Monday, 23 November 2015: Still in Beaufort

     We stayed an extra day in Beaufort to take care of a couple mailing issues, to wait for a letter from Maine, and to watch The Patriots play on Monday night.

Tuesday, 24 November 2015: on to Georgia

      On Tuesday Morning we awoke to continued chilly and windy conditions, a “Norther” as we will probably get used to.

Last week shorts and bare feet, this week layers and wool head sock.

     We had our breakfast then a quick run to the free day dock for a shower, then off down the Beaufort River to meet and bid farewell to our new friends Perry and Nancy. We made a quick stop at their marina, picked up the last of our mail that had arrived Monday afternoon, and set off once again to the South. The Dukes had made our stop-over very enjoyable with their company and borrowed vehicle. We hope to return the favor sometime.

     A snake could have laid out a straighter path down the last of South Carolina and into Georgia, but all the curves make it all the more interesting. We had slowed our pace as we were low on fuel and I had in mind a lower than average fuel depot in Brunswick. Another note on the area is that we are back amongst the tides, 7 feet or so in this area, and oh don't these rivers run! We will be going along about 5 ½ knots, then down to 3.6 for a spell, then back up to 8 for a while. If you are sailing all day, I don't know how you could plan and make all the passes with a fair tide. We just took our licks as they came.

     We toasted our arrival to Georgia as we crossed the Savannah River a couple hours from Beaufort, we were met by a lone fellow in an old Tartan 27. We had crossed paths a few times since Oriental and had named him, Tagu, (Tartan Guy). He fell into our wake and kept right up with us.

     We decided to anchor up in the lee of a little marsh island in the Moon River. Tagu turned right behind us and anchored nearby. Three of us masted boats spent a quiet nite at anchor here.

Sunset in Moon River. 

     Tommie is getting bolder and bolder every day. She used to hide all the time we were underway, only coming out when the engine went to idle and the anchor chain was going down. Now she is up and about several times during our underway day, sits in the cockpit, demands a back-rub, the usual things a cat demands, and did I mention food?

Wednesday, 25 November 2015: Snaking along...

      Up and away after breakfast, we the third of three underway, with Tagu a few miles ahead. We twisted and turned our way along, raised the jib as the following wind was too much to be wasted. It did require many gybes during the day to accommodate our many courses. It was brisk going and we did manage to scatter our Revere-Ware across the galley sole at one point.

     We picked a spot for anchoring at about four, New Teakettle Creek, and just as we approached the anchorage we caught up with Tartan Guy. He was still ahead of us when we turned in and anchored, but he turned around and came back to anchor near us once again. We spent a very windy night protected only by a low salt marsh, out of the waves, but clearly not out of the wind. The strong current held us at right angles to the 20 knot wind all night, giving us a slight angle of heal. Interesting, but not enough to be uncomfortable.

Sunset in Old Teakettle Creek.

     It seems funny, but as we are headed south, slowly, we get to see many powerboats, as they are coming by us all the time, most very respectfully I will add, as we slow right down to bare steerage so they can come by with a small or reduced wake. Very few have upset us. We don't seem to see the sailboats, as they are either ahead or back, only seeing them in harbor.

Thursday, 26 November 2015 Thanksgiving Day

Morning on the marsh.

     We were off and running right after breakfast as the current was changing in our favor to start the day. We were about 15 minutes behind Tagu, but found him tacking back and forth just outside the anchorage. After he and I exchanged hand signals it was clear that he didn't know which route to take, so he once again fell in behind us.

     To be fair, most of the ICW can be run visually, as the next marker is usually in sight, and if you have a draft of 3-4 feet it is pretty easy to stay in floating water. At this particular juncture, there was a junction which was a ways off, with a neatly camouflaged marker, and a 140 degree turn. I am going to say that Tartan Guy has no charts, going on guts and following deeper vessels. At least he stopped when he was confused, as the water is so murky one would never see a sand bar coming up ahead.

     Of note today we saw several rookeries of heron and egret, one tree looked like it was covered with white and pink heron ornaments. Kathy pointed it out to me and I looked right at it and didn't know at first what I was looking at. Quite a sight.

     Our day went quite well, by luck catching mostly fair currents thru the maze and right down by Jekyll Island to the mouth of the Brunswick River where we were making 9 knots over the bottom and feeling quite good, then as we turned to go up into Brunswick we were socked with a 2 knot foul current and down to 3.8 knots for the last hour of the day. Just about then we were treated to a nice rainbow, and associated rain of course.

