Rock Creek/Beaufort

Not much to report today, we motored on the ICW until about 5:00 where we arrived at Rock Creek for the night. After we got anchored and set, our depth was only 1.5’ and the tide was going to go down at least that much. Normally we motor around the area we are going to drop anchor in to check the area (as the army says - time spent in recce is seldom lost….. or something like that), anyways there was a shallow spot we had missed. Up comes the anchor, I was still not comfortable with the second setting so we moved a third time which was much better. One other boat came into the inlet with a Canadian flag so I had to call them up. It ended up being the couple that runs an online business (cruising solutions.com) that we had purchased our anchoring headsets from this year. I had talked to them this spring and they are from Shelburne NS and run the business out of Florida. Anyways, two  months ago one of the headset microphones started acting up so I called him up and he mentioned to talk to the manufacturer, which I did and they shipped a new part to Annapolis. When in Annapolis (and with the new working part) who do I see but this couple as they are there for the Annapolis boat show. Now here we are in the same inlet with them (although we were there first) - they have to think I am stalking them – I’m sure the restraining order will be arriving shortly :)

We decided not to leave in the morning until 9:00 as low tide was 7:30 and there was a bad spot as soon as we leave, anyways all went ok today and we arrived at 12:30 in Beaufort SC. The moorings are only $20.00 which includes wi-fi (good thing for the new booster…) showers, laundry and a courtesy car!!!! We used the car this afternoon for groceries and some other items we needed. You are only supposed to use it for an hour at a time so you have to hustle, fortunately things seem to be in close proximately. Here is a picture of the marina and of Heather and I waiting on a swing for the courtesy car to arrive back. This morning I busted the edge of a tooth but I have found a dentist right near the marina! I have an appointment tomorrow morning so hopefully this will go ok.

Charleston

We left our snug anchorage early to catch the high tides because of some shoaling spots which were coming up. It was a good call as we had no issues. We are noticing there are a lot more palm trees intermingled with other trees the further south we go as you can see by the picture. The ICW is also becoming more and more windy an  shallow as we are going south. In a few days we should be down to Beaufort SC and we will probably start jumping back out to sea for Florida. As you can see this boater got caught up on a shoal, which is where the river opens up to the large Charleston harbour.

We saw this wooden tall ship (aluminum masts) in Charleston, there was enough crew with their spiffy uniforms cleaning the deck to have a good game of shinny!

I feel happy to have a dinghy to go ashore with when we get into a port – so when is a dinghy not enough? When you have your own helicopter instead, as this gargantuan boat has……

We were a bit disappointed with Charleston because there was nothing around the waterfront and it was a very busy city, I guess we were expected a smaller city…. We would have had to get a cab to go anywhere so we decided just to hang around the boat and keep moving tomorrow instead of staying longer. I picked up the wi-fi booster and tried it out. I have decided just to haul it up the mast for now until I see how much of a difference the height makes and decide where to mount it. Instead of seeing only a handful of way too weak signals without the booster I picked up 59 hot spots when it was hooked up!!! This will be a welcome addition.

Awendaw Creek

We had planned on being in Georgetown so that we could go to Church. We checked online and were leaning on going to the First Baptist Church in town. Yesterday we had a great day checking out the local stores and came across the most amazing yarn store, (really wish Richard’s sister Kathy could have been there with us)! We noticed that there were Bibles in the store to give away so Richard felt led to ask the lady running the store if she could recommend a good Church in the area.  She immediately recommended the First Baptist Church and offered to meet us there! So that is where we went this morning and sure enough Ellen met us on the steps and sat with us. It was a very old (built in the 1750’s) beautiful Church that truly felt Spirit led. We felt very blessed in meeting Ellen and attending this service.

On the way back to the boat we decided to stop at Aunny’s Restaurant, which serves traditional Southern food… we were not disappointed! Once we asked a lot of questions Richard decided on Fried Chicken with candied Yams, Black eyed Peas and Collard Greens and I had the Seafood Platter (Whiting, clams and Shrimp) with yellow Rice, Mac and cheese and Fried Corn, everything was amazing! There was so much on my plate that I brought it back in a doggy bag and Richard and I shared it for supper. After supper we were treated to dolphins swimming around the boat.

We decided to pull up anchor and get a few miles down the water so that we could make Charleston by tomorrow.  We motored all the way mainly through marshes. It’s neat to see a Shrimp Trawler that looks like it’s going through a field!

