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ICW trip #3, trip log
Wed Nov 10
I picked up a rental car in the morning at the Norfolk
airport, and headed for Annapolis along the Eastern
Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. I was pretty lucky to be
going on another IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) trip as
crew on another boat. The previous year, I had tried
and failed to find a crewing position. This year, my
ad in "Spinsheet" magazine (an Annapolis boating
magazine) had struck pay dirt. I would be gone from
work for 3 weeks, helping out as crew on a sailboat
moving from Annapolis to Florida. I wasn't sure
exactly where I would be in three weeks, but no matter
where I was, I had to return to work at that time. The
drive to Annapolis was a pretty one, as all the trees
were decked out in their fall colors. It was a nice
uneventful trip, with a brief stop-over in Kent
Narrows to buy some groceries. Then, I jumped over the
Chesapeake Bay Bridge and let the Garmin GPS guide me
to the marina address.
Captain Chris, my "boss"
for the next 3 weeks, turned out to be a great guy.
Crewing for someone you have never met in person is
always a little risky, but so far I had been pretty
lucky with the crewing game, and this trip would not
be an exception. Although retired, Chris was still
very fit and active, with an impressive resume of
sailing experience. His boat, "Ticket To Ride", was
equally impressive; a Celestial 50 motor-sailor. The
boat was only 12 years old. Everything about it seemed
new and strong and spacious. It was not the trawler
that I had hoped to crew on, but it had many
trawler-like attributes, including a large main salon
well above the waterline, and inside steering. I would
be sleeping in the v-berth in the front of the boat.
It turned out to be a very roomy and comfortable
berth. There was a head (bathroom) adjacent to my
berth, but I believe the toilet was hooked up to a
holding tank, which Chris did not want to use. So,
Chris told me to use the head in his aft stateroom any
time I needed it. The aft stateroom, in addition to
having a great bed, also had sort of a half-bathtub in
the adjacent head. It turned out to be a pretty
practical design, since you could either do a bath or
a shower in there without having to worry about being
pitched from one side of the bathroom to the other as
the boat rolled around out in the sea, and this boat
was made for serious ocean sailing.
I had a little daylight
left after we both returned our rental cars, so I went
for a walk in the neighborhood near sunset. I saw some
pretty impressive homes, many of them waterfront.
There was also a lot of wildlife, including a nonstop
supply of Canadian geese, and some deer munching on
lawn grass who looked at me with an expression that
seemed to say, "Oh how boring; another biped" and then
they returned to munching more grass. Chris treated me
to dinner at a waterfront restaurant that we
reached with the dinghy. Then, it was back the
boat for a good night's sleep before the start of our
little southbound adventure.
Thu Nov 11
It was cool but sunny as we cast off our lines from
the dock where Chris and his boat had spent the
summer. We had a little excitement when we took a
buoy on the wrong side and put the keel into the mud.
But, the muddy Chesapeake is generally very forgiving
of that sort of thing, and Chris was able to back
"Ticket" off the shallows and maneuver back into the
channel. It was a shallow little creek, but Chris was
able to negotiate the rest of the creek without
incident. We made a brief stop at the Annapolis
waterfront to take on fuel, then headed out into the
Bay. The captain was not motivated to spend any more
time than necessary in the Chesapeake, so he opted for
sailing nonstop through the day and night, which
should put us on the ICW by the next morning. I have
never been much of a fan of overnight passages, but I
figured that one night out should be no big deal. The
boat was very easy to handle. The only challenging
part was avoiding all the crab pot buoys.
The sun was trying it's
best to warm things up, but it was in a loosing battle
with a wind that was cool during the day and downright
cold after sunset. "Ticket" has a cockpit that is
enclosed on 3 sides, but open in the back. This was an
entirely satisfactory configuration in warm weather,
but in cold climates, if the wind was on the beam or
the quarter, the helmsman should plan on wearing some
warm clothing. To get through the night, I ended up
wearing all the cold weather clothing I had brought on
the trip. My secret weapon was a heavy wool sweater,
given to me by my brother and his wife years ago. I
had learned that if that sweater could not keep me
warm, then nothing could. We stood 3 hour watches
through the night, and watched the usual parade of
tugs and ships slip by in the darkness. "Ticket" had a
nice chart plotter at the helm, and a radar in the
main cabin that could be seen from the helm, so we had
plenty of electronic helpers to get us through the
night. I especially liked the "blinking buoys" on the
chart plotter, which blinked on the plotter at the
same rate that they blinked out in the Bay during the
night. We never used the inside steering station on
this night or any other time during the trip. I got
off watch around 2am, and headed below to warm up and
grab a little sleep. I will never cease to be amazed
at how anyone can sleep with all the noises of a
sailboat under way at night, but I did manage to catch
some z's as Chris guided us through the black waters
of the Chesapeake with that cold north wind chasing us
from behind.
Fri Nov 12
The boat had been a little rolly at 2am when I came
off watch, but nothing extreme. When I woke up shortly
before 5am, however, things had changed significantly.