     We finally made our way up the East River to anchor close to both fuel dock and marina, both of which we hope to make good use of tomorrow.

     Kathy put out a Thanksgiving Feast of baked chicken with onions and garlic, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn, all topped off with Boat Baked Apple Pie. I will say I thought she had set the bar pretty high with the lunch she served me, peanut butter and bacon and banana sandwiches, but she did manage to out-do herself. I ate so much I can hardly move, except to hunt and peck these keys. But that's the way it is supposed to be on Thanksgiving, isn't it?

Our apple pies are about 4" big, but they do the trick.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 21-22:  Beaufort SC

     What a charming little town!  We have both been here before, for an afternoon side trip when we were in Hilton Head with Dan's family, and the warmth and beauty of this place hasn't changed in the last ten years.  The stately live oaks with their branches dripping with Spanish moss, the sycamores and the palm trees all guarding large and small homes with their porches and rocking chairs bring you back to antebellum times.  This area is where most of Forrest Gump and parts of The Big Chill were filmed.  This place also has a history dating back to the 1670s, when settlers first came.  The many smaller islands surrounding Beaufort were once plantations.  During the Civil War this place was always in Union hands and the island plantations became the communities of their freed slave populations.  This is where the Gullah culture was defined, as the area was so isolated from outside influences.  There is much to see and much to learn in Beaufort.

     Dan had 'met' a fellow Willard owner on the online Willard forum, who lives with his wife in this area.  Perry Dukes came to greet us when we arrived at the dock, offering us the use of his truck, and inviting us to dinner.  We gladly accepted both offers.  We made a quick run to the grocery store and to the hardware store to refill our propane.  We were low on almost everything, and the use of the truck to fill with grocery bags was most welcome.
     Dinner with Perry and Nancy Dukes was a real treat.  We met fellow cruisers Vivienne and Tom, who have a catamaran and all of us settled down for a dinner of "the best shrimp you ever had."  They were indeed - fried local shrimp.  We had a great meal and there was lots of talk about boats and liveaboard life.
     Perry let us keep the truck overnight, and we made a quick trip in the morning to Walmart before turning it back over to him.  They invited us to church and we accepted.  Afterwards we received a tour of their Willard - it's always fun to see other people's Willards and how they've outfitted them - and we all went out for a late lunch in downtown Beaufort.  You know how you meet someone and know you'll be friends for life?  The Dukes are those sort of people.  We hope we can do as much for them if they come to Maine once we are back home.

Perry & Nancy Dukes with us in Beaufort's Waterfront Park.

     After lunch we parted ways and Dan and I took a long walk around town to take in the historic houses and all the Spanish moss.  We had showers at the Waterfront Park and will be moving the boat from the free dock to an anchorage soon.  Tomorrow we head South once more.

Heading downtown Beaufort.

Waterfront view from Beaufort's historic district.

   

Nov 17- 20  South Carolina to Charleston 

Toasting crossing into South Carolina

     We left Southport NC early and ogled fancy homes and bird-filled marshes all morning.  We crossed into South Carolina - we think - just after noon; there were no signs to tell us we were now in a different state.  However, almost immediately, we noticed differences in the ICW:  there were no longer mile markers telling us we’d traveled another five or ten miles, there were - initially - very few birds or any other wildlife, and the banks of the ICW was mostly a dense, jungly mess.  Few houses, lots of places have been badly affected during past storms, lots of erosion, and  The word ‘desolate’ comes to mind.  The ICW wasn’t clearly marked in some areas, and more than once we headed into a side creek before discovering our error.  

Erosion - it wasn't unusual to see whole trees uprooted.

     We came into North Myrtle Beach in the late afternoon, with its Disneyland of offerings displayed on faded billboards and passed under a cable car operation suspended over the waterway.  It wasn’t running.  We decided to stop for the night at Barefoot Marina, as we were overdue for laundry and hoping for internet.  This Marina boasted a pool and hot tub and “low fuel prices” among other amenities and assigned us a face dock just beyond the fuel pumps.

     Well, the wifi not only wasn’t accessible- we couldn’t find the name of it in the wifi listings offered.  The pool was closed.  The fuel prices were fifty cents a gallon more than we’d paid in Virginia.  But we got all the laundry done in one evening and we were the only ones in the hot tub.  No complaints here.

Sunset at the Barefoot Marina - looking straight down the ICW.