 There were quite a few spots were it was very shallow… at one point our depth read 0.0 below keel… not comfortable, but we didn’t feel like we hit. We pushed it a little to far and ended up arriving at our spot (Awendaw Creek) just as the sun was setting… a little too close for comfort! We only saw 1 other sailboat today and followed him in to the anchorage where there were 3 other boats already anchored.

So as I sit hear writing this I can hear the Shrimp underneath the boat, it sounds like rice krispies popping.

Note: Some people (you know who you are..) haven’t realized that you can click on a picture to expand it :)

Georgetown

When we left our snug harbour early this morning, there was a layer of mist on the water that soon cleared off. The water was at low tide allowing us to see some logs which were now visible but of which we were ignorant to when we come in yesterday. There were also three boats that had arrived after us and we had to slowly skirt around them leaving as they were in the entrance. It was an uneventful four hour motor to Georgetown except for dodging clumps of vegetation in the water. The Waccamaw river seems quite high in this area and pieces of wood, grass etc were floating down the river.

Georgetown has quite a history behind it, they were known for producing indigo (jean dye etc) as well as having miles of rice fields. After the civil war thing were less prosperous and they turned to wood (a large mill is still here) as well as having a large shrimp fishing fleet in the harbour.

We walked around town this afternoon, found an internet café and relaxed. We are going to church tomorrow and will leave afterward to make the next day to Charleston a shorter run.

Cow House Creek

Ok this is the last time I’m going to talk about this cold coming from Canada (north winds!) But a picture is worth a thousand words, check this guy out going fishing on his sea doo :) Anyways it warmed up really nice around noon.

There are a few casino boats that ply the waters here, this one comes in 4 times daily from the ocean where they have to go three miles off to legally gamble. My whole point of this, is I am glad we did not run into him on the ICW. There are also a few of these joy ride type of boats around that bring you out to the ocean and see if they can rattle a few of your teeth out :).

We went by Myrtle Beach today and this gondola is for one of the golf courses. You park on one side and get shuttled over to where the golf course is, I guess if you don’t like heights you don’t play here.

Most of the bridges are fixed and at 65’ (our mast is 52’) but they are still constructing new ones as shown by this picture.

We must be getting further south as we saw our first “fan boat” and it was a US coast guard one! We are anchored in a lovely spot behind an island in Cow House Creek for the night. There is a marina not far away that we took the dingy to and had a nice supper at the local pub.

Calabash river

Ok, two myths were broken today – one, that it is warm down here in North (now South) Carolina, it was 8 degrees today and two, that Canadians don’t mind the cold, at least Heather and I don’t like it….. The funny thing is, I was all bundled up and some of the locals in the fishing boats were not – I think they were having a hard time believing we are from Canada!

Speaking of locals, fishing must be the national past time here, everyone has some sort of fishing boat or are fishing off of docks or the beaches. Often there are kids, which you would think should be in school….. I was talking to someone fishing off the docks last night and I had never heard of any of the fish they were catching, but there seems to be quite a variety. Speaking of last night, Heather and Deb (from High ZZ’s) took their folding bikes and rode them into town. The bikes have very small wheels and reminds you what a clown would ride in the circus! Anyways, Heather wants a “clown bike” as many of the boats here use them and it would make getting around much easier.

There are a number of homes built on stands, especially the ones right on the ocean as seen in this grainy photo. Hurricane Irene, I believe hit the area a few years ago, perhaps this boat was a victim.

Some of the boats down here are pretty jacked up, when is one 275 HP not enough that you need three??? I have seen three 300 HP on the stern of a smaller boat, don’t know how they float.

The next picture is of one of the five bridges we went under today, you can always tell which pilings they want you to go between by the wooden framework in case you want to play Capt Crunch.

We arrived in a nice anchorage with some sand on the shore, it is called Calabash River and attached is my attempt at a panorama shoot of where we are.

Often we have been anchored just on the fringe of a free wi-fi hotspot, so I have ordered a wi-fi antenna that comes with a built in router that can be used hotspot so that we can access it from the computer and Ipad on the boat. It is to arrive in Charleston any day and we will pick it when we are there, hopefully it will work well, some of the cruisers are doing this and seem happy with it.