Even in my berth, it was pretty clear that "Ticket"
was a little stressed. This theory was reinforced a
few minutes later when a large lurch sent a case full
of Diet Cokes onto the floor, where the individual
cans made a desperate dash for freedom on the cabin
sole. I returned the Diet Cokes into bondage in the
forward head, where they would at least stay out of
mischief for a while, then headed for the cockpit. It
took me a little while to get my bearings, but I
eventually began to sort things out. The marina where
I keep my boat was actually just a little ways off to
port. Instead of taking the shortcut through the crab
pot buoy minefield, Chris had opted to swing wide and
approach the Hampton Roads area via the Thimble Shoal
ship channel. I don't think the wind had really
increased a lot, but the turn into Thimble Shoal
channel had put both the wind and the waves on our
beam, which accounted for the boat's lively motion.
The Thimble Shoal channel is typically a fairly busy
place, and the pre dawn darkness on that morning was
no exception. We were encouraged to get the hell out
of the main shipping channel by a tug boat operator,
who suggested that everyone might be better off if we
shifted over to the auxiliary channel, which was just
outside of the "green side" of the channel (that is,
the side of the channel where the "green" buoys mark
the edge of the channel). Of course, all this
maneuvering had to be done at the same time that we
were dodging ship traffic and trying not to run into
too many buoys. But, Chris successfully ran the
obstacle course, and as the eastern sky began to
brighten, we began to make the transition from the
Chesapeake to the ICW.
Bridges were now a new
factor in our little floating universe, and would
continue to be so all the way to Florida. But, "the
Force was with us", and we seemed to accidentally show
up at one bridge after another at just about the right
time to get the bridge to open up for us. We had a bit
of a wait for a freight train, but aside from that, we
seemed to do pretty well with the Norfolk bridges. And
believe me, Norfolk has a LOT of bridges for the ICW
boaters to deal with. In Norfolk, you have to decide
whether to stick to the main ICW channel, or take a
side trip through the Dismal Swamp Canal, which
eventually hooks back up with the main ICW channel
further south. The Dismal Swamp is kind of a cool
place. I have kayaked portions of it. But, it is a
little too shallow for a deep draft ocean going
sailboat like "Ticket". So, we stuck with the main
channel, and Chris got to go through his first set of
locks at the town of Great Bridge. By the time we tied
up in Coinjock, we had been through a pretty
interesting day in 2 different states. We had made it
down the Chesapeake in the middle of the night, dodged
shipping traffic in the Thimble Shoal channel, passed
high rise buildings and ship yards and cargo terminals
in downtown Norfolk, played hide and seek with bridges
and a lock, and passed through both narrow channels
and wide open water as we passed from Virginia to
North Carolina. Needless to say, neither of us had a
problem getting to sleep that night. As a matter of
fact, I didn't even recall my head hitting the pillow.
Sat Nov 13
"The Davit Factor". I had seen it on my previous
trawler trip, and now I occasionally watched it play
out again on "Ticket". Davits are metal brackets that
hang over the stern of a boat. The boat's little
inflatable dinghy is then lifted up from the water to
the davits with ropes and pulleys. It's a very cool
way to quickly get your dinghy up out of the water
when the big boat is traveling from here to there.
And, when you get to "there", it is quick and easy to
drop the dinghy back into the water. I didn't have
davits on my boat, and when I was cruising, getting
the dinghy and the gas engine on and off the boat was
a major production. But, I didn't have to deal with
"The Davit Factor" either. The problem is pilings
which support the dock you are leaving. If you depart
the dock with the usual technique of going forward and
turning out, the bow of the boat pivots away from
the dock, but the stern pivots toward the dock. Since
the davits and dinghy are hanging out over the stern,
this puts the dinghy in harm's way if there are tall
pilings sticking up at intervals along the dock. With
no current or wind, you can typically avoid problems
caused by "The Davit Factor" by just being careful,
and Chris was very experienced. In the case of
"Ticket", you typically use the bow thruster to move
the bow well away from the dock, then you put the boat
in gear. This moves the entire boat, including the
davits and dinghy, away from the dock and any pilings
very quickly. But, on this morning, there was an
additional parameter in the equation; "tidal current"
flowing into the stern of our boat. And, things were
complicated by the fact that we had yachts tied up in
front of us and behind us.
It was obvious to me from
the beginning that the typical bow-first exit from
Coinjock was not going to happen in that current, even
with "Ticket's" powerful bow thruster. I made sure
that Chris was aware of the current, but that was as
far as I was willing to go. I simply don't have the
balls to tell a captain how to maneuver his boat. We
made an initial attempt at leaving the dock bow first,
and I was expecting the worse. But, as I said, Chris
was very experienced, and in the end he was able to
maneuver away from the dock and the pilings and the
other boats in reverse. There is actually a way to
handle this kind of situation, but I hardly ever see
it used. The technique is to first loop a bow line
around a dock cleat or piling, and bring both ends of
the line aboard the boat. The crew releases all
the other dock lines and hops aboard. The captain then
puts the engine in forward gear and turns the steering
wheel toward the dock. The boat can't move forward
because that one bow line is still attached. But, the
force of the water, being flung against the deflected
rudder by the propeller, moves the stern (and the
davits and the dinghy) away from the dock. At some
point in time, based solely on the captain's judgment,
3 things have to change very quickly. The rudder is
centered, the engine is put in reverse gear, and the
crew has to release one end of that remaining dock
line and pull in the other end. If it happens
correctly, the boat backs away from the dock at an
angle. Eventually, the captain puts the boat into
forward gear, and off you go. It's kind of a
complicated maneuver, but in the right conditions it's
a pretty cool tool to have in your captain's bag of
tricks.
