marlene noted, helpfully, that at least these mechanic bills are less than paying tuition to a trade school, but not much.
Proving Ground
We left Georgetown Wednesday, it was a satin water day, did a few tacks when ripples appeared, but motored most of the short distance to Fairlee creek. One of the tacks took us towards a restricted zone on the chart, marked by a buoy and a line and when we approached the buoy, a patrol boat with flashing blue lights lurked and undoubtedly watched us as we tacked away. It was the boarder of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a 72,000 acre site that took an act of Congress and two presidential proclamations to buy out farmers in 1917 for $200 an acre to replace a similar proving ground on Sandy Hook, NJ that was proving to be too close to New York City. Aberdeen is bordered by the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay and aptly named Gunpowder River. Then boom! It was loud and we could feel it and a great cloud of white smoke arose in the distance, frightening but a piddling scare for us compared to those who live where this stuff is put to use blowing people and things up. This is a proving ground all right. It offers proof that we all remain eternally flawed.
We anchored in Fairlee Creek (located about 28 miles down from the end of the Chesapeake end of the C&D canal) for a night of weather change from torpid tropics, to crisp autumn and hard blows that propelled the sail yesterday, and have given us Fall days to see the sites in this 350 year old city.
We arrived in Annapolis, MD yesterday after a rollicking 25 NM sail from Fairlee Creek with the wind out of the northwest on our beam with gusts up to 27 and at speeds over 7 knots. The same wind speeds in Nova Scotia produced, well spaced 9 to 10 foot waves that lifted Journey and set her down like burly movers with a chest of drawers. Chesapeake waves are like Chinese soldiers; what they lack in stature they make up for in numbers. Even with lots of fetch they only build to two to three feet, but slap your beam and spew into the cockpit, bumpy, lumpy, fast, foul-weather sailing. Compared to motoring it was heaven topped off by our arriving by chance as the 17th annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race was mustering for its start at 1:00 just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge heading to Portsmouth, VA.
Journey lies on an Annapolis town mooring up Spa Creek, past a bascule bridge that opens only on the half hour.
Marinas
On our way from the Bohemia river to Annapolis we tacked 8 miles further down the Bay and turned east into the Sassafras River for 8 miles to reach Georgetown and Fredericktown, notable for being burned by the British during the War of 1812, and for nothing being developed in the last 195 years except marinas, hundreds of slips, including massive covered slips filled with big square-stern power boats.
Passing down the bay, nearly every creek that a boat can creep into has a forest of masts. There are thousands and thousands of boats in slips, hanging on lifts and on moorings. Anthony Bailey wrote rather snobbishly in The Inside Passage cited earlier: “Waterway veterans know well, a marina is an excellent place for local owners to park a boat...but in general they aren’t any more interesting than motels or trailer camps – in fact, they tend to attract a similar clientele, which seems to go on the water to watch TV, take showers, do laundry in coin-operated machines, and plug innumerable gadgets and appliances into 110 volt ‘shore current.’” We certainly want to appear to be “veterans” at this, but in Georgetown we did laundry and took showers. The only reason we didn’t plug is we opted for a mooring that would be cooler, but we certainly did in Cape May to keep electronics charged that Bailey couldn’t conceive of when he wrote his book in 1963: two cell phones, three rechargeable cameras, laptop, chart plotter, VHF radio, stereo, five pumps, cabin lights, navigation lights, refrigeration and an electric tooth brush. We saw a boat that had a massive array of solar panels and two wind generators that looked like a portable power plant. Is this stuff essential? By no means all of it. Is it useful and fun? Yes, so far, but we'll watch it doesn't become all c0nsuming. Footnote: Cape May Marina has a trailer park attached!
The great thing is the thousands of boats are in their slips or on their racks this time of year, but the marinas are open and not only offer household services, but a full range of mechanical services. We spent a little more time and money ourselves in Georgetown with a special needs engine counselor helping fix the oil pressure sensor and now are confident that our little darling will do well from now on. Marlene noted, helpfully, that at least these mechanic bills are less than paying tuition to a trade school, but not much.
Proving Ground
We left Georgetown Wednesday, it was a satin water day, did a few tacks when ripples appeared, but motored most of the short distance to Fairlee creek. One of the tacks took us towards a restricted zone on the chart, marked by a buoy and a line and when we approached the buoy, a patrol boat with flashing blue lights lurked and undoubtedly watched us as we tacked away. It was the boarder of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a 72,000 acre site that took an act of Congress and two presidential proclamations to buy out farmers in 1917 for $200 an acre to replace a similar proving ground on Sandy Hook, NJ that was proving to be too close to New York City. Aberdeen is bordered by the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay and aptly named Gunpowder River. Then boom! It was loud and we could feel it and a great cloud of white smoke arose in the distance, frightening but a piddling scare for us compared to those who live where this stuff is put to use blowing people and things up. This is a proving ground all right. It offers proof that we all remain eternally flawed.
We anchored in Fairlee Creek (located about 28 miles down from the end of the Chesapeake end of the C&D canal) for a night of weather change from torpid tropics, to crisp autumn and hard blows that propelled the sail yesterday, and have given us Fall days to see the sites in this 350 year old city.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Sometimes things just go right! We made a last minute decision yesterday, Sunday, to leave Cape May at noon to ride the currents north up Delaware Bay even thought it risked yet another night landing in a strange anchorage. Our mast is too tall to take the short cut through the Cape May Canal so we motored the long way around the Cape well off the shoals, headed north with light winds too close on the nose to sail, but enough to have the main out. Then it all started to come together. The wind shifted east as predicted, but with much more vigor, the currents picked up and we were doing 6.8 knots through the water and up to 8.6 knots over the ground. We covered 40 NM in seven hours, unexpected speed that brought us to anchor at dusk, not dark, in a bend of the Cohansey River. (Jay C., the Rocna anchor grabbed instantly and held. And, yes, Johanna N., the Cohansey is still a bit malodorous, but a natural, swampy kind of smell.)
