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.
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