There were 2 things in
Coinjock that caught my eye. One was a cute little
blue house on the waterfront that was for sale. I
thought it would be a great place to live, since you
could gawk at all the boats passing by on the ICW.
However, in a town as small as Coinjock, that might be
one of the few recreational pursuits available. The
other thing that caught my eye was the little fishing
skiff loaded with pine tree boughs. I thought it was
great that the locals were collecting live pine boughs
for Christmas decorations. It was a nice peaceful
illusion while it lasted, but it didn't last long. Out
on the ICW that morning, we began to pass little
fishing skiffs camouflaged with pine boughs with duck
hunters inside. Surrounding the camouflaged skiff were
duck decoys. Even the duck decoys have gone high tech.
The hunters now use a mechanism that goes round and
round (battery power, I assume) and makes a constant
splashing in the water, similar to a duck beating it's
wings on the water. Gotta love it. Stay tuned next
season for the laser guided duck missile, with remote
satellite control, that will allow next year's duck
hunters to track targets, lock on, and fire. It will
be similar to an F-18 launching a missile, but instead
of calling out "fox-3", it will be "duck-3". All this
will be done remotely, so the hunter can bag a few
ducks from his living room while watching football;
much better than sitting in a cold fishing skiff
surrounded by pine boughs and listening to distant
unflattering comments from passing ICW sailboats (and
yes, the duck-blaster missile system will have an
optional yacht-blaster add-on).
We passed a "dredge parade"
that morning. I had never seen anything quite like it.
It was a long line of dredge vessels all tied
together; barge after barge loaded with huge dredge
pipes, big momma dredge boats, little tiny tug boats
in the middle to move the center of the parade a
little left or a little right as required, and
everything tied in line to the big ass tug boat in
front that pulled the whole parade down the ICW. We
overtook the parade in fairly open water, so we had
lots of room to pass. Other than the "dredge parade",
there were the usual group of yachts, all going south
for the winter. Some were power and some were sail,
but for the most part they were typically under power,
following that magical "magenta line" on the charts
and electric chart plotters that kept everyone out of
the shallows.
By late afternoon, Chris
and I had decided to do something kind of naughty;
travel a portion of the ICW at night. We had various
justifications for this action; too early in the day
to anchor, plenty of moonlight to navigate, the
miracle of gps chart plotters, the fact that Chris had
the world's largest flashlight on his boat, and the
fact that the Alligator River Pungo River Canal
was so straight that you could probably set the
autopilot at one end and then read a book until you
popped out the other end. But the real appeal, I
think, was that doing this was a little naughty. No
one ran the ICW at night. We weren't sure why they
never ran it at night, but we were equally sure that
we could probably pull it off. And, if we accidentally
survived, there would be a certain amount of bragging
rights. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I
think maybe it's a "guy thing".
At first, it was very
pleasant. The canal, though narrow, was heavily wooded
and very peaceful and intimate as we moved toward
sunset. We passed a sailboat at anchor in the canal.
They were in one of the wider sections of the canal,
so we had no trouble getting around them. It seemed
like such a cool, quiet spot to spend the night. But,
as the light began to fade, things started getting
interesting. The chart plotter knew about where the
canal was, but it didn't always seem to know "exactly"
where the canal was. So, we had to keep one eye on the
chart plotter, and one eye on the banks of the canal.
Later in the evening, while I was messing about inside
the cabin, Chris took the boat under the 64' Wilkerson
Bridge. Most all the "fixed" bridges (i.e. non-opening
bridges) had 65' clearance at high tide. Chris had
measured his mast to be roughly 64' to the top of the
VHF antenna. When Chris had done his navigational
homework for the day, he had noted the potential
problem at this bridge, since bridge height and mast
height seemed to be the same number. I had also
listened to a Coast Guard broadcast earlier in the day
about a low pressure system off the coast generating
higher than normal surf in the Cape Hatteras area,
causing some minor coastal flooding. It was possible
that those high tides made the squeeze under the
bridge a little more "squeezy" than normal. In any
event, when I got back on deck, Chris reported he had
heard the VHF antenna go "ting! ting! ting!" as it
bounced across the underside of the bridge beams.
Of course, the most
interesting development that evening was the darkness.
Even before it got really dark, I had trouble seeing
stuff. It was light enough to ruin my night vision,
but dark enough so that I couldn't see much of
anything. And, once it got really dark, we basically
couldn't see shit. To add a little extra spice to what
was already turning out to be a spicy evening, the red
markers, which were normally on our right side for 99%
of the southbound ICW trip, now switched over to being
on our left side; all as darkness fell. Fortunately,
we were partially saved by a navigational screw-up. We
had calculated we would be running for about an hour
in the darkness. But, in the calculation, we mixed ICW
mileage (using "statute" miles) with our normal boat
speed in knots (which uses "nautical" miles). Bottom
line: we got out of that narrow canal sooner than
expected, to our great relief. I tried to help out as
much as I could, attempting to identify flashing
navigational beacons with my little binoculars. But,
Chris was in charge of most of the navigating, and he
did a great job with the chart plotter of getting us
to the place he wanted to anchor, and then anchoring
the boat in the Pungo River, all in the darkness. We
were both delighted to be out of the channel with the
"hook" down for the night.