Peacefully at anchor, the sound of tidal current gurgling on the hull was broken only by whaps of the fly swatter as we killed those evil, nasty, vicious little black flies that take chunks of any exposed flesh and that had plagued us in the cockpit before they headed below decks as it grew dark in order to greet us again. Marlene exhibits characteristics of her personality rarely seen when she brings on the death of one of these creatures.
Yesterdays jaunt positioned us this morning to sail, yes sail, the next flood up the Delaware to the Chesapeake and Delaware ship canal and go with the ebb through the canal. Seems that a branch of the flood up the Delaware nicely decides to take a left at the Canal entrance and become the Canals ebb to the west, Now we find ourselves at anchor in the Bohemia River a few miles south of the western end of the Canal and in the Chesapeake Bay, facing a terrible danger. This blog could take on the inanity of a Sail magazine article describing the swim off the boat in the mild water, the 80 degree sunshine, the steak to come, wine, etc., so I won’t go into any of that. Instead, only note that we now have confirmed our draft is five feet by feeling the four inch gap between the mud and the keel, and reconciling all with the fathometer which was right on when it showed that we had about point-three feet of water under the keel as we came to anchor. Fortunately it was low tide, so there’ll be enough water to avoid all but a squish in the mud in the wee hours of the morning when the tide goes low again.
The Monarch
The monarch butterfly has become a marker. With an amazing regularity one appears, first on Negro Island in Nova Scotia photographed taking nectar from a thistle and since then in the middle of the Gulf of Maine, in fog off of Block Island, in Cape Cod Bay and yesterday and today on Delaware Bay. Journey’s sails are taught driving to windward held together with wire rope shrouds and stays, fiberglass and stainless steel, and this bright orange delicate creature matches our pace with flits and glides, as light and intent as a child skipping, but its destination is not down the block, but Mexico.
Why do we do this? Behold, the monarch butterfly.
Peacefully at anchor, the sound of tidal current gurgling on the hull was broken only by whaps of the fly swatter as we killed those evil, nasty, vicious little black flies that take chunks of any exposed flesh and that had plagued us in the cockpit before they headed below decks as it grew dark in order to greet us again. Marlene exhibits characteristics of her personality rarely seen when she brings on the death of one of these creatures.
Yesterdays jaunt positioned us this morning to sail, yes sail, the next flood up the Delaware to the Chesapeake and Delaware ship canal and go with the ebb through the canal. Seems that a branch of the flood up the Delaware nicely decides to take a left at the Canal entrance and become the Canals ebb to the west, Now we find ourselves at anchor in the Bohemia River a few miles south of the western end of the Canal and in the Chesapeake Bay, facing a terrible danger. This blog could take on the inanity of a Sail magazine article describing the swim off the boat in the mild water, the 80 degree sunshine, the steak to come, wine, etc., so I won’t go into any of that. Instead, only note that we now have confirmed our draft is five feet by feeling the four inch gap between the mud and the keel, and reconciling all with the fathometer which was right on when it showed that we had about point-three feet of water under the keel as we came to anchor. Fortunately it was low tide, so there’ll be enough water to avoid all but a squish in the mud in the wee hours of the morning when the tide goes low again.
The Monarch
The monarch butterfly has become a marker. With an amazing regularity one appears, first on Negro Island in Nova Scotia photographed taking nectar from a thistle and since then in the middle of the Gulf of Maine, in fog off of Block Island, in Cape Cod Bay and yesterday and today on Delaware Bay. Journey’s sails are taught driving to windward held together with wire rope shrouds and stays, fiberglass and stainless steel, and this bright orange delicate creature matches our pace with flits and glides, as light and intent as a child skipping, but its destination is not down the block, but Mexico.
Why do we do this? Behold, the monarch butterfly.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
October 1, 2007
As I write we are tacking down Cape Cod Bay towards the Cape Cod Canal. Marlene and Charlie H., our friend and neighbor in Maine, are sailing. Charlie signed on for the first leg of the journey south, from Teel Cove to Cape May, NJ. He’s a long-term dinghy sailor and now sails his S2 7.3 from a mooring in Teel Cove. She’s named Harbor Huey, explained by his retiring a couple of years ago from a life-long career and passion for piloting helicopters in Vietnam, the New Jersey State Police and companies.
We departed Teel Cove on Thursday, September 27 intending to do a passage to Provincetown, MA or to Sandwich, MA just off the entrance to the canal. The weather was iffy, not in terms of serious storms, but light and variable winds tending to southwesterly and a chance of a thunderstorm which usually have their energy sucked right out of them by the frigid Maine waters. We were eager to leave behind the chores of pulling the float and closing down the shore cabin for the winter, and the forecast called for a high pressure to move in for Friday with favorable northwesterly winds.
An hour later, lightening was striking not too far away, and we were in a deluge. Someone had to watch the radar which is located in the cabin which was warm and dry. I volunteered for the highly skilled task of watching for blips. Marlene and Charlie piloted the boat, and Marlene noted wryly that at least her and Charlie’s foul weather gear was washed with fresh water.
