Epilogue Part I: Arrived at Osprey Marina, North Myrtle Beach:

On Monday afternoon, we arrived at Osprey Marina, our final destination of this leg of our journey.  We had a relatively easy run to the Marina, only having to pass through two swing bridges!!  The day was lovely, sunny and warm, and we floated into our spot on the dock at about 2 pm.  We now have a few days to clean up, fuel up, and get the boat ready for a 2 month hibernation until we come back in mid-January to embark on the second part of our adventure, onwards to Florida and then onto the  Bahamas. 

We have truly had a wonderful adventure.  We had good weather and bad, but all together, a very successful delivery cruise.  The last part of our journey, through the Intracoastal Waterway, was truly delightful, with a community of cruisers who were all heading south like us.  We saw many unusual sights (unusual for us, anyway!) including new landscapes, birds, bridges, and many glorious sunsets and sunrises.  We were fortunate to have no mishaps, groundings, or otherwise mechanical problems to plague us, and so we feel pretty lucky.  We learned a lot about ourselves, and even though we work very well together as a team, this journey taught to rely on each other even more, and to stay focused on the important elements of navigation, good housekeeping, and discipline.

Living on a boat for an extended period of time teaches you to be frugal (with water), to pay attention to little details like “where did I put that flashlight” and “did I take my vitamins today”.  So many of the little things that we take for granted when we have our routines at home are taken over by the more important aspects of paying attention to safety, like “watch our for that power boat trying to overtake us”  and “is the anchor set properly”.  Meals also need more planning, as you never know what the road ahead for the day is going to bring, so having sandwiches and snacks at the ready is also critical.  I won't even get into how many days between showers….

In any case, we are finishing the first part of our adventure, and fly home on Sunday.  When we return in January, we head off for Florida, where we plan to spend a few days to take care of some repairs, meet up with some friends, and then look for the window to make the trip across to the Bahamas.  We will pick up our blog again at that time, and hope to have many funny and interesting stories to tell.  Until then, hasta la vista and thanks to all for coming along for the ride.  Your comments and notes made us feel good!!





 Chris & Irina

Ve Must Haf a Clean Anchor!!



Katharine:  these are for you...Irina trying to hold the boat!!





Floating Casino!



The last swing bridge...



Cable cars crossing!

Turtles sunbathing



I guess I lost count of the swing bridges....there was one more!



Final Destination:  Osprey Marina, North Myrtle Beach!!

And you thought all the bridges were done.....

Today was supposed to be an easy but long run of about 60 miles from Carolina Beach to Calabash Creek.  We started off a bit later than usual, with the clock change, around 9 am.  We made great time through Cape Fear River and the inlet, and had a pickup of almost 2 knots from the tide going with us.  By around 2 pm, we were about 10 miles away from our anchorage, and were planning to go through a pontoon bridge that opened on the hour at 3 pm.  We were moving along in a convoy of about 10 sailboats, and a few power boats approaching the bridge, when we heard on the radio that due to the very low tide, the 3 pm opening was canceled!  The bridge tender said he would most likely open at 4 pm, after the tide had a chance to come up a bit. 

We decided to anchor in the middle of the ICW rather than do wheelies in the channel.  We dropped our anchor, and hung out for almost an hour, when the bridge announced he would open at 4 pm.  We cruised through the bridge in the company of all our sail and power boat friends, and all converged on two cozy anchorages about 3 miles on.  Most of the sailboats anchored off in the shallower anchorage, and we anchored in a slightly deeper, wider channel, that is the inlet from the Atlantic Ocean called the Little River Inlet.  Since we anchored, we have seen the most fantastic sunset with the new moon over Myrtle Beach, as well as two “phantom” fishing boats coming home from fishing in the ocean.   

By the way, we just heard on the radio that the pontoon bridge we crossed earlier is now shut down for a malfunction!  I guess we got lucky to get through even though we  thought at the time we were unlucky!!  Anyone who didn’t make the  4 pm opening is totally screwed!! 

We just saw the big gambling boat “AQUA-CINO” go by in stealth mode, with not many people on it (it is pretty cold here tonight) but way too many slot machines!!

Tomorrow we arrive at our destination in Myrtle Beach.  I just put the bottle of champagne in the refrigerator so it is nice and cold when we get there mid-afternoon!

We will write the Part I Epilogue to our journey tomorrow.  We leave Myrtle Beach on Sunday to fly back to Boston. 