Sun Nov 14
Sunday morning was foggy in the extreme. The skipper
joked that since we arrived in the dark, it was only
fitting that we leave in the fog. Tempting though it
was to rush in where angles fear to tread, we remained
at anchor until the visibility improved. We only had a
short distance to cover on that day, so no need to
hurry. When it was finally safe enough to raise the
anchor, I saw something truly amazing going down the
channel; the "dredge parade". It was amazing because
of two things. First, the "dredge parade" captain had
not only negotiated the Alligator River Pungo
River Canal in near zero visibility, but it seemed
likely that he had done at least part of it, or
possibly all of it, in the dark. Second, I started
wondering about the sailboat we had passed the
previous evening, peacefully sitting at anchor in the
canal. I imagined the captain and crew being sound
asleep in the foggy darkness, when suddenly, their
universe is lit up by a huge spotlight on the big ass
tug at the front of the "dredge parade". Then, VHF
channel 16 would come to life with a transmission
something like this:
"Yacht at anchor in the
canal. Yacht at anchor in the canal. This is a big ass
tugboat, pulling several ga-zillion ton dredge barges
through the canal. I have your anchored vessel on my
radar screen, Captain. Please be advised that your ass
is toast. Over..."
There is simply no way,
children, that the "dredge parade" was going to stop
and back up when it encountered that sleepy little
sailboat at anchor. And it sure as hell was not going
to stop and back up in the middle of the night in all
that fog. After thinking about it, I came to the
conclusion that it was entirely possible that a large
commercial vessel might intentionally negotiate a
narrow canal at night, since by doing so, it would not
be bothered by a bunch of amateur yachtie captains
trying to pass on one side or another. Or, maybe the
"dredge parade" just went along at some slow, steady
speed that made it necessary to pull through the canal
at night. Either way, this may very well be one of the
strongest arguments for staying off the ICW at night,
at least on the narrower sections of the waterway.
Meeting another vessel in one of those narrow canals,
especially a big ass commercial vessel, ESPECIALLY at
night, might be a "been there, done that, got the
t-shirt" encounter that most yachtie captains could do
without.
Despite the late morning
start, we arrived in Belhaven around lunchtime. I had
a nice long walk around town, and managed to stumble
on an old railroad switching engine (I love trains)
during my walk. The tides were high again that day,
and the local water level was obviously a little
higher than normal. It was the first time I had ever
seen minnows swimming in the stagnant water on the
edge of a street next to a storm drain. Belhaven is
obviously not the place to be in a hurricane when it
gets to be "storm surge" time. Another interesting
thing about Belhaven was the cobwebs. They seemed to
be everywhere, and hung from the rigging of the
sailboats like some movie about a haunted pirate ship.
The next morning, though, I did not see one trace of
the cobwebs anywhere. Go figure.
Mon Nov 15
We had a lot of miles to do on Monday, but after our
lazy day in Belhaven, we were ready for it. The day
was filled with all the variety that the ICW has to
offer; big open water sections, intimate little narrow
canals, and all colored with the turning leaves of
autumn. The skipper was constantly talking about
places he would like to come back and explore with his
little Melonseed sailing dinghy, and I was constantly
thinking about similar explorations in my kayak. There
are so many secret little backwater areas that you
could never explore them all. But, it would be fun
trying, as long as you were able to pick days warm
enough to stay comfortable, and cool enough to keep
the bugs in their little bug-homes. The biggest
challenge of the day came at the very end of the day.
Chris had arranged for overnight moorage at a marina
near Oriental, but the slip we were assigned was
cross-ways to a significant tidal current. This is a
very tough landing for just about any captain. No
matter what you do on the approach, you can pretty
much count on bashing into some docks or pilings
before everything comes to a halt. I was glad I wasn't
driving. We made it in there, but it wasn't pretty.
Building a dock that is cross-ways to a strong current
is one of the worst ideas in the history of bad ideas.
The good thing about the marina is that it was a part
of a huge boatyard with boats of every description all
over the place. We took a quick walk through the yard
just before it started getting dark, and if you enjoy
gawking at boats as I do, it was heaven. I could have
easily spent much longer wandering around that yard,
but not in the dark. That evening, the tidal current
turned and it became necessary to adjust some of our
dock lines. It was here that I made a major screw up.
I released the slack starboard bow line in order to
make it possible to pull in on the port bow line. But,
I never retied the starboard bow line. When the
current reversed again before morning, that untied bow
line could have gotten us in a lot of trouble. But, we
lucked out, and mother nature did not impose any stiff
penalty for my forgetfulness. Could have been
different, though.
Tue Nov 16
In the morning, Chris managed to make a fairly
graceful exit from "the slip from hell", despite the
tidal current that was running. One of the tools at
his disposal that made our graceful exit possible was
the bow thruster. "Ticket" was the first boat I had
been on for any length of time with a bow thruster,
and I was very impressed. They are no guarantees that
docking and undocking will always be easy, as was
demonstrated by our landing the previous evening, and
also by our departure from Coinjock. But in most
cases, bow thrusters make life much easier when
maneuvering the boat in close quarters. The problem
with boats such as mine which do not have a bow
thruster is that the rudder is typically effective
only when the boat is moving through the water at a
pretty good clip. If the boat is sitting still (or
moving very slowly, which is typically the case when
you are going in or out of a marina slip), the rudder
is next to useless. Sometimes, you can "gun" the
engine forward, and the prop will throw enough water
back against the rudder so that the rudder has at
least some effect. However, if you gun the engine in
reverse gear, you get little or no rudder control.