The rain ended, light wind was on our nose and we chose plan two, to go to the harbor at Cape Newagan at the southern tip of Southport Island and spend the night there. We made only 22 miles the first day, but it proved to be a good plan as it blew and rained in the night. An extra high tied brought the ocean swell over the ledges protecting the tiny harbor. We rocked so much that you couldn’t sleep on your side without rolling over.
September 28th brought thick fog. We hung around until 10:45, again intending to reach Sandwich, then motored a couple of hours in fog, dodging lobster boats with the help of radar. The fog lifted suddenly, the wind picked up, and we sailed on course in light winds until they died about 4:00. We started the motor and an hour later it sputtered and quit.
It seemed to be gasping for fuel, so Charlie and I on our bellies on the cabin sole changed the primary fuel filter, tried the engine, no go, changed the secondary filter, tried the engine, no go, discovered the fuel lift pump bracket was missing a bolt, its wire was pulled loose, attached the wire, no go, and knew at that point it’s a good thing this is a sail boat. We’d been sailing for two hours as we fussed with the engine with Marlene somehow keeping us on course in zephyrs of wind in a heaving swell at about a knot speed. It was also getting dark.
Time for plan three. We jettisoned going to Cape Cod. We don’t know boat yards there, and too few harbor options means too few mechanics, so altered course to the west towards the point where the harbors of Gloucester, Marblehead, Salem and Manchester by the Sea converge sixty miles away as centers for sailing and fishing and lots of diesel engines.
Why in the world do we do this? You may ask…
That night we stood three hour watches. The winds varied, but were steady and strong except for about two and half hours. Surely we felt disappointment that we weren’t making our course and that we were off to fits and starts rather than passage making and that we were losing the chance to rendezvous again with Steffi and Charlie P. at their place in Mattapoisett over the weekend. But disappointment was eased by the transformative experience of a night at sea.
We were lifted on our course by the promised cold front moving east to west with increasing winds throughout the night, up to 16 knots carrying us along with reefed main and jib, close hauled at 6.4 up to 7 knots. About 4:00 AM the red light of Cape Ann Light House came over the horizon. A bright planet emerged. Lightening flashed well behind us from the passing front, the moon again broke from clouds and Journey charged through the night with reefed main and jib. The moon lit the sea and the boat like sailing in dusk, but a silver dusk. That night became a big reason to do this.
Marlene showed her usual great foresight a few weeks ago when she thought that it would be wise to buy coverage for unlimited towing for the next year from the U.S. Boat service. Off Cape Ann a cell phone call to the 800 number was patched to a sleepy Mike in Newburyport, who recommended we go into Gloucester to meet our need to get to a slip where we could plug in to AC to keep the refrigerator cold and more easily get a mechanic to the boat. He would meet us in Gloucester Harbor.
We made one tack to go north into Gloucester, no more than passed the breakwater than Mike in his tow boat came up behind us, passed us a yoke linked to a hawser, pulled us to Brown’s boat yard, came along side, lashed to the tow boat to Journey and eased us to a float, safe and sound at 7:30 Saturday morning.
Val runs the boatyard and referred us go a mechanic. We called Guy C’s home, told his wife our situation and he called back a few minutes later, promising to come to the boat Sunday morning.
The frustration of being dockside on a perfect day to sail our course was greatly eased by friends Judy and Bill S. driving to Gloucester from Boston and treated us to dinner: BBQ from Jim’s BBQ smoked a half block from the boat yard and consumed on the boat. It was emergency, morale building boat call if there ever was one.
Sunday brought Guy. He’s in his forties, has been a mechanic for 32 years, starting with his father and now running the business. It turned out to be a healing service. As Charlie noted, Guy laid his hands on our engine, which we now know has “special needs.” He not only fixed the immediate problem, he fixed a flaw brought on by previous mechanics messing around that led to the current problem. Guy could explain what was wrong and what he was doing. He’s a born teacher and we learned a lot.
We departed Gloucester about noon, had a beautiful sail to Scituate, MA on Cape Cod Bay, and spent last night on the mooring there.
Clearly another reason to do this is the intensity of sailing a small boat on a big ocean makes the value of Charlies, Mikes, Guys, Vals, Bills, Judys and Jims so immediate and present. Wonderful people always seem to be there when needed most.
October 4, 2007
Motoring on and on
We’re motoring off the coast of New Jersey expecting to be in Cape May by 11:00 or so tonight. If we were a coastal packet depending on making a schedule to deliver a profit to its owners, we’d be broke! Those glorious north westerlies spent themselves on our sail to Scituate on Sunday. On Monday, the wind moved southeasterly 5 to 10 knots. Remember how scratched LP records would repeat the same thing over and over again. That’s what has happened to the weather radio’s computer voice no mater what station along the coast, southeast 5 to 10. A high planted over Nova Scotia is pumping east southeast, producing a five foot swell – great - waves with no wind!
We have been doing nothing but motoring for the last three days with our special needs engine that is behaving quite well, except for an erratic oil pressure gage, and we are proud, for it is an “exceptional” engine and note at every chance we can the “good job” it is doing by starting and running. We motored through the Cape Cod Canal that had to be timed with the current and gives a sailor the thrill of seeing a stodgy cruising boat racing along at 10.5 knots speed over the ground. But it was a let down. I for one had been prompted by a Boston friend who likens sailing in Massachusetts and Buzzards Bay akin to the tropics compared to frigid Maine. I thought the Cape Cod Canal would be like opening the window to a summer breeze, but it was a raw day and night on the mooring at the Mattapoisett Boat Yard was cold!