Katharine, we are taking photos tomorrow of us just for you!




White headed pelicans



Crossing the pontoon bridge






Moonrise over Myrtle Beach...



Ghost Fishing Boat

Carolina Beach: Snow's Cut

Our day started early, as we had put the dinghy down last night to make a run ashore.  We walked around Swansboro, but it is a pretty small town and there was not much going on.  We stayed long enough to find that South Water Street is the most common street in all seaside towns (we live on South Water Street in Onset!) and to have a drink, but we decided to go back to the boat for dinner (Shepherd’s Pie!).  We pulled the dinghy back on the boat early the next morning, and set off for Snow’s Cut, a 60 mile run.

                 

We quickly realized that we had three bridges to traverse on this trip.  Two swing bridges, and one Bascule Bridge.  None of this is stressful, except for the addition of about 10 sailboats and several large power boats in the flotilla with us heading in the same direction.  It is pretty amazing traveling down the narrow ICW with the same group of boats.  There is a lot of banter and sharing of information, as well as a great deal of negotiating for first place in going through bridges and tight spots on the way.  It generally works pretty well, except for the occasional jerk.  I guess there are jerks everywhere!! 

We managed to get through the journey without grounding, even though we passed at least two boats that had grounded onto the shallows in the process of maneuvering and jockeying for position around the bridges!  It was a long and tiring day, but we are now anchored and having a rum drink (hopefully the first of many over the next few days!)

Tomorrow we have hopefully an easy day (no bridges except the kind that we can go under without them opening, swinging, or basculing!). 

See you later!!

The Outer Ba nks

Feeling at home....

The migration south...

Kites flying on the beach!!



Bummer!!



Basculing!!

Oriental to Swansboro

Despite the rain and fog, our anchorage last night turned out to be both quiet and peaceful.   As we left in the morning, the skies started to clear, and we have hopefully seen the last of the rain.  Our journey south continued, in the company of the same flotilla of sail and power boats, all heading in the same direction.  As we passed Oriental and turned into Adams Creek, the scenery changed completely, and really started to feel like we were in warmer climes, as the palm trees replaced the cypress swamps of yesterday.  The most dramatic message that we are really now in the South, came from the schools of dolphins that were everywhere!  They actually swam with our boat, and were playing directly in our bow wave!  A good omen!

We passed through Beaufort and Moorehead City, and started down the section of the ICW that passes through the outer banks.  The geography is pretty amazing, as we were running down a narrow channel, with the ocean on one side, and a sandspit on the other.

We overtook many sailboats, the most beautiful one being the Rachel B. Jackson.  Finally, we anchored in another lovely spot, Swansboro, and plan to take a break from the boat and go ashore in the dinghy later on.

We are only a few days away from our destination.  We have another 150 miles or so to cover to get to Myrtle Beach.  So far we have had an amazing trip, and might even consider doing this again!! 

See you all tomorrow.









Keeping pace with the boat....



We are now at the beach...



Swansboro Pelican





The Rachel B. Jackson



Day 11: Going (to) Oriental

Today, we had a shorter 40-mile trip from Belhaven to Oriental, NC. We left in fog that dissipated to some extent but remained with us all day, transitioning to drizzle by early afternoon. The rain began in earnest mid afternoon, though the threatened wind had fortunately not developed at the time of writing. Oriental does not look much of place to go ashore and with the rain now pouring we are planning another DVD tonight. Last night it was Mission Impossible 3  - not bad – even managed to stay awake till 10:00pm!!

The journey today was pretty uneventful. We have left the company of most of the power vessels and are now traveling with a “flock” of sailboats. We are now anchored just outside of Orient together with a sailboat from the Netherland, a large, classical design, motor ketch from Germany, and a Canadian sailboat from Vancouver that must have come here via the Panama Canal!  We are in good international company.

See you all tomorrow



Leaving our anchorage in the fog in the company of the fleet....



Auriga followed by a gaggle of sailboats heading south...

Day 10: Belhaven, NC

Our late night anchorage turned out to be quiet and comfortable, though we did hear a tug and barge passing through the channel about 5:00am, far enough away to be no problem. Soon after starting out we began to hear radio contacts from other boats that had stayed further back overnight in Coinjock as they began to leave the dock and jockey for position. Everybody wanted to get where they were going! Though as previous everybody continues to be incredibly thoughtful and polite. Fortunately we have yet to meet one of true ICW idiots reputed to wake everybody at will as they pass slower boats at maximum speed.