Southport

Well we had a slow morning and didn’t leave until 10:30, mostly because we were lazy and it was cold! Probably down to 12 or 13 degrees C, sorry, I know this isn’t getting me any sympathy but it really felt cold, I put a hat and gloves on! Blood must be getting thin or something……

There was only one tall bridge today, which did not need to be lifted. The steering is pretty critical in spots, esp going through “snows cut” where it is a narrow, rocky, and high current passage (full of fishing boats too). Not sure how the larger barges go through there or what would happen if the engine quit eek! No pictures because our concentration was on the passage. As you come out of the cut there are lots of buoys going to a marina and the buoys are reversed also, so it was a bit confusing. Once we got out into the “Fear river” (how did this get it’s name??) there was a strong current, which was with us for a change and winds also, so we were able to sail until Southport. There is very little anchorage available here so we have a marina slip for $40.00 with free laundry and wi-fi. Strange though, no cell coverage again!

Here is a picture of a unique house that we saw.

Forgot to mention that I picked up a great Sony short wave receiver at a used marine store in Oriental so this will allow us to listen to Chris Parkers weather and get lots of other local information in the Bahamas.

Note: pictures to follow when we get better service!

Wrightsville

Another early morning departure as there are very limited anchorages for the next little while and the ones that are there have limited room. Swansboro was a lovely little town and I (Heather) was very tempted to stay another day but had to remind myself that there are lots of quaint little towns down the way:)

We passed by Camp LeJeune today, we heard the firing yesterday and it started up again around 730 this morning but luckily it was somewhere other than over the ICW so we weren’t delayed. It was really loud today, mainly mortar fire with the odd machine guns for effect!

All was going well this morning, we had been travelling along a long straight stretch and were just entering a turn when we caught sight of this fellow coming our way! It’s very intimidating meeting another boat let alone something like this on these narrow passageways!

We got a kick out of the fact that one of the landmarks in our book today was a “pink house”… well they weren’t kidding… there was a pink house at that location! It was almost as cheerful as yesterdays lime green house.

Another landmark today was “a giraffe” and yup there was a giraffe!

Many of the houses are built on stilts due to the high flooding along the waterways, we even saw a mobile home on stilts…

The majority of houses again today were even more opulent than previous ones, we still haven’t figured out how there is so much money down here!

The shoaling seemed a little more prevalent today, a little trawler just in front of us ran hard aground but was able to free himself with a bit of rocking.

We had three opening bridges today so we had to watch our timing more today, but it all worked out fairly well. We reached our initial destination around 1pm today so decided to continue on and were able to reach Wrightsville by 5pm, we were surprised that we made 55 miles today! We set anchor and were ready to hit the town by the time Shep and Deb from High ZZ’s dinghy’d over to our boat. Again we were treated to a beautiful little town albit more of younger beach town feel to it. The four of us had a nice walk to stretch our legs and then enjoyed Taco Tuesday at a little Mexican Restaurant.

Note: pictures to follow when we get better service!

Swansboro

Our evening last night ended with a trip to the local Methodist Church where they were holding a bluegrass/Gospel concert with a local well known group, it was a packed house and the music was fantastic!

We were up at the crack of dawn again this morning (retirement is rough!) and heading out of the harbour by 715. It was a chilly morning, so much so that I even had to put socks on! We thought that we were the early birds but once out there we saw several boats ahead of us and at least 5 or 6 behind us, not hard to tell that it is migration time!

As we headed across the river to the next canal we could see numerous Dolphins up ahead. I (Heather) took the camera up to the bow to try to get a decent picture of them and got quite a start as 3 of them popped up below me at our bow! They followed along for a few minutes darting ahead and under the boat.

We entered thick fog as we approached the canal but we could see several other boats ahead of us plus 2 shrimp trawlers just before the fog engulfed us… thank goodness for radar and that the fog was short lived.

Approaching one of the bridges we could see this was an anchoring area for the many large barges that we see been pushed by tug boats along the waterways. Not sure what they transport in these but there are lots of them.

Richard spotted a really cool lime green house along the way, how could you not be happy in such a cheerful looking house :) Funny thing was when we arrived at our destination today I was telling Deb who is on one of our buddy boats about it and she knew exactly what house it was, it’s a favourite of hers as well!