When we fueled there the next morning they had been expecting us because Charlie P. had called. Thanks Charlie, we were treated well. We motored off bound for Cape May, NJ with a full tank and a five gallon jerry can on deck for the 260 mile, two night trip, hoping for those south easterlies to build. Nada, Nothing Nyet! Just south of Block Island, motoring, at 6:00 PM we made the decision to go into New Harbor on Block Island, spend the night and fuel up. It was our first night approach in fog, well piloted by Charlie using the cockpit – appropriately – GPS. I kind of think it was a piece of cake for Charlie. He’s done most of his instrument approaches at 160 knots rather than five. We caught the mooring and were greeted by a pair of swans and their cygnet who the parents were diligently teaching to beg. Swans are mute, but these guys made a funny kind of guttural sound. Marlene told them to stop pecking the side of the boat and they did.
We thought that it would be a good idea to have 10 gallons reserve so the next morning, I walked to the hardware store, bought a can, started to walk back, put my thumb out and a service van of some sort stopped. After thanking the fella for the ride I noted that it had been more than 40 years since I had hitchhiked. He said well that’s alright as when you get older you don’t want to walk so far. Thanks again!
We motored from Block Island mid-morning yesterday, October 3rd in southeast zip to 8 knots only once in a while, thick fog, and have been motoring for the last 36 hours straight with dense fog coming and going, each standing a three hour watch, tethered in, moving from cockpit to radar at that navigation system. The GPS says 5 hours and 39 minutes to go before another night approach, this time at long last into Cape May.
October 5, 2007
By golly we made it. Night pilot Charlie H. tutored us through a zero visibility, instrument approach on Journey, a.k.a. Cobra Gun Ship, through the Cape May, NJ inlet into the harbor, where prompted by the cruising guide recommendations for anchorages and the blurred images of anchored boats silhouetted by shore side sodium vapor lights, we too anchored off of the Coast Guard Station at about midnight, a little close to the channel but good enough. This was the second situation, Block Island being the first, that called for a wee dab of single malt scotch donated as a bon voyage present by Steve H. And now, the next day, we are comfortably on a slip, showered, with a cleaned boat and having bid a fond farewell to hearty crew member Charlie H. Many thanks friend.
Here’s another reason for why we do this – building on a theme from thoughts on Allen Island over a year ago – which is how voyaging instructs, even enforces a different way of living. Our friend Roland passed on to us a book from his library on his 17 foot cat boat Ibis that made the Intracoastal Waterway passage last spring. It’s The Inside Passage by Anthony Bailey written about 50 years ago of a trip on a slow moving motor boat. He writes: “In a sense, the whole thing (the voyage) was a kind of running down, a process in which the ticks of the clock were more widely spaced apart. In which – for that reason – each tick presumably might sound louder and larger than before.”
Next stage, Delaware Bay, C & D Canal into the Chesapeake Bay. We’ll keep you posted.
As I write we are tacking down Cape Cod Bay towards the Cape Cod Canal. Marlene and Charlie H., our friend and neighbor in Maine, are sailing. Charlie signed on for the first leg of the journey south, from Teel Cove to Cape May, NJ. He’s a long-term dinghy sailor and now sails his S2 7.3 from a mooring in Teel Cove. She’s named Harbor Huey, explained by his retiring a couple of years ago from a life-long career and passion for piloting helicopters in Vietnam, the New Jersey State Police and companies.
We departed Teel Cove on Thursday, September 27 intending to do a passage to Provincetown, MA or to Sandwich, MA just off the entrance to the canal. The weather was iffy, not in terms of serious storms, but light and variable winds tending to southwesterly and a chance of a thunderstorm which usually have their energy sucked right out of them by the frigid Maine waters. We were eager to leave behind the chores of pulling the float and closing down the shore cabin for the winter, and the forecast called for a high pressure to move in for Friday with favorable northwesterly winds.
An hour later, lightening was striking not too far away, and we were in a deluge. Someone had to watch the radar which is located in the cabin which was warm and dry. I volunteered for the highly skilled task of watching for blips. Marlene and Charlie piloted the boat, and Marlene noted wryly that at least her and Charlie’s foul weather gear was washed with fresh water.
The rain ended, light wind was on our nose and we chose plan two, to go to the harbor at Cape Newagan at the southern tip of Southport Island and spend the night there. We made only 22 miles the first day, but it proved to be a good plan as it blew and rained in the night. An extra high tied brought the ocean swell over the ledges protecting the tiny harbor. We rocked so much that you couldn’t sleep on your side without rolling over.
September 28th brought thick fog. We hung around until 10:45, again intending to reach Sandwich, then motored a couple of hours in fog, dodging lobster boats with the help of radar. The fog lifted suddenly, the wind picked up, and we sailed on course in light winds until they died about 4:00. We started the motor and an hour later it sputtered and quit.
It seemed to be gasping for fuel, so Charlie and I on our bellies on the cabin sole changed the primary fuel filter, tried the engine, no go, changed the secondary filter, tried the engine, no go, discovered the fuel lift pump bracket was missing a bolt, its wire was pulled loose, attached the wire, no go, and knew at that point it’s a good thing this is a sail boat. We’d been sailing for two hours as we fussed with the engine with Marlene somehow keeping us on course in zephyrs of wind in a heaving swell at about a knot speed. It was also getting dark.
Time for plan three. We jettisoned going to Cape Cod. We don’t know boat yards there, and too few harbor options means too few mechanics, so altered course to the west towards the point where the harbors of Gloucester, Marblehead, Salem and Manchester by the Sea converge sixty miles away as centers for sailing and fishing and lots of diesel engines.