About 8:00am we began to hear one of the boats now in front of us reporting that it had run aground at one of the shoaling bottlenecks in the channel. Right after another vessel followed onto the shoal. We were concerned because both boats had smaller drafts than Auriga! As we approached the scene, we chose to stay at the very edge of the channel where we figured we had a better chance of getting through. Luckily, we chose well!!! We made it though the difficult area with 5ft of water under our keel to spare. We reported this information to following vessels so that they could avoid the shoaled area. The two grounded boats were subsequently pulled off a few hours later by TowBoat US, and being faster boats, they caught up with us again later in the afternoon. The situation was a bit like the fable about the tortoise and the hare – with us as the tortoise!! 

We went through another bottleneck area with shoaling close on each side, then entered a 30 mile long cutting through dense swamp land. Despite looking we did not see any wildlife, though clearly this was a major habitat area, supposedly with many deer and black bears, among other animals. We did see a parcel of land for sale just on the banks of the canal, but the only sign of life was a gaggle of turkeys running around.  Very appropriate as we get close to Thanksgiving.  Also, as we approached the end of the cutting and were getting closer to our intended anchorage we did see several turkey vultures waiting for something (somebody??) to die or for Thanksgiving!!   There is definitely a theme building here….after 2 weeks of eating pre-frozen food, a nice hot cooked turkey dinner sounds really good!!

We anchored in a wide lagoon with 12ft of water by 3:30pm and soon other boats began sailing in. By the time we got to our 3rd drink, we were surrounded by 20 sail and power boats!  Good thing we got here first!!  It is raining and we are now getting another round of drinks. Cheers, everybody.

Leaving the Alligator River Swing Bridge...but no alligators in sight!!

They have big beavers here!!

Waiting for something (or someone...) to die????

Ditch Digging aka a Day in the Intracoastal

What is it????

Today we started out a bit later because we had some timing considerations related to the several bridges and one lock that we planned to transit. One bridge, the Gilmerton highway lift bridge only opens after the morning traffic rush, so we did not want to get there too early.

Anyway, we left our anchorage at Old Point Comfort and headed south down “Warship Alley” – just row after row of aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers and auxiliary vessels.

Very impressive!!

After passing through Norfolk and the dock area, we officially entered the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) – also known as “the Ditch”. After the deep waters of the entry channel, we were soon in real skinny water!! Our boat draws about 6ft and soon we were in narrow channels and limited to 10-12 ft depths.

Just before noon we entered the Great Bridge lock along with several other, mostly larger, boats. Since it was slack tide the lock keeper did not have to do too much, just shut one gate and open the other end to let us out. Then we waited 10 minutes for the next bridge to open and we were off again at 5kt, except this time the faster boats decided to strut their stuff, flying along at 25-30kt!! Thankfully, everyone was courteous and polite, and we did not get waked significantly.

By 3:00pm we were approaching our intended anchorage, and getting ready for a cocktail (or two). Unfortunately, even up-to-date charts are somewhat unreliable. Despite the best laid plans etc, we found our selves trying to anchor a 6ft draft vessel in only 8ft of water with 3ft of tide still to drop!! So we kept going to the next (hopefully more reliable) anchorage. We cranked up the speed, hoping that our C-Map charts were reliable and were soon doing about 10mph (notice that the ICW is measured in statute miles rather than nautical miles) trying to cover another 25 miles before dark.

Well, we made it to an acceptable anchorage about ½ hour after dark and are presently sipping our drinks before dinner (tenderloin and leeks) in a comfortable 11ft of water just out of the channel at statute mile marker 60 in North Carolina.

That’s it for today, folks.                     



Warship Alley!



Beam me up Scotty!

The Great Bridge Lock - Auriga is in the bottom left corner of the photo (with my kayak on top)

Along the ICW

Annapolis to Norfolk: Day 8 and 450 miles!!

We set off earlier today for a longer 75nm run down to the bottom of the Chesapeake, to an anchorage just across from Hampton Roads. Last evening we saw several herons and a kingfisher feeding at the edge of the anchorage. Fish were jumping but we had no bait!! I even think we saw a bald eagle in flight. The night was quiet with bright stars and an early dawn crescent moon.  It was barely light when we pulled anchor and the sun was just beginning to rise as we pulled out into the Potomac.