     Wednesday we passed through some abandoned rice fields and here we started to see a huge variety of birds, some of them new to us.  The scenery turned from jungly to quietly pretty and we could again hear the surf crashing in the distance as we traveled the waterway used by rice plantation owners in the antebellum years.  We also came upon our first dolphins!  We don’t make enough of a wake for them to leap around our bow or stern, but we will never get tired of watching them play.  We spent a very peaceful night in Schooner Creek (how could we resist anchoring in a place called that?) and Tommie thoroughly enjoyed keeping the night watch from the cabin top.

Abandoned rice fields and plantation house.

Our first dolphin!

Entrance to Schooner Creek

    Thursday dawned with gray skies and thunder.  We awoke to these birds perched on our bowsprit. 

It rained off and on all day, and the SW winds were gusty as small squalls rolled by.  We were grateful to have a pilot house.  We kept the bird book and the binoculars handy and found yet some more new-to-us birds to mark down on Dan’s lifelong bird list.  We also saw turkey vultures lining a fence, wings spread like cormorants do.  Do they dry their winds?  Were they warming themselves in the sun? Is it some kind of attraction ritual?  We don’t know, we’ve never seen this sort of thing before.  If you know what they were doing, let us know.  

Turkey vultures with wings spread.

     We dropped the hook in Dewees Creek, mile 454.9 on the ICW.   Friday was another long day, and confusing as we passed through Charleston Harbor trying to make sure we followed the correct markers for the ICW.  Charleston is a busy place, but not as busy as the narrow channel where we came across this parade of tugs and barges.  Two tugs and many, many barges, with accompanying smaller tugs helping them make the turns.  Dan slowed to an idle-stop and pulled as far to the side as possible to allow them room.  What a sight!  

The parade of tugs and barges - you can see the lead tug in white, and the long curve around to the end with the half-submerged pipes.

    We finished our day at a quiet little anchorage in the South Edisto River, just to the side of the ICW, mile 509.  We are now halfway through the ICW.

Nov 13 - 16 Oriental to Southport NC

The symbol of Oriental - a dragon.

     We enjoyed the hospitality of Oriental for a second day.  Dan and I took a long walk through town on Friday and bought some groceries at the Walmart Express (a mini Walmart?- mostly it was a grocery store of moderate size) and he browsed through the Oriental Marine Consignment Shop for at least an hour.  We had some mailing labels to print out for some items we were returning, and the Inland Waterway Provision Company on the nearby corner kindly let us use their printer.  The whole town is exceptionally friendly to boaters - docks are free for 48 hours, the IWPC offers courtesy bikes, the ladies at The Bean, the coffeeshop/local hangout directly across from the dock let us know we could sit on their porch and avail ourselves of their wifi and outlet to charge the computer even after hours.  Soon there will be a brand new restroom and shower facility too, free for boaters.  Oriental is overall a warm, welcoming place. 

     We spent three more nights in North Carolina: Swansboro, which is just South of the Cape Fear River, Sloop Point in Topsail Sound, where we listened the surf crashing all night, and Southport.  Southport also boasted free docks, but when we turned into the tiny Southport basin and saw the docks, we decided it better to anchor next to them instead.

Sunset Topsail Sound - s/v Mascaret from Montreal

      The town of Southport is a sleepy little Southern town, whose claim to fame is being on the way to the more prestigious community of Oak Island on the outer banks.  The town docks, while free, are in very poor condition, with pilings tilting and overgrown with oysters, and access to the dock itself consists of half-rotten ladders or metal spikes similar to those on telephone poles.  The floating dinghy dock offers no access at all to the fixed dock, which even at high tide is about six feet up.  Dan and I tried our hand at the metal spike climb when we went ashore to replenish the Dark and Stormy supplies, but we chose to dinghy directly over to the restaurant dock when we went back to town for dinner.  We had a good meal at the Fishy Fish Cafe, and a very pretty sunset.

Sunset in Southport

Nov 8-12:  Elizabeth City, NC to Oriental, NC

     We ended up being a large fleet of vessels at the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center - rafted three and four deep - and all of us set off in a parade down the swamp around breakfast time the next morning.  It was four miles to the next lock.  There were ten boats in all, and I think we filled the lock.

Waiting for the lock to open.