Why in the world do we do this? You may ask…
That night we stood three hour watches. The winds varied, but were steady and strong except for about two and half hours. Surely we felt disappointment that we weren’t making our course and that we were off to fits and starts rather than passage making and that we were losing the chance to rendezvous again with Steffi and Charlie P. at their place in Mattapoisett over the weekend. But disappointment was eased by the transformative experience of a night at sea.
We were lifted on our course by the promised cold front moving east to west with increasing winds throughout the night, up to 16 knots carrying us along with reefed main and jib, close hauled at 6.4 up to 7 knots. About 4:00 AM the red light of Cape Ann Light House came over the horizon. A bright planet emerged. Lightening flashed well behind us from the passing front, the moon again broke from clouds and Journey charged through the night with reefed main and jib. The moon lit the sea and the boat like sailing in dusk, but a silver dusk. That night became a big reason to do this.
Marlene showed her usual great foresight a few weeks ago when she thought that it would be wise to buy coverage for unlimited towing for the next year from the U.S. Boat service. Off Cape Ann a cell phone call to the 800 number was patched to a sleepy Mike in Newburyport, who recommended we go into Gloucester to meet our need to get to a slip where we could plug in to AC to keep the refrigerator cold and more easily get a mechanic to the boat. He would meet us in Gloucester Harbor.
We made one tack to go north into Gloucester, no more than passed the breakwater than Mike in his tow boat came up behind us, passed us a yoke linked to a hawser, pulled us to Brown’s boat yard, came along side, lashed to the tow boat to Journey and eased us to a float, safe and sound at 7:30 Saturday morning.
Val runs the boatyard and referred us go a mechanic. We called Guy C’s home, told his wife our situation and he called back a few minutes later, promising to come to the boat Sunday morning.
The frustration of being dockside on a perfect day to sail our course was greatly eased by friends Judy and Bill S. driving to Gloucester from Boston and treated us to dinner: BBQ from Jim’s BBQ smoked a half block from the boat yard and consumed on the boat. It was emergency, morale building boat call if there ever was one.
Sunday brought Guy. He’s in his forties, has been a mechanic for 32 years, starting with his father and now running the business. It turned out to be a healing service. As Charlie noted, Guy laid his hands on our engine, which we now know has “special needs.” He not only fixed the immediate problem, he fixed a flaw brought on by previous mechanics messing around that led to the current problem. Guy could explain what was wrong and what he was doing. He’s a born teacher and we learned a lot.
We departed Gloucester about noon, had a beautiful sail to Scituate, MA on Cape Cod Bay, and spent last night on the mooring there.
Clearly another reason to do this is the intensity of sailing a small boat on a big ocean makes the value of Charlies, Mikes, Guys, Vals, Bills, Judys and Jims so immediate and present. Wonderful people always seem to be there when needed most.
October 4, 2007
Motoring on and on
We’re motoring off the coast of New Jersey expecting to be in Cape May by 11:00 or so tonight. If we were a coastal packet depending on making a schedule to deliver a profit to its owners, we’d be broke! Those glorious north westerlies spent themselves on our sail to Scituate on Sunday. On Monday, the wind moved southeasterly 5 to 10 knots. Remember how scratched LP records would repeat the same thing over and over again. That’s what has happened to the weather radio’s computer voice no mater what station along the coast, southeast 5 to 10. A high planted over Nova Scotia is pumping east southeast, producing a five foot swell – great - waves with no wind!
We have been doing nothing but motoring for the last three days with our special needs engine that is behaving quite well, except for an erratic oil pressure gage, and we are proud, for it is an “exceptional” engine and note at every chance we can the “good job” it is doing by starting and running. We motored through the Cape Cod Canal that had to be timed with the current and gives a sailor the thrill of seeing a stodgy cruising boat racing along at 10.5 knots speed over the ground. But it was a let down. I for one had been prompted by a Boston friend who likens sailing in Massachusetts and Buzzards Bay akin to the tropics compared to frigid Maine. I thought the Cape Cod Canal would be like opening the window to a summer breeze, but it was a raw day and night on the mooring at the Mattapoisett Boat Yard was cold!
When we fueled there the next morning they had been expecting us because Charlie P. had called. Thanks Charlie, we were treated well. We motored off bound for Cape May, NJ with a full tank and a five gallon jerry can on deck for the 260 mile, two night trip, hoping for those south easterlies to build. Nada, Nothing Nyet! Just south of Block Island, motoring, at 6:00 PM we made the decision to go into New Harbor on Block Island, spend the night and fuel up. It was our first night approach in fog, well piloted by Charlie using the cockpit – appropriately – GPS. I kind of think it was a piece of cake for Charlie. He’s done most of his instrument approaches at 160 knots rather than five. We caught the mooring and were greeted by a pair of swans and their cygnet who the parents were diligently teaching to beg. Swans are mute, but these guys made a funny kind of guttural sound. Marlene told them to stop pecking the side of the boat and they did.
We thought that it would be a good idea to have 10 gallons reserve so the next morning, I walked to the hardware store, bought a can, started to walk back, put my thumb out and a service van of some sort stopped. After thanking the fella for the ride I noted that it had been more than 40 years since I had hitchhiked. He said well that’s alright as when you get older you don’t want to walk so far. Thanks again!