Occasionally, you can use the wind to your advantage
to drift the boat in the desired direction, but just
as often, the wind is blowing from an unfavorable
direction. One drawback of the bow thruster is that,
oddly enough, it only moves the bow sideways; not the
entire boat (unless you have one thruster in the bow
and another one in the stern). But, in most cases, the
bow thruster is a great tool for maneuvering the boat
in and out of slips and docks. Chris also showed me
how the thruster could be used to turn the boat around
in a very narrow channel, which we had to do from time
to time. No doubt about it, bow thrusters are way
cool.
For the first time on our
trip, we actually ran into a little rain. We were
passing through the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps area,
and through the rain came some camouflaged little
gunboats full of camouflaged passengers (but not one
camouflaged umbrella!). Hardly anyone waved from the
first boat, but by the time the last boat went by,
just about everyone was waving a friendly greeting.
Any bets on which boat the "boss" was in? I almost ran
the boat aground that day while I was steering.
Usually, you are pretty safe if you pay attention to
the chart plotter and keep the boat on the "magenta
line" that defines the official ICW channel location.
But, that doesn't work 100% of the time. Occasionally,
the magenta line was just drawn in the wrong place.
Not often, but occasionally. Also, local shoaling can
create shallow spots that form much faster than the
ability of the mapping agency to put the shallow spot
on a chart. A "dredge parade" can also quickly remove
a shallow area. The bottom line is that you keep the
boat on the magenta line until the magenta line
started taking you into shallow water. Then, the depth
sounder became your best friend. I had noticed some
shallow spots pass by on the "magenta line" course, so
I started trying to sniff out the main channel by
making little course corrections port and starboard,
and watching the depth sounder to see if the change
took us into slightly shallower or slightly deeper
water. I was having better luck on the left side of
the channel, when suddenly things started getting
shallow again. Before I could move us further to
starboard (and there was nothing written in stone to
say that is where the deeper water was) we bounced a
few times on the bottom. Then, deep water again. It
would not be the last time we had to deal with these
invisible underwater "humps".
Chris booked us a marina
slip that night in the town of Surf City. This place
could have been the poster child for small town ocean
tourist communities. It had hot dog stands and surf
shops and beach front condos for rent and a nice
viewing area to watch the surfers doing their thing.
We did a walking tour of town, which didn't take long,
then picked out a restaurant for our evening meal. As
usual, Chris bought me dinner that night; something he
did out of his own kindness throughout the trip. The
food was reasonably good, but the mashed potatoes
seemed to be a curious combination of potatoes,
cheese, and Elmer's Glue.
Wed Nov 17
We had to wait a while for the Surf City Bridge to
open, but it was a really nice morning to loiter on
the ICW. I got to experiment with the bow thruster and
throttle to keep the boat pointed in roughly the
proper direction while we waited for the bridge. The
new rule for who ever was at the helm was "slow down
when the depth sounder reads 7.0 feet". I thought it
was a pretty good rule, since if you have to run
aground, it's nice to do it at less than full speed.
The depth sounder on "Ticket" read between 4 and 5
when the keel touched the bottom, though the boat had
roughly a 6.5' draft. Chris would later calibrate the
depth sounder to read 0 when the keel touched the mud.
It is not at all uncommon
for the same 2 boats to pass each other several times
as they make the 3 or 4 week journey down the ICW.
Three of the boats that would pass us several times
were the sailboat "Katarina", the huge houseboat
"Fantasy", and the magnificent 100' power boat "Summer
Love". We were all together at Belhaven, and saw each
other on a regular basis on the days that followed. We
all did roughly the same mileage on any given day, but
some did it quicker than others. Chris ran at 6 or 7
knots, which got us some pretty reasonable daily runs
while only burning about a gallon of diesel an hour.
"Summer Love" was an older luxury powerboat, but had a
beautiful design and really turned heads when she came
in to dock. The curious thing about the boat, however,
was that she seemed to go down the waterway at a
little bit of a crab angle, as though she were
constantly compensating for some cross current that
only affected her. Despite the size and beauty of the
boat, I never saw anyone aboard her except the captain
and a crewman. I assume the owner told them something
like "Take her to Florida, boys, and I'll see you
there". Amazing.
There seem to be a lot of
different opinions on the proper etiquette for passing
another boat. Usually, the passing boats slow down a
little and everyone waves as they pass. Some boats are
constantly on the VHF radio, asking if it's okay to
pass and on which side and at what speed. You hear
them for hours at a time. Sometimes, the faster boat
will just blast on by, sparking an exchange on the VHF
that goes something like this: "Hey, Buddy, thanks for
the wake! Slow down next time!" And then the faster
boat will answer "Hey Capt, it's you who should have
slowed down. If I hadn't kept my speed up, I never
could have caught you". One boat hailed "Ticket" on
the VHF and asked if we had any thoughts on where he
should pass us. Chris answered back "That is entirely
up to you!", which I thought was a pretty good answer.
We ended the day at a
marina near Southport. I was familiar with this marina
because it was my first good night's sleep after
sailing my own boat back to the States singlehanded
from the Turks in 2002. After "Ticket" was tied
up, I got to watch a Hinckley Downeast Express
maneuver sideways as it docked. It had both a bow
thruster and stern thruster, controlled by a joystick
at the helm. Chris said they cost about a million
dollars each. It didn't seem like a lot of boat for
the money, but I suspect that there were some nice
toys on the boat besides the bow/stern thrusters.