 Our last 20 miles today was along Bogue Sound from Morehead City to Swansboro it is quite a wide area (about 2 miles across) but only about 1-3 feet deep except for a narrow dredged channel, thankfully there weren’t any fishing bouys but there were LOTS of fishing boats, in this one little area I counted 21 of them!

Approaching Swansboro we got a little taste of what we are in for tomorrow… a few miles past here lies Camp Lejeune, an army base where the live firing can be heard for miles. Seems that we must sail right through this area and may have to stop to wait for a break in the firing before we can proceed… interesting.

We arrived in Swansboro around 3pm well behind Deb and Shep on High ZZZ’z and just ahead of Steve on Slow Flight, perfect timing for Deb and I to hit a few stores and then join the men on the local deck to watch the other boats arrive, it just doesn’t get much better !

Note: pictures to follow when we get better service!

Oriental

I want to call this entry the “ICW Conundrum”. We left the anchorage and when we got out to the bay there were already 7 or 8 sailboats blasting down the river under full sail. There are more boats as we continue south so it sort of feels like jumping onto a freeway with everybody going as fast as they can. The problem, is that there are only so many good ancorages and docks at the next locaton. As a rule, the larger boats go faster, passing the smaller boats getting the better spots first! As it was, we had a great sail for a couple hours, then went through a windy river, finally out to Neuse Bay and then into Oriental, North Carolina. We were able to procure one of the limited free docks along with 3 of the other boats that we have been travelling with. You are allowed two days at the dock so we plan on staying for both days. Oriental is a very cruiser friendly town, with free bicycles available at the local boating store. Here is a picture of Heather on her new wheels, she likes the basket - me, not so much! We had a great ride around town and picked up some groceries and fresh fish. Later that evening we got together on Steves’ boat (Island Packet 38) for a Southern Boil! Steve and Heather both shared in the cooking (Heather under Steve’s direction). A Southern Boil is potatoes, peppers, sausage and shrimp all boiled up with lots of Old Bay Spice! It was delicious. Here’s a picture of us enjoying supper on Steves’ boat.

Sunday morning we enjoyed the service at the local Baptist Church. We saw this cool mailbox on the way and had to get a picture of it.  

By the way this is the third day with no cell phone coverage, maybe tomorrow!

Slade Creek

Well each day must sound the same to everybody, “we got up early, motored and or sailed to our next destination”.  But this is what we do every day to continue south. Anyways, we did the same today!!!! We had another canal to go into (Alligator-Pungo river canal) as you can see it is wider and mostly deeper than the last one we were in. We were loosely travelling with 7-8 other boats, which all left the same anchorage as us this morning. A boat that arrived late yesterday afternoon was a small catamaran from Quebec, there were three men doing a delivery to Florida, they were also with us. It was funny to hear some of the communications of certain boats trying to get a hold of others, only half of the sentence being transmitted etc, sort of reminded us of talking to F18’s on the radio :) With us all travelling en mass it sort of feels like a bit of an interstate as most people leave about the same time and often travel to the same anchorages. One of the boats had an engine that kept overheating and as this is a very isolated area it is not a spot that you want a problem. Anyways one of the boats was able to get a message to a towing service that was going to go help him in. I presume this canal water level had been lower in the past as there is a lot of old tree trunks in the water as you see by this picture. Again the trees and vegetation are different from a few days ago as shown by this picture. We are in a nicely isolated and quiet anchorage (one other boat) for the night, on to Oriental tomorrow.

Alligator River

We spent the day yesterday looking around Elizabeth City but it started pouring  buckets which put a bit of a damper on more exploring. In the evening a women came up and talked to us as she had heard us talk in one of the stores that we were from Nova Scotia and she was from Weymouth NS and living here now! We ran into a person at the dock that also has a Tartan 37 which Heather and I met last year when he was cruising Nova Scotia. In fact we met him in Baddeck and at the docks at our club – small world.

The forecast for today ended up being much better than forecast (or I accidentally looked at the 20 NM offshore report - DOH) so we were up early and were moving at 7:00 as you can see by the picture. What you can’t see are the other 5-6 boats that were following behind us!  Elizabeth City is home to the largest Coast Guard station which is responsible for doing rescues all the way up to Alaska if needed! Also on the station is a huge hanger for air blimps and we were treated to some tests they were doing this morning. The breeze came up and we were able to sail to the Alligator river bridge, which needs to be open for us to go through. There were four of us boats in a bit of a “formation” as we approached so they let us all through at the same time. Supposedly there are NO alligators here, but come on, it got it’s name from somewhere – think Iceland :) There are not a lot of good anchorages here but we are tucked behind a spit of land that should help for the forecast west winds.