We motored from Block Island mid-morning yesterday, October 3rd in southeast zip to 8 knots only once in a while, thick fog, and have been motoring for the last 36 hours straight with dense fog coming and going, each standing a three hour watch, tethered in, moving from cockpit to radar at that navigation system. The GPS says 5 hours and 39 minutes to go before another night approach, this time at long last into Cape May.
October 5, 2007
By golly we made it. Night pilot Charlie H. tutored us through a zero visibility, instrument approach on Journey, a.k.a. Cobra Gun Ship, through the Cape May, NJ inlet into the harbor, where prompted by the cruising guide recommendations for anchorages and the blurred images of anchored boats silhouetted by shore side sodium vapor lights, we too anchored off of the Coast Guard Station at about midnight, a little close to the channel but good enough. This was the second situation, Block Island being the first, that called for a wee dab of single malt scotch donated as a bon voyage present by Steve H. And now, the next day, we are comfortably on a slip, showered, with a cleaned boat and having bid a fond farewell to hearty crew member Charlie H. Many thanks friend.
Here’s another reason for why we do this – building on a theme from thoughts on Allen Island over a year ago – which is how voyaging instructs, even enforces a different way of living. Our friend Roland passed on to us a book from his library on his 17 foot cat boat Ibis that made the Intracoastal Waterway passage last spring. It’s The Inside Passage by Anthony Bailey written about 50 years ago of a trip on a slow moving motor boat. He writes: “In a sense, the whole thing (the voyage) was a kind of running down, a process in which the ticks of the clock were more widely spaced apart. In which – for that reason – each tick presumably might sound louder and larger than before.”
Next stage, Delaware Bay, C & D Canal into the Chesapeake Bay. We’ll keep you posted.
Monday, September 24, 2007
The journey south now begins with plans to depart from Teel Cove to Cape Cod on Wednesday. Charlie H., our Teel Cove neighbor and fellow sailor, will be joining us for the overnight trip and staying on board for a transit of the Cape Cod canal into Buzzards Bay and for a two and a half day stint at sea to Cape May, NJ his and Marty's "winter" state. This is beginning to sound like a tour of the major Capes of the East Coast: Sable, Cod and May. We'll avoid Cape Hatteras, thank you very much, although a cruising guide cited Cape Sable as "the Cape Horn of the North." That puffed us up a bit even though both roundings of it were with clear skies and calm seas.
Phase one of the journey concluded with an overnight trip from Shelburne, NS (round Cape Sable I might note again) across the Gulf of Maine, a slow motor across calm seas broken only by asking a cruise ship to avoid us which he did. The morning breeze allowed a sail for a short time with a pod of pilot whales to arrive at Northeast Harbor, ME on September 14th, close enough to Bar Harbor to be a port of entry and to be boarded by Homeland Security for a routine interview, passport viewing, etc. We spent a rainy and foggy layover day on Saturday, sailed to Isle Au Haut on Sunday, hiked, then sailed and motored to Teel Cove on Monday, September 17th.
Journey is mostly re-provisioned, we've had wonderful visits with family and friends in Boston, now back to Maine to close down, load up and set off.
Phase one of the journey concluded with an overnight trip from Shelburne, NS (round Cape Sable I might note again) across the Gulf of Maine, a slow motor across calm seas broken only by asking a cruise ship to avoid us which he did. The morning breeze allowed a sail for a short time with a pod of pilot whales to arrive at Northeast Harbor, ME on September 14th, close enough to Bar Harbor to be a port of entry and to be boarded by Homeland Security for a routine interview, passport viewing, etc. We spent a rainy and foggy layover day on Saturday, sailed to Isle Au Haut on Sunday, hiked, then sailed and motored to Teel Cove on Monday, September 17th.
Journey is mostly re-provisioned, we've had wonderful visits with family and friends in Boston, now back to Maine to close down, load up and set off.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Halifax was the furthest point north and east for Journey as we turned southwest to make our way towards Florida. We reboarded her September 7th on her mooring at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron, where we left her for 12 days as we joined Jay and Janet on their boat, Gusto, for a voyage further northeast to Cape Breton Island and into the Bras d’Or Lakes. We traveled over 400 miles, a “down hill” ride with the wind to Cape Breton; hard beat against 15 to 25 knot wind returning - ninety percent of it motoring. Our highest speed recorded was 27.7 Knots that we figured occurred when Marlene was at the helm and the boat was airborne over the crest of a 12 foot sea with the little water wheel that measures speed blowing in the wind so to speak. It was a long haul along a desolate coast with some spectacular scenery and anchorages and the blessing of no lobster pot buoys to dodge.
As always, more spectacular than the scenery are the people you meet. Marlene and I walked a pebble beach in St. Peter at the southern end of the lakes where we laid over the heaviest of the five days of non-stop strong southwesterly blows. We came across an elderly woman (that’s saying something for us!) with a walking stick beach combing. Her specialty was finding fragments of colored glass called sea glass that has been tumbled and smoothed by the actions of waves, treasures born from litter. She told us that she made all kinds of mosaic pictures and frames with her glass and would give them away. Having recently moved with her husband to an apartment she said with a twinkle that “she was either going to have to have a larger apartment or get rid of her husband to have room for her collection.” We joined the search and even I, a pathetic forager at best, could spot little bits of green, amber and milky white glass, but not treasured blue. She led us to the best place where a stream emptied onto the beach. We talked about our grand-daughters love of sea glass, and she emptied into our pockets her day’s harvest.