Just south of the Potomac we saw 3 pelicans fly in and land on the water. Unfortunately they were too far away by the time the camera was ready. We saw several more as the day progressed but still had no luck with photos.

A bit further south, we passed a huge dredger barge with multiple bucket loaders operating in a main shipping channel.

The weather was fantastic with bright sun – directly in our eyes as we headed south!!

At about 10am we were a bit surprised to see USN warship 109 pass by our starboard side at 1/3 mile doing 20kt. We do monitor the radar but somehow missed this big guy – no AIS and probably stealth technology!!!

We were getting a nice push from the current again and managed to run over 8.5kt for the second half of the trip. The wind from the north abated as we got further south to a moderate 8kt on our stern.  We made great time, and anchored in a very spacious anchorage just inside Old Point Comfort.  While we were coming in, a boat with AIS identification passed us, named DARSEA.  When we anchored, we realized she was anchored just off our port side, and she was a 40 ft Selene, the same make as our boat.

We called them on the radio, and spoke to John Cleary, the Captain.  Turns out they have been all over the East Coast, and they actually bought their boat from Ted Hood in Portsmouth!  We had a nice chat, and we may run into them again over the next few days. 

We have another beautiful sunset, and expect a nice quiet evening.  Tomorrow sounds exiting, with the all the traffic in Norfolk Harbor, a lock and several bridges to get through!  We’ll see how things go!

Shoveling .....

Big Boy Warship 109



Pelicans!



Sister Ship DARSEA

Annapolis to the Potomac

Russian Submarine Rising!!

We weighed anchor (about 90lbs without chain) at 0715 and departed our relatively quiet anchorage headed for Smith Creek, an inlet off the north side of the Potomac estuary. The weather was fine with a beautiful sunrise. Headed back into the Chesapeake, we passed a USN destroyer and a small submarine off to our port. The a few more large freighters and a Carnival cruise ship heading north.

By the way for those who have any interest whatsoever, a snubber is a stretchy element attached to the end of the anchor chain to minimize sharp anchor forces impacting the windlass, helping the anchor to remain set better, and allowing the vessels’ occupants a better chance of getting a good night’s sleep by reducing anchor noise (we have 3 different types and last night just used a 35ft ¾ inch nylon line attached with a rolling hitch attached to 100ft of 3/8 chain).

The weather remained fine all day with a light breeze from the north that helped us with about ½ kt of push. We also got a push from the tidal ebb down the Chesapeake, so that despite running at relatively low engine speed (1500rpm) we achieved speeds in excess of 8kt – a satisfactory speed for our type of full displacement trawler.

As you can probably guess by now, the most exciting part of today’s cruise was a 10ft miss on a Chesapeake crab pot!! It was a perfect day on the water – sunny bright and warm with next to no motion.  In fact, Irina was seriously considering bikini sunbathing on the upper deck (aka boaters hood ornament!!). But even down here it is clearly near the end of the season – there were very few sailboats or fishermen out on the water on this beautiful Sunday, and so far as we could tell, very few boats headed south.

Just before reaching our destination we passed by the “Forbidden Zone”, a circular area defined by buoys with some sort of transmitter/receiver erected at the center -probably for alien communication???

The Potomac estuary is simply immense – it is much larger than Buzzards Bay. Our anchorage for the night is to the north side just around past Lookout Point in a small wooded cove. We are anchored in 13ft of water but still playing it safe with plenty of chain. When we were last in the Chesapeake several years ago, we experienced the mother of all thunderstorms while cruising in a chartered trawler. Quite a blow!!

I realized that we have not talked about distances. Typically we run at 7.5kt, so the trip from Block to Cape May took 30 hours to cover about 220 nm (250 statute miles). We think we did pretty good to do this speed considering how poor conditions were for that leg. Today we did about 70nm in 9 hours. Not as fast as flying but better than most “blow boats”. We figure we are like a sailboat that goes in straight line (but burns more fuel!).

That’s it for today, folks. Enjoy the pretty pictures!!



Chesapeake "cottage" lighthouse



Another lighthouse...



The Dead Zone...!!



360 degree view around our boat at the anchorage in Smith Creek



360 degree view around our boat at the anchorage in Smith Creek



360 degree view around our boat at the anchorage in Smith Creek