After we got in we were invited to a boat called “High ZZ” for a drink, we had meet them a few days previously. Tomorrow we do another canal but with no locks.

Elizabeth City

We left the Dismal Swamp welcome center at 9:00 as the next lock to go through was about an hour away and was due to open at 11:00.

The visibility for steering the boat when in tight areas is not the best, especially with the dinghy on the deck, so I found the best was to stand on the seat behind the wheel and steer with my feet! Not the best after a while. This morning I just tied a couple of ropes onto the wheel and it was sooo much easier, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it yesterday!!! “stupid is what stupid does…….” Well actually Forest probably would have thought of it yesterday :)

Here is a picture of Heather using the ropes.

We got to the lock early and had to tie up on a wall before the gates, as it was, we were the only ones there for this “lock ride”. Usually this time of year it is quite full.

After leaving the lock we noticed that the canal is a bit wider and another foot deeper, I think this is because it is actually part of the Pasquotank River and not the 22 mile hand dug part. As the river slowly continued to widened we started seeing more of these types of trees which are very distinctive with the wider base near the trunk, I started looking for alligators as I figured we were in the Bayou :)

We also came across one of the rare “chair trees” which are found through out Canada, but this is the first one we have seen here!

After a few more hours we came to Elizabeth City, oh yah, we are now in North Carolina and it is getting warmer…….. We had to call on ch 13 to get the main bridge lifted to go under, I feel guilty holding up busy traffic in both directions while we go under, so we go as quick as we can.

Right after the bridge was our destination, Elizabeth City marina where you can stay 2 days for free! They also have a wine and cheese reception if there are over five new boats in, which there was. At the reception they gave us good information about the area and we got to meet some other cruisers. But I am getting ahead of myself, we were expecting a dock to go to, but all there is, is four pilings (one for each corner of the boat) and you are somehow supposed to magically place your boat in the middle of this with the wind driving you at 20 knots onto shore, eek!

Before trying this nightmare out, I put every fender and we had out, with the thought that if I played pinball with the pilings that the damage would be minimized…..

I also brought out these devices that attach to a boat hook which makes a loop of rope, in the hopes that we could lasso the stern pilings to stop the boat from crunching. There are also different width’s of pilings available, the boat is just under 12’ wide, so we could have chosen the 13’, but instead went with the 15’ wide space.  

Anyways, despite the crazy wind and never having done this before it worked out ok and of course everybody is watching from shore also……

The next 2-3 days are high winds and 5-7 ‘ waves for the Albemarle Sound, which they advised us not to go out in with this weather as it is shallow (18’) and the waves can be really bad, so we may be stuck here for a bit, plus watching the latest hurricane…..

  

Dismal Swamp vistor center

We left Portsmouth at 8 am and had to pass by many ship repair facilities until we got to our first opening bridge, it normally opens on the half hour but there were 3 boats in a row so they opened early for us. Shortly after the bridge we turned into the Great Dismal Swamp which was constructed from 1793 to 1805 by manual labour of slaves. It is a 22 mile long canal that joins Virginia to North Carolina. The swamp is quite narrow and about 6 feet deep and has many logs and various debris that needs to be avoided. We encountered our first lock at mile 10 and were the fourth boat in, here are some pictures of the lock…

The water level raised approximately 10 feet in 15 minutes letting in around a million gallons of water. The trick according to the lockmaster is to keep the stern tight to the walls while letting the bow swing away as the water is rising.

 We didn’t see much wildlife other than a lot of turtles on logs. Take a look at this picture… look real close… (especially you Scott) do you know what it is???   This is the colour of the water in the swamp, it is stained from the tannins in the cypress trees.  Besides the fascinating colour of the water (?) it is very straight and the only view is the trees on either side of the canal. At mile 27 we tapped something in the water (probably an underwater log) even though we were being very careful looking ahead.  At mile 28 we arrived at the Dismal Swamp Visitors Centre, where you can stay for free overnight and also has lots of information for the ICW all the way to Florida. Often boats raft up to 3 deep on the dock, at this point there are only two of us so we are both next to the dock. There are 3 more lock openings today so we may see more boats here yet.