North Carolina, Waterworld

Here we are at a fine safe anchorage in Mile Hammock Bay, along with five other yachts and a little trawler. We’ve just been watching a pod of dolphins herding their evening meal – swimming in a tight circle, then slapping their tails on the surface of the water, to stun the fish presumably.  We’re now at the 244 mile mark of the ICW and there has been a marked change in the water and the weather. The former is now green and getting clearer and more oceanic. We’ve had dolphins for company a lot of the time – they seem to enjoy surfing along with the bow wave or in the wake. Today we had one either side of the boat, escorting us along the canal. The one on my side kept tipping her head sideways when she came up for air, just checking us out!

The weather has been beautiful, but Captain Dave tells us that this is unseasonal and that we can’t count on warmth until we make Florida. The east coast of North Carolina really is a water world. For a start there are the Outer Banks – ribbons of sandbank that run for over a hundred miles of the Atlantic coast, cut off from the mainland by a series of sounds. Inland from these sounds are marshes threaded through with rivers, creeks and canals. It is not at all surprising that this area was the favoured territory of Edward Teach (Blackbeard), the most notorious pirate of the Americas. You can readily imagine his flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge suddenly appearing from a hidden bay or inlet, terrorising the cargo vessels and the few ships that the British Navy provided for protection of the colony. The wreck of Blackbeard’s ship was located in the Beaufort Inlet in 1996 and artefacts are on display in the Beaufort Museum. They also say that the ghost of his murdered wife haunts his old house in Front Street.

Along with the green water and the balmy weather, there is a certain southern-ness in the voices and attitudes of the local people – like the friendly folk of Swansboro where we spent a pleasant night at Casper’s Marina and had a few beers at the local pub. You can certainly tell you’re in the South by the products in the supermarket – honey buns, collard greens, black-eyed peas and pig feet.

When you think about the Intra Coastal Waterway, you imagine a big canal cut through from Norfolk Virginia down to Florida, but a great deal of it is a combination of rivers and creeks, bays and inlets and other natural features. The canals just join these up. Along the section we did today, from Swansboro to Mile Hammock Bay, spectacular houses line the waterfront. Many have three or even four storeys, with balconies, widows’ walks and private jetties and boathouses. Everywhere people are boating and fishing, mostly in the flat-bottomed Carolina skiffs that are ideal for these shallow waters. Cormorants, gulls, ducks, brown pelicans, heron and egrets are everywhere.

Tomorrow we have a long run planned to Wrightsville Beach. On the way we’ll pass by Surf City (Two girls for every boy!) another one for our song lyric tour of the USA. Along with the obvious ones (Viva Las Vegas, New York New York, LA Freeway etc) we have actually been through Winslow Arizona and the West Texas town of El Paso… and In My Mind I’m Going to Carolina …

Elizabeth City to Alligator River, through Albemarle sound

We had heard some fearsome stories about Albemarle Sound and the havoc it can wreak in the wrong conditions, so we read the weather reports very carefully, with constant updates. Today was our window, with light east winds and calm seas, before a change tomorrow. So we were up before 6am and on our way. It was a glorious morning:

An easy run down the Pasquotank River and a perfect run across the Sound with 10 - 12 knot easterlies providing a nice bit of assistance, motoring with just our mainsail out. We decided to pull into the Alligator River Marina just ahead of a swing bridge that we will head through first thing tomorrow. This is the last fuel, water, laundry, beer etc for quite a stretch, so we'll stock up. Sadly we won't be in a position to get to Jane's house for Thanksgiving, so it will probaby be just a shared can of beans and a beer somewhere down the Pungo River. 

From Mile 0 to the Great Dismal Swamp and Beyond

Well here we are, finally on the ICW!
We spent a freezing night (28F) at anchor off Hospital Point in Norfolk, Virginia, which is almost exactly Mile 0 for the Intra Coastal Waterway. Invested in a $5 emergency thermal blanket and added it to our bedding, which was a great solution to the chilly nights. It does rustle a bit so you feel like you're in a giant lolly bag, but that's a small price to pay for being able to feel your toes again.

The Norfolk stretch was very industrial, including vast navy repairyards. The whole Australian Navy could disappear in here and never be seen again. Just after Mile 7, an important decision needs to be made, to continue with the mainstream cut or fork off to port through the Great Dismal Swamp. Well, who could resist that? The Swamp it was. The GDS is a historic bit of engineering, undertaken by George Washington and others who had land interests in this part of Virginia/ North Carolina. It's actually a canal cut through swampy land so that timber and other produce could be transported up to the northern cities. Pretty much all of it was constructed by slave labour, and interestingly, it became a haven for runaway slaves who had got to know the area well, and set up communities there during the Civil War period.

Our journey through the 'Swamp' was a pleasant one - the weather was great, the trees still had some autumn colour and we met up with some very friendly fellow swampers when we tied up for the night. We had a pretty good Mexican meal at the only restaurant in Deep Creek with Imre and Giva from The Fat Lady and Sandra and Alain from Satori. Our only real difficulty was faced when we were waiting for the second lock to open, trying to keep Common Sense from drifting into the shallow mud on either side of the channel, entangling her rigging in the overhead branches, or colliding with the other meandering vessels in this very restricted space.