For those of you who will be joining us on legs of our adventure you can consult with Steffi and Charlie who nobly and skillfully served as first crew in this odyssey for Journey's 36 hour crossing from Teel Cove to Halifax. We christened with them the highly technical and innovative piece of equipment – the IOPC, a.k.a. the Illusion of Privacy Curtain, that as Marlene noted when it was installed, “with this in place one can’t hear a thing.” Not to worry for those of you who don’t know boats and Journey, we do have doors. The IOPC is an added feature and comfort.
Charlie races his own boat and gave us great lessons in sail trim to squeeze the extra point something knot out of each sail set. Steffi brought innovation and improvisation to the galley. We had an exhilarating run from Lunenburg to Halifax with winds in 20’s, reefed main and jib, on a broad reach clocking along at 7.5 knots. We were in full battle gear – foul weather pants and jackets, life vests and tethers to secure us to the boat. As Charlie said: “Houston do you copy?” A truly exhilarating day.
We left Halifax on Sunday, September 9th, pondering options regarding tropical storm Gabrielle that might have passed over the Maritimes Tuesday and Wednesday. We aped the strategy of our friends Jay and Janet by doing an overnight passage from Halifax to Shelburne, “Founded by the United Empire Loyalists in 1783,” when thousands fled the rebelling colonies, including a sizeable number of freed black slaves. There are lots of wonderful, historic homes and buildings, but we were puzzled by an English Tudor building raised on huge wood pillars above an open floor. We stopped a local who explained it was built a few years ago by a movie studio for the filming of The Scarlet Letter. We also discovered that a wonderful tower and wind vane on a water front building was an add on, as was the expansion of a building labeled The Coopery. History and Hollywood.
We kept Journey at the Shelburne Harbor Yacht Club and Marina, a place of note for the most unexpected reasons. Its manager, Sue, sets a new standard for hospitality, and as we learned over the three days, it is a hub for community. We had lunch one day. You order food on the first floor across a Dutch door from a woman who was beamed from 50 years ago out of the ladies guild serving Wednesday night suppers at First Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Hookers lead to Whirligigs
We were told the food is delivered to you upstairs in what is a bar and function room where we discovered tables set up like a church basement strewn with material and frames, lunch dishes and ladies. We went to sit at the bar, but three women asked us to join them and introduced themselves by saying: “We’re hookers!” And indeed they were - artists in making hooked rugs. We learned that hooking rugs began as a craft of poor women who could use burlap bags as a foundation for weaving in strips of wool rags, leaving a nubby surface. It gave us a new appreciation for the ancient hooked rug made by my grandmother, probably in the late 1800’s now in our hallway in Boston.
We noted that men don’t seem to be as good at gathering for hobbies. The three ladies almost said in unison, “whirligigs.” They are the hooked rugs for men of Shelburne. Later that afternoon we stopped for coffee at Beandock Coffee, and ran into Brenda and Dale Clark. Dale was setting up across the street from the coffee shop a promotional whirligig that he had made for Whirligig and Weathervane Festival to be held on September 22nd and 23rd.. His folk artistry creates exuberance in these devices made from scrap materials bent, screwed and glued together to convert wind to motion.
Dale told of us another fellow whose name he couldn’t remember but identified two spots where he might live. We met Charles Hardy coming out of a shed behind his home. His work wasn’t as polished or joyful, but there was imagination in subject mater and a modest income to be made from his workshop in an old camping trailer.
Community of Cruisers
Shelburne also gave us our first glimpse of a new community we might discover and the novices that we are even with 20 years of sailing under our keels. Ken and Lynn have been sailing aboard Tryst for 25 years, traversed from California to Alaska back down the west coast through the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, several years in Maine and now headed to Norfolk to pull the boat for the winter. Ken graduated from Iowa State eleven years before us. We also met Moe and Greg from Minneapolis who sail a Mason 43, the big sister of our boat. We discovered that we sailed side by side in darkness, but in radio contact approaching Shelburne in the wee hours of Monday morning.
It’s too early to say much more about the depth of this community formed by this optional pursuit of cruising on a small boat, but at first glance it could be rich indeed.
As always, more spectacular than the scenery are the people you meet. Marlene and I walked a pebble beach in St. Peter at the southern end of the lakes where we laid over the heaviest of the five days of non-stop strong southwesterly blows. We came across an elderly woman (that’s saying something for us!) with a walking stick beach combing. Her specialty was finding fragments of colored glass called sea glass that has been tumbled and smoothed by the actions of waves, treasures born from litter. She told us that she made all kinds of mosaic pictures and frames with her glass and would give them away. Having recently moved with her husband to an apartment she said with a twinkle that “she was either going to have to have a larger apartment or get rid of her husband to have room for her collection.” We joined the search and even I, a pathetic forager at best, could spot little bits of green, amber and milky white glass, but not treasured blue. She led us to the best place where a stream emptied onto the beach. We talked about our grand-daughters love of sea glass, and she emptied into our pockets her day’s harvest.
For those of you who will be joining us on legs of our adventure you can consult with Steffi and Charlie who nobly and skillfully served as first crew in this odyssey for Journey's 36 hour crossing from Teel Cove to Halifax. We christened with them the highly technical and innovative piece of equipment – the IOPC, a.k.a. the Illusion of Privacy Curtain, that as Marlene noted when it was installed, “with this in place one can’t hear a thing.” Not to worry for those of you who don’t know boats and Journey, we do have doors. The IOPC is an added feature and comfort.
Charlie races his own boat and gave us great lessons in sail trim to squeeze the extra point something knot out of each sail set. Steffi brought innovation and improvisation to the galley. We had an exhilarating run from Lunenburg to Halifax with winds in 20’s, reefed main and jib, on a broad reach clocking along at 7.5 knots. We were in full battle gear – foul weather pants and jackets, life vests and tethers to secure us to the boat. As Charlie said: “Houston do you copy?” A truly exhilarating day.