There was also a magnificent Nordhaven trawler that
came in and tied up. Lots of money tied to the dock
that evening. Later in the evening, Chris asked me to
do a little internet research on local inlet depths.
One of the cool sites I found had all sorts of depth
surveys made by the Army Corps of Engineers. Check it
out at:
And, while we are on the
subject of the internet, one of my favorite sites is
ActiveCaptain.com . This is a free site, though you
have to register in order to use it. At this site, you
can easily access NOAA nautical charts at various
levels of magnification. Also, superimposed on the
charts, are notes that the ActiveCaptain user
community have posted on topics that run from bridge
openings to marina facilities to shoaling information.
Check it out at
Okay, one more. This is a
free tide prediction program called wxtide. The web
address is
Thu Nov 18
It was cool but clear the next morning. Nice weather
seemed to follow "Ticket" just about everywhere she
went. That morning, it was my turn to screw up again.
I ran the boat aground while trying to make a U-turn
as we waited for a bridge opening. All I had to do was
use the bow thruster to turn the boat in the narrow
channel, and everything would have been fine. But
nooo... I was clearly out of the channel when we got
stuck, and my mojo was clearly NOT working that
morning. As usual, the ICW let us off easy, and we
were able to back off the mud. Chris told me that it
was possible to get out of a grounding situation by
using the bow thruster to move the bow
left-right-left-right, "digging" enough of an
indentation in the bottom material to make possible
your escape. Later that day, we passed though one of
the few areas where the easy going mud bottom is
replaced by a very unforgiving rock bottom; the
dreaded "rockpile" at Myrtle Beach. Actually, the
"rockpile" is just another quiet stretch of the ICW as
long as you stay in the middle and don't have to pass
any fat boats. But, leaving the channel and passing
fat boats in the "rockpile" are both very bad things.
That evening, Chris took me to most fancy restaurant I
have ever been in. I could not make heads or tails of
most of the menu, and the harder an entree was to
comprehend, the more they charged for it. Make no
mistake, there was no "hamburger" on THAT menu. Chris
told me that during his professional career, he would
often have to take clients to a fancy restaurant, so I
asked him how this restaurant compared with some of
the best ones he had eaten at. He informed me that,
basically, the restaurant where we were eating didn't
even register on the Richter Scale of high class
restaurants. I guess the rich live in their own little
universe.
Fri Nov 19
We stayed at the marina in Myrtle Beach on Friday.
Aside from productive activities like grocery
shopping and laundry, there was also plenty of time
for long walks and surfing the net. In the
for-what-its-worth category, I had pretty good luck
getting on the internet with my laptop by using the
Verizon mobile broadband USB modem. It seemed to work
on most (but not all) sections of the ICW. The skipper
used Wi-Fi signals at the marinas along the way, but
they appeared to me to be relatively slow, sometimes
unreliable, and often frustrating to use. The Verizon
card was not cheap, but I guess you get what you pay
for. Also during our layover in Myrtle Beach, the
skipper's friend Missy came aboard to crew for a few
days. Missy's smile was bright enough to read a book
by, which is more than I can say for most of the 12
volt lighting on my own boat.
Sat Nov 20
From the relative decadence of Myrtle Beach, we
quickly found ourselves in the primitive stillness of
a South Carolina swamp as we headed south to
Georgetown on Saturday. Aside from an occasional
fishing boat or duck hunter, not much was happening in
swamp country that weekend. Still, it was very pretty
ride. We got in early enough for another walk, and got
to listen to some live gospel/bluegrass type music in
town.
Sun Nov 21
The next day, I was driving the boat when the depth
sounder started showing some alarmingly shallow
depths. The skipper recommended I head to starboard to
find deeper water, but upon doing so, I promptly ran
the boat aground in that yummy ICW mud. At that point,
Chris took over and had a little better luck to the
port side, though it was pretty damn shallow over
there as well. He managed to get the 6.5 feet of the
keel through the rest of the mud obstacle course, but
in many places there wasn't much room to spare. By mid
afternoon we were at anchor in a nice quiet area, and
spent the night there. Chris was able to watch a
football game that night on his satellite TV.
Mon Nov 22
On Monday, as we headed for Charleston, I had an
interesting experience while driving. Occasionally, a
small inlet or river will cross the ICW. The tidal
current was flowing pretty strong that morning, and
apparently it was flowing even stronger through these
little inlets we crossed over. As we went by these
things, "Ticket" was caught in the cross flowing
current and damn near yanked right out of the ICW
channel. It took a significant change of course to
remain on the magenta line. Then, as fast as the cross
current had appeared, it would disappear as we left
the little river crossing behind, thus requiring
another hefty course change to keep on that magenta
line. We tied up around lunchtime at the Charleston
City Marina. This marina had a dock that went on and
on, with some very impressive boats tied to it. I did
a little programming in the afternoon, then enjoyed a
nice long walk into Charleston. The weather was really
nice; t-shirt weather at last!
Tue Nov 23
We had a beautiful "red sky in the morning" sunrise
and plenty of time to enjoy it since one of the
Charleston bridges we need to pass under would not
open until 9am. After that, we were off and running.