Filling the lock

     We all made it to Elizabeth City by noon, where all of us found space at one of several free docks right in town.  The wind had picked up and the weather was turning foul - a tropical depression offshore in the Bahamas had become Tropical Storm Kate, and we were feeling the edge of it with thirty knot winds and rain.  We were all happy to be tied up, although the wind was blowing right at us and made for a bouncy berth.  Dan and I went over to the restaurant nearby for the Sunday afternoon football game, and were surprised to find the featured game was the Patriots vs the Redskins, not the Carolina Panthers vs Green Bay Packers game.
     We stayed in Elizabeth City two nights waiting out the weather.  The people in town are very friendly and the city itself is filled with historical architecture, but there is a serious vacant building festival going on due to the re-routing of the highway.  This city is the county seat and features a large Federal courthouse as well as a county courthouse, and several attorneys have their offices here, but otherwise the waterfront town has little to offer the boaters who take up the free docks.  We did borrow courtesy bikes from the Welcome Center and we rode to the grocery store about two miles away for provisions, but otherwise there was little to do.
     The rivers and sounds are wide and shallow and all the guide books caution timing your passages according to the wind.  Tuesday dawned quiet and still, and we set off as the sun was rising to have a fairly quiet ride across Albemarle Sound and down the Alligator River to a pretty little anchorage off Tuckahoe Point.

Sunrise Tuckahoe Point, Aligator River

Entrance to the Aligator-Pungo Canal

     Wednesday we entered the Aligator - Pungo Canal and motored peacefully all day.  We are now in the main Intracoastal Waterway, and there is a small but steady stream of boats traveling South.   This is a beautiful section of the ICW - with marshes on both sides.  You can see the erosion from wakes, and most boaters are careful not to cause them, when the water is high, as it is right now. However, we have found that motor yachts tend to fall into two categories - those who are mindful of their wake and those who have acute cases of get-there-itis.  Fortunately there aren't two many in the latter group - who rudely pass without slowing down, leaving you rocking in their large wake - but Dan drew up a big sign to hang off the stern:  WILLIE DAWES WILL STOP FOR SLOW PASS  CH 16 + 13  Hopefully we won't have many more wakes from the rude motor yachts, and neither will the canal.

Immature bald eagle

Dan climbed the mast for shots of the marshes.

     We made a pit stop at RE Mayo, a fish processing plant at the end of the Aligator-Pungo Canal.  They rent overnight space at the docks for a cheap 40 cents a foot but we were there only to buy some fish.  They have a small store with marine supplies and fresh fish already frozen and sealed in blister packs and some of the friendliest people in North Carolina, which is saying a lot, as everybody we've met so far is very friendly.  We bought some shrimp and some flounder.  Tommie came out to sniff the air as we left, and she looked as if she were contemplating making a leap for the dock.  We didn't give her the chance.

     We continued into the Bay River and dropped the hook in Bear Creek, which our guide book described as "scenic, but quite buggy."  It was very quiet, and scenic, and buggy.  We have encountered our first mosquitoes!  I guess we really have arrived in the warm South.

Sunrise, Bear Creek

Shrimp boat, Pamlico Sound

     Thursday we again set off early.  Our destination today was Oriental, where Beta Marine is headquartered.  Dan intends to fix that alarm that started going off on our first trip to Rock Hall.  We have taken a spot at one of the free berth this town has to offer.  It's sunny and pleasantly warm and I am looking forward to exploring the area a little on foot while Dan takes the engine electronics apart.

November 6 & 7: From Norfolk to the Great Dismal Swamp

     We spent part of one more morning at Rebel Marine - did we mention they had a hot tub?  We had a nice soak and another hot shower and decided despite the gloomy weather (fog and drizzle) that we would leave by noon.  Just as we pulled up anchor the clouds broke up, the sun came out, and the weather got a lot warmer.  We took it as a good omen and said goodbye to Norfolk.
     We passed mile after mile of Naval shipyard, and slowed down to allow a destroyer pass us en route to his dock.  This is also a major shipping port.  It's humbling to be so reminded that just about everything for sale in this country comes from somewhere else, and almost all of that comes in by ships.

     Nevertheless, we were glad to put all the hustle and bustle of a major harbor behind and enter the Intracoastal Waterway.  Almost immediately we came to the sign asking us to choose the Virginia Cut, or the Great Dismal Swamp route.  The first is deeper, quicker, and more heavily traveled.  We chose the Dismal Swamp.

