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Trawling the ICW, day 1

This is a diary of my trip down the ICW. Unlike most of my writing, this will be more "pictures" than "writing". The first day is decribed on this page. To see other days of the trip, click on the proper box at the bottom of this page.

The IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) is a collection of rivers and canals that follow the Atlantic coast from roughly New York to Texas. If there are 2 things my sailboat "Spirit" hates, they would be "shallow water" and "bridges". The ICW has plenty of both. So, a trip down the ICW in Spirit did not seem like the best way to experience this waterway. Even if I had a power boat, my limited annual vacation allowance would not permit me to see very much of the waterway, especially since half my vacation time would be spent returning to my home base in Norfolk. But, I still wanted to see as much of the ICW as possible. The answer was to sign up as a crew member on someone else's yacht. I put an ad on both the internet and a local boating magazine, advertising my availability as crew. I finally got lucky, and was able to hook up with a boat traveling from Baltimore to the Bahamas in the fall of 2007. I would crew on the portion of the trip from Charleston to West Palm Beach.

I drove from Norfolk to Charleston on a rainy fall day to meet Captain Frank and his boat "Sea Smoke", a Grand Banks 36 trawler. The other crew member for this portion of the trip was first mate "Di Di", a very friendly little white dog. It was a pleasant drive through Virginia and the Carolinas. The trees were turning color as a cold front brought alternating rain showers and sun showers to I-95. My new toy, a GPS for the car, took me from my marina in Norfolk to the marina in Charleston without any need to consult a paper map. Frank met me on the dock in Charleston and helped me settle into the v-berth on Sea Smoke. I made arrangements with the marina to leave my car in their parking lot for 2 weeks. That evening, Frank treated me to a delightful dinner of blackened halibut at a local restaurant. It was pretty chilly that evening as we accompanied Di Di on her pre-bedtime walk, but in general things looked good for an early morning departure the next day.

It was a little on the "brisk" side when we pulled away from the dock on the following morning at sunrise. But, the winds were forecast to calm down and it sounded like pretty reasonable traveling weather for November. We left behind quite a collection of boats at the Charleston City Marina. At one extreme, there were some old old sailing vessels, apparently undergoing some sort of refit or renovation. At the other extreme, there was a small cruise ship and a monster mega-yacht. In between were pleasure boats, big and small, sail and power, of every description.

I had never taken a trip in a power boat for any significant distance. I have always been a sailboat kind of guy. So, this trip on a Grand Banks trawler would be a learning experience for me. The first thing I learned is that the trawler crowd is much more rational than the sailboat crowd. That is, if ANY of us could be considered "rational" after spending zillions of dollars on a depreciating asset. Anyway, I knew from first hand experience that sailors often lean toward the "spartin" side of life. Many sailors would not think twice about heading off on a cold morning with 18 layers of insulated underwear, fleece-this, wool-that, foul weather gear, and gloves. They then spend the next several hours in an open cockpit freezing their ass off in the wind. There are good reasons why the words "crazy" and "sailor" so often appear in the same sentence (hey, I resemble that remark!). The trawler weenies have a marvelous invention for this very type of user-unfriendly weather. It is called "inside steering". After leaving the marina, you stow the dock lines, go inside the cabin, close the door, and steer the boat in a comfortable "room temperature" environment. And if you lack for entertainment, you can either turn on the stereo, or get out the binoculars and the watch all the sailors pass by in their parkas.

Although all trawlers are probably a little different, there are 2 disadvantages to inside steering on Sea Smoke. Item one is that there is no seat at the inside helm station; something that Frank is already thinking about changing. Item two is that you have no idea what is coming up behind your boat unless you step outside to look. You can say what you will about us crazy sailor types, but one thing we excel in is aft-ward visibility. Of course, half our forward visibility is obscured by those pesky sails, but we can REALLY see where we have been. Since pleasure boating is rapidly turning into a sort of electronics game (he who has the most computers wins), I think the trawler weenies should consider a rear facing video camera, with a display monitor mounted somewhere in the inside steering station. The other option, of course, is to just ignore what is back there, or heaven forbid, step outside occasionally to look.

As we neared our destination in the Beaufort area, Sea Foam's engine decided it was not feeling well. It would loose rpm's, and then climb back to normal rpm's for a while before loosing rpm's once again. For a while, I was very concerned. There was a bridge we needed to pass though ahead, and I was deep into thought as to where and when we should anchor, how I should help with the anchor windlass, and what were the most likely things we should check down in the engine room. But then, suddenly, the most wonderful thing happened; I remembered I was just the crew person, not the captain. What a great discovery! I would simply do what I was told to do, and someone else (i.e. Captain Frank) would sweat the details. Wow, being a crew weenie has definite advantages. We ended up getting to our planned destination despite the engine's complaints, and Captain Frank fixed the problem that evening by doing some work on the Racor fuel filters.

While Frank was playing out his role as diesel engine doctor, I grabbed the marina courtesy car for a brief grocery hunting safari. Actually, it was a courtesy "truck". Having driven cars most of my life, I'm amazed that anyone would voluntarily choose to drive a truck. Compared to my car, it was like trying to drive an aircraft carrier down the street. My quest for food brought me to the local "Piggley Wiggley" grocery store. Despite the somewhat questionable name, the store had everything I needed.

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