It would be an interesting day in the navigation
department. I got to drive the boat through some
semi-shallow areas that did a lot of twisting and
turning. In stuff like that, it sure is nice to have
that magenta line on a nice chart plotter sitting
right there in front of you. Chris also got to steer
through some very shallow areas. By that point in
time, he had recalibrated the depth sounder so it
displayed the distance from the bottom of the channel
to the bottom of "Ticket's" keel. In one section,
Chris was seeing 0.1 feet on the depth sounder.
"Ticket" has roughly a 6.5' keel. Another boat a
little ways behind us had a 7' keel, and he was
talking to the boats in front of him on the vhf,
trying to figure out if there was enough water for him
to get through. In the end, he decided to wait for
high tide the next day, which sounded like a pretty
good decision to me. We anchored out in a side channel
that evening with some of the other boats, not wishing
to sprint all the way to Beaufort in a single day. On
one of my previous ICW trips, the trawler I was on did
Charleston to Beaufort in a single day, but I'm sure
that trawler was burning a lot more fuel than the 1
gallon per hour "Ticket" was drinking.
Wed Nov 24
It was a cloudy dawn, cool enough for a sweater. We
had a relatively short day ahead of us to reach
Beaufort, so we were a little surprised that all the
other boats at anchor had left by the time we started
thinking about getting up the anchor. The reason for
their early departure became evident when we reached
the swing bridge in Beaufort. There was some
construction going on, and the bridge was not opening
at it's regular time. The other boats had managed to
get to the bridge early enough to make the prior
opening. But, no problem; "time" was something we had
plenty of. Later, after we were tied up at the marina,
I went for a little walking tour of town. The old
houses and the Spanish moss on the huge oak trees were
amazing. I decided to come back the next day with my
camera. That evening, Missy headed home, and "Ticket"
reverted once more to a bachelor boat.
Thu Nov 25
It was Thanksgiving, and I had so much to be thankful
for, I didn't know where to begin. I spent the morning
surfing the internet for some free video editing
software. My camera was capable of taking video
movies, but I knew next to nothing about how to edit
that stuff. In the afternoon, we went to a local
church that was putting on a "free" Thanksgiving
dinner (of course, donations were gladly accepted).
The church members did a heck of a job putting all
sorts of food in front of who ever came through the
door, and everyone was very friendly. There were some
other cruisers at our table, and it was fun to talk to
them during the meal. Later in the afternoon, I became
a movie director, taking video of some of the
beautiful Beaufort houses. It was a warm, short
sleeved day, and a great sunset to top it all off.
Fri Nov 26
We had another nice "red sky in the morning" as we
headed south again, but this time it was one of those
"sailors take warning" skies. The weather guessers
were calling for rain and some gusty winds later in
the day. The rain eventually found us, and looked
pretty intimidating as it approached, but didn't turn
out to be all that big of a deal. That night, in yet
another marina, we had the pleasure of eating dinner
with the folks from "Fantasy" and "Katarina". After
being passed by them so many times, and hearing them
so often on the VHF radio, it was fun to actually get
to know them a little.
Sat Nov 27
By morning, the front had come and gone, leaving clear
but cold air in it's wake. There was a bit of panic
that morning as the chart plotter decided to crap out
in the middle of a shallow stretch that Chris was
concerned about. To make matters worse, as Chris
slowed the boat down, the depth sounder numbers got
closer and closer to zero. Things seemed to be going
downhill fast until Chris started laughing. He said he
had been watching the speed readout instrument,
thinking it was the depth readout instrument.
Naturally, the speed readout instrument numbers got
closer to zero as the boat slowed down. And, the chart
plotter finally came back on line, so life was good
once again. I guess we were "navigationally
challenged" that morning, because at one point Chris
discovered we were headed out into the Atlantic Ocean.
However, to his credit, the navigator caught the
problem BEFORE we sighted Africa. That afternoon,
there were reports of 5' depths in Little Mud River.
We didn't want to be going through that area on a
falling tide, so we anchored near by, and developed a
strategy to pass through the area near high tide the
next morning. The shallows were putting a real strain
on my travel plans, so I got on the internet that
evening and started checking rental car and airline
web sites. Eventually, I concluded it made more sense
to stay on the boat for an additional day, and made
rental car reservations accordingly.
I enjoyed our nights at
anchor, but there was one problem: no marina toilets
near by. Chris had told me that I was welcome to use
the aft head adjacent to his stateroom any time I
needed to. But for me, there was a privacy issue. Just
about any sailboat does not exactly excel in the
privacy department. It's sort of like having a toilet
in your living room, surrounded by a curtain. You may
not be able to see the action, but the soundtrack is
unmistakable. Plus, I didn't want to wake Chris in the
middle of the night when nature called. A pee trip was
no big deal; we took a leak over the side of the boat
even during the day. However, bowel movements were a
little more challenging. I eventually found that the
midnight bow pulpit solution worked reasonably well
under those circumstances. However, you had to be
careful. Slipping off the "toilet seat" had major
implications.
Sun Nov 28
It was a lazy morning as 3 boats waited at anchor for
higher tidal levels before attempting to get through
the Little Mid River. The other 2 sailboats both had
shallower draft keels, so they left before us and
radioed back with the depths they saw along the way.