      It's not 'Great' in terms of big, and it's not at all 'Dismal' in the modern sense.  It's a beautiful, serene riverway established back in the early 1800s, with a canal envisioned by George Washington.  We were the only Southbound traveler.  The other boat we encountered Friday was owned by locals, who gave us a care package to deliver to the lock master of Deep Creek lock.
     Rob is the lockmaster.  He's been working this lock for twenty years.  He loves to talk.  As we entered the lock, he patiently instructed us what we needed to know about locking through, then launched into a long monologue about history (his own, and that of the Swamp and this particular lock) and entertained us with a talented performance on a conch shell.  The lawn in front of his little office building is filled with conch shells; he asks boaters returning from the Bahamas bring him one. He also asked our intentions for the night and advised us to tie up at Elizabeth's Dock just South of the lock along with the two boats already there and he invited us to come back to his office in the morning for coffee and danish.
     This is what we did for Friday night.  We shared the dock with two boats from Canada - one from Montreal, the other from Halifax - and settled in for a quiet night.  Tommie was a little miffed that we kept the door locked so she couldn't roam the deck (or the dock) but we weren't taking any chances.
     Saturday we dutifully walked back to the lockmaster's office and found coffee, juice, bagels, donuts, fruit, and cups with yogurt and granola all waiting for us.  Quite a spread!  We shouldn't have eaten breakfast.  We were a captive audience for his expansive story-telling until his lockmaster duties called him away at 8:30.   If anyone wants to know anything about any aspect of the Great Dismal Swamp, the canal, or the lock, Rob is your guy.
     We set off down the canal a little while later, one of four boats.  The day was clouding over quickly, but the rain was holding off enough for us to enjoy the pretty view.  The trees come right down to the water on both sides and almost meet overhead.  The boat in the lead kept us warned of floating logs and we passed along that information to the boats behind us as we all slowly motored down the peaceful waterway.  Most of us ended up docking at the Great Dismal Welcome Center just over the border in North Carolina, and about as soon as we tied up, the skies opened up and the rain poured down.  So here we will stay the night, getting to know our fellow travelers and the friendly folks here in the Center.

     

Nov 2- Nov 5: Out of the Potomac and to Norfolk

    Once Tommie was back on board, we settled down into a much quieter routine.  The Sunday she was back on board (Nov 1) we moved from the Goose Point Marina where we’d left the boat, out to a nearby anchorage.  We just needed to hang out a little, a let her get used to the boat again without worrying about her getting off.  We were all tired and some of us slept most of the time.  

    Monday we headed back down the Potomac at an easy pace.  The water was very calm and though it was overcast, the weather was warm and it was a pleasant run.  Just as we passed under the Gov. Nice bridge a Naval picket boat hailed us.  We were entering a live fire range, they said, and they advised to follow a particular path along the Maryland side of the river, opposite the Dahlgren Naval Testing Site.  We heard a few explosions in the distance, but as we passed through the site, we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  Still, it was rather exciting.  We got to Glebe Creek by dark (now at 5 pm) and dropped the hook for a quiet night.

Dahlgren picket boat.

Sunset at Glebe Creek

Osprey nest instead of chimney at an abandoned house in Glebe Creek.

     Tuesday we made it out of the Potomac and down to the Great Wicomico (wye-kahm-eh-co) river.  Dan belongs to an online forum on Willard boats and another Willard owner lived in the beautiful little cove of Blackwell’s Wharf and had given us an invite.  Steve and Ann Bedford gave us a tour of their Willard 40 and had us up to their beautiful home nearby for drinks and munchies.  What a pretty place to live!  They also own a small anchor business - Max Marine;  it’s truly a family-run business.  With their adult children, they manufacture the anchors and sell them themselves.  We spent a very pleasant evening with them before retiring.

Foggy morning in the Great Wicomico River.

     Wednesday we set out at dawn to take advantage of the fine weather to get down to Norfolk.  The early morning fog soon burned off and a light NE breeze kept the lower Chesapeake pretty calm, though dark clouds over the Norfolk/Hampton/Portsmouth area were a little intimidating to head into. 

     This area is a major shipping port, as well as the official start of the Intracoastal Waterway;  we were leading several sailboats South, and encountered many large ships.  As we headed into the channel to Willoughby Bay (our planned destination), we found ourselves between two tugs with barges loaded with coal. 

Tug pushing a loaded barge right behind us.

    This is also a very large, very busy Naval base.  Helicopters and fighter jets keep the noise level pretty high.  We anchored outside the Rebel Marina, run by the brothers of our friend Capt. Jesse Briggs of the AJ Meerwald.  Great folks, they had no problem with us tying up our dinghy here and gave us access to their showers and laundry.  We will probably spend another day here before starting down into the Great Dismal Swamp.  We’re looking forward to the ICW!