We left Halifax on Sunday, September 9th, pondering options regarding tropical storm Gabrielle that might have passed over the Maritimes Tuesday and Wednesday. We aped the strategy of our friends Jay and Janet by doing an overnight passage from Halifax to Shelburne, “Founded by the United Empire Loyalists in 1783,” when thousands fled the rebelling colonies, including a sizeable number of freed black slaves. There are lots of wonderful, historic homes and buildings, but we were puzzled by an English Tudor building raised on huge wood pillars above an open floor. We stopped a local who explained it was built a few years ago by a movie studio for the filming of The Scarlet Letter. We also discovered that a wonderful tower and wind vane on a water front building was an add on, as was the expansion of a building labeled The Coopery. History and Hollywood.
We kept Journey at the Shelburne Harbor Yacht Club and Marina, a place of note for the most unexpected reasons. Its manager, Sue, sets a new standard for hospitality, and as we learned over the three days, it is a hub for community. We had lunch one day. You order food on the first floor across a Dutch door from a woman who was beamed from 50 years ago out of the ladies guild serving Wednesday night suppers at First Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Hookers lead to Whirligigs
We were told the food is delivered to you upstairs in what is a bar and function room where we discovered tables set up like a church basement strewn with material and frames, lunch dishes and ladies. We went to sit at the bar, but three women asked us to join them and introduced themselves by saying: “We’re hookers!” And indeed they were - artists in making hooked rugs. We learned that hooking rugs began as a craft of poor women who could use burlap bags as a foundation for weaving in strips of wool rags, leaving a nubby surface. It gave us a new appreciation for the ancient hooked rug made by my grandmother, probably in the late 1800’s now in our hallway in Boston.
We noted that men don’t seem to be as good at gathering for hobbies. The three ladies almost said in unison, “whirligigs.” They are the hooked rugs for men of Shelburne. Later that afternoon we stopped for coffee at Beandock Coffee, and ran into Brenda and Dale Clark. Dale was setting up across the street from the coffee shop a promotional whirligig that he had made for Whirligig and Weathervane Festival to be held on September 22nd and 23rd.. His folk artistry creates exuberance in these devices made from scrap materials bent, screwed and glued together to convert wind to motion.
Dale told of us another fellow whose name he couldn’t remember but identified two spots where he might live. We met Charles Hardy coming out of a shed behind his home. His work wasn’t as polished or joyful, but there was imagination in subject mater and a modest income to be made from his workshop in an old camping trailer.
Community of Cruisers
Shelburne also gave us our first glimpse of a new community we might discover and the novices that we are even with 20 years of sailing under our keels. Ken and Lynn have been sailing aboard Tryst for 25 years, traversed from California to Alaska back down the west coast through the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, several years in Maine and now headed to Norfolk to pull the boat for the winter. Ken graduated from Iowa State eleven years before us. We also met Moe and Greg from Minneapolis who sail a Mason 43, the big sister of our boat. We discovered that we sailed side by side in darkness, but in radio contact approaching Shelburne in the wee hours of Monday morning.
It’s too early to say much more about the depth of this community formed by this optional pursuit of cruising on a small boat, but at first glance it could be rich indeed.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Welcome to our year-long journey on Journey. We are inspired by a young couple and their two children (you know who you are) who made the intra coastal passage and kept family and friends informed of their whereabouts and adventures through a blog.
Boats have logs, daily entries of position, weather, speed, course and other items - the bread crumbs of the voyage. Wikipedia defines a blog as "a portmanteau of web log." So this blog like a log will contain entries in chronological order, a diary of our trip and whatever else seems worth posting. Is a blog on a boat a bog?
Journey is a Mason 33, built in 1985 by a US Company called Pacific Asian Enterprises based in
Last summer our group TCSA, Teel Cove Sailing Association (a.k.a. Trinity Church Sailing Association) of people who are passionate about faith and sailing gathered here for a rendezvous. We voyaged together to a nearby
“We like Waymouth when we sail need to be alert. Waymouth had to use all of his senses to read the environment for every clue it would offer to give safe passage or to approach a shore including this
"Sailing demands we live in the moment. It blocks the mind dwelling on past mistakes or worries of the future. And it is in the acute, vivid sense of the abundance of the moment that we sense the Holy Spirit.
What a great name,
"We like Waymouth take a risk when embarking on a journey to a new place. It is casting off what is known and seemingly secure. In sailing we cast off again and again to journeying on through the uncertainties, beauty and danger of the sea.
"We are often on voyages of recreation better said as 're-creation' to refresh …to find something new in ourselves, to find a new way of being. The elixir of this sport is that at sea there is no room for pretentiousness. We cast off in sailing and in life into a humble state where truth about ourselves and lives prevail, the state of being where we embrace and are embraced by God.
"We like Waymouth in our journeys seek a boon for our odysseys. Waymouth and his backers sought land, food, and materials for possession and gain. What reward do we seek from our voyages at sea and in life? Good things like relaxation, adventure, deep appreciation of nature.
"But I offer that we reflect on this recreation as a potent teacher and passage way to ever deeper faith. To use its experiences, its wonderful terms, all the metaphors and realities of voyaging as a stimulus for transformation to the joy of living fully in the now of life, to the joy of casting off what holds us from full awareness and service, to the joy of humility that is life lived in all of the pain and glory of truth. Sailing is a place for our personal pentecosts.”
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