While listening to all the suspense and drama on the
VHF, things suddenly got even more suspenseful when
the trawler "Queen Anne's Revenge" reported it was out
of fuel in the Little Mud River and both it's engines
were now dead. I wondered what it must be like to run
out of fuel in such a shallow stretch of the ICW, and
I wondered even more how the boat had gotten her name.
But, this was obviously not the time to ask. Our run
through the Little Mud River turned out to be sort of
a non-event. We didn't have DEEP water, but we had
DEEP ENOUGH water to get through without any problems.
Captain Chris had done his homework the night before,
and the payoff was a tense but uneventful passage
through the dreaded Little Mud River. Homework can be
a wonderful thing. It was a fairly short, though
fairly chilly, run to St Simmon's Island where we tied
up at a marina for the night. On our final approach to
the marina, someone came on the VHF radio and warned
us were were sure to go hard aground unless we changed
our course immediately. When you get a call like that,
"out of the blue", it really gets the old adrenaline
flowing. But, Chris was exactly where he was supposed
to be, and we never did figure our who made the VHF
call, or why. In the late afternoon, I had a long walk
to the airport and back along a very nice paved
walking/bicycling trail. Then, it was another dinner
ashore with the gang from "Katarina".
Mon Nov 29
We didn't have all that far to go on my last day of my
trip, but there was a problem. There were two
shallow areas to negotiate. We could hit either of
them on a rising tide, but the time distance equations
would not allow us to hit both of them on a rising
tide; at least not on the same day. The solution was
to go "outside", out in the ocean along the coast.
Chris said we should have a favorable east wind at 15
to 20 knots, and 1 to 2 foot seas. The wind sounded
good, but I did not buy the 1 to 2 foot seas with that
much of an east wind. I also assumed that if we
ended up coming back into land through an inlet with a
falling tide, the outgoing current could get into an
argument with the incoming waves, and generate a
significant chop. But, even if all that came to pass,
I was not concerned. I felt that both the boat and her
crew could take a lot worse than what we were likely
to encounter on that day. So, at daybreak, "Katarina"
and "Ticket To Ride" headed for deeper soundings. It
was bumpy as we motored out, since we were headed
directly into the wind and waves, but not bad. Once we
were able to turn south with the wind on our beam, it
was a nice sail. The wind never got much above 15 and
we eventually made it to our destination before the
tide changed, so the waves were very well behaved.
I had got out of bed with a
headache that morning, and spent the rest of the
morning trying to convince myself that it really
was a pretty minor headache that I could just ignore.
This was not at all unusual for me, but what was
unusual is when I got seasick. It all came and went
very quickly. I started to feel nauseous, then a few
minutes later I was transferring the contents of my
stomach to the contents of the ocean, then a few
minutes after that all the nausea disappeared. The
previous (and only) time I had been sea sick was in
the mid 1970s, and I had logged a lot of hours in
sailboats since then in the ocean. Go figure; it just
wasn't my day. It wasn't long after my less than
stellar performance at the lee rail that we passed
through St Mary's Entrance, got the sails down, and
tied up at a marina in Fernandina Beach, just south of
the Georgia Florida border. And, after an aspirin, a
hot shower, and a nap, my headache was history (until
next time).
As luck would have it, one
of the boats that tied up to our dock that day was
"Queen Anne's Revenge", and I was able to have a nice
conversation with the boat's captain. The guy turned
out to be a pilot, in addition to being a trawler
skipper, and he was very embarrassed to have run out
of fuel in the Little Mud River. Running out of fuel
is one of those unforgivable sins in the aviation
world. But, I had to admire the guy. Despite being in
the middle of a very shallow channel, he and his wife
were able to maneuver the boat out of the channel, get
the anchor down, switch to an auxiliary fuel tank,
bleed the air out of two diesel engines, restart the
engines, get the anchor up, and continue on their way.
And, of course, all this had to be done at the same
time that one boat after another was calling him on
the radio, asking if they could help out in any way.
He screwed up, but he also made a very impressive
recovery. As for the name of his boat, "Queen Anne's
Revenge" was the name of Blackbeard the pirate's ship.
In addition to this, there was also a cute family
history story concerning his Southern Belle wife
"Ann". After marriage, she had been dragged up north
into "yankee land" to live with her husband. Her
nickname of "princess" eventually changed to "queen"
in later years. Friends joked that all the trials and
tribulations of owning a yacht were really Queen Ann's
way of getting revenge on her husband for having to
live all those years surrounded by "damn yankees". I
guess every boat has a story. Next time you run into
Captain Chris, ask him to tell you the story about how
a boat called "Rummager" got it's name.
The next morning, Chris
drove off in a rental car to visit his step mother,
and I headed back to Norfolk in my own rental car.
Despite the fact that "Ticket" was a strong,
beautiful, roomy motor sailor, the trip had been more
difficult than I had expected. I found it tough to not
be in charge of the boat, and to adapt to someone
else's schedule for such an extended period of time.
Thank god I has a skipper as pleasant and easy going
and experienced as Chris, or I don't think I could
have lasted 3 weeks. I have just become hopelessly
spoiled by sailing my own boat and doing my own thing
for so long. Maybe getting older has something to do
with it as well. But, despite those occasional
challenges, I never regretted doing the trip. Chris
was a great guy, and the ICW was just as interesting
in it's variety and beauty as it had been on my
previous trips. If you haven't made the trip, I
encourage you to do so, either as skipper or crew.
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