Out of the swamp we headed into Lamb's Marina, just before Elizabeth City. It's not exactly a resort marina, but the folks here are friendly and helpful and they have everything we need, including the elusive propane for our stove. I'll post Terry's email as a continuation of the story, for anyone who hasn't read it yet:

We’re in Lamb’s Marina in Camden, just out of Elizabeth City in North Carolina.  It’s part trailer-park, part marina and we have the best boat by a mile.  Many of the boats and trawlers tied up here are going to be fixed up in someone’s mind but in reality it ain’t gonna happen.  Many are such projects that it would take forever to finish them.  Most of the trailers have Corvettes or Dodge Trucks outside them.  It’s a self-contained community, with either your boat or your trailer, the gas station out front that rents it all out and a reasonable grocery store inside.  They have the big 24oz Yuengling Lager cans so I’ve bought some of them for the trip ($1.59 each).

We set the dinghy up today and went into Elizabeth City, about 4 or 5 miles down the Pasquotank River.  With the 20hp on the back, it sure flew along.

We docked at the town dock area and went for a walk around Elizabeth City.  Very sad, with many retail spaces empty and for lease.  Life’s a struggle for sure for many here with their incomes and dreams taken away.

While we were sitting in Grouper’s Restaurant (St Louis baby back ribs were good) we saw two boats come through the Elizabeth City road bridge and turn into the free docking slips.  One of them was my friend Roger Long whom I’d corresponded with for about 10 years but had never met.  I knew it was Strider from the many pics of it I’ve seen so I went down to meet him.  He knew it was me as soon as I spoke, as he doesn’t know anyone else with an Aussie accent.

We also met a couple on a Bristol 38, Lee, an architect from NY and Lynn, a paediatric physiotherapist, both had enough of working and headed for the south and the Bahamas and then the Exumas.  We also met a guy called Doug on a small yacht called Sequoia from Baltimore.  He and his wife have bought a place in West Florida and he is taking the boat down to their dock there.  She’s doing the road part.  He’s a bit over the struggle, as it’s not a large boat and he’s on his own.  Nice guy, ex-Navy, from DDG993 US Barry.  Most the people we meet who know Perth/Fremantle/Western Australia are ex-Navy.  Those people (and it’s girls as well as guys) are better placed than most in this environment as they retire from the service on (say) 40% of their pay and only need to work part time to maintain a decent standard of living.  The guy who filled my propane tank tonight ( who told the girl at the cash desk “it’s only a ittle bitty one”) spent 18 years in the Navy from the Antarctic to the Arctic and Germany to Japan and was most disappointed that he didn’t make it to WA as his friends all raved about it.  Most Americans say that it’s a place they want to see before they die.

Well, tomorrow we’re down the Pasquotank to the Albemarle Sound.  We’re not looking forward to this as it’s a bit of a bastard stretch – shallow and about 30 miles.  There is weather coming in and if we don’t get over tomorrow it may be Friday before we can.  Roger’s friends have invited us to stay for Thanksgiving with them but as nice as that would be we think we’d rather make some South while we can.  We have to get from the exit of the Pasquotank to the entrance to the Alligator River on the other side.  We’ll probably stay in the Alligator River Marina and not go through the bridge itself as there’s nothing on the other side for another 18 miles and it’ll be well dark before we get there.  Wednesday is supposed to be bad but if the bridgekeeper opens we are only ½ a mile from the bridge.  If we can make the next lot of anchorages, we might stop there and then tackle the Alligator River/Pungo River Canal.  You can’t, or shouldn’t, enter the canal if you can’t make the other end as there’s nowhere to tie up or anchor for 22 miles.

Boat is running well, with most systems working (shower drain a bit patchy) but all the things I put on have made it better by a mile.  Dinghy cut out on me before we left the back of the boat this morning and I thought it might be another $300 to get that ethanol crap out of it (@$@# greenies and their fuel fixations!) but it started again after much pulling and swearing.  It ran very well into Elizabeth City, up on the plane and about 20kts easy on a half throttle.

We have power on the boat in the marina so our airconditioner is running and we are in t-shirts for a change.

Hope you are well and please send us updates from your end.  We’ll have wi-fi in the Alligator River Marina but not for a while after that.

Hoges out of the Swamp.

Deltaville Virginia

We're here in a nice little marina for a few days, waiting out some blowy weather. There are yachtspeople here from all over the world - English, French, German, Dutch ... - most of them on the way south for the winter, so there is a wealth of interesting experiences and good advice to be shared.

It didn't take long to have a good look around Deltaville, which is another small water-based town on the Rappahannock and Piankatank Rivers. It has an interesting little museum, mostly dedicated to boatbuilding and restoration, and to local Virginians in the Civil War. The main road through town is the General Puller Hwy, and we discovered that Stewart 'Chesty' Puller was, in fact, the toughest and most highly decorated US Marine ever. He is buried nearby. Chesty rose from the ranks to various commands, served in Haiti, WW2 and Korea, won five Navy Crosses and a DSM, and is immortalised in Marine marching rhymes. He is famous for NEVER giving up:

"They are in front of us, behind us, and we are flanked on both sides by an enemy that outnumbers us 29:1. They can't get away from us now!""^[12]

"Great. Now we can shoot at those bastards from every direction."^[13]

"We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them." — November 1950, during Chosin Reservoir campaign^[14][15]

Every little town seems to have a favourite son or daughter with an interesting life story, and Americans are not backward in commemorating them with named buildings, roads, scholarships, statues and the like. Individual achievement is celebrated to a degree that most Australians would find a bit embarrassing, but it certainly gives places more character and supports an ethos of striving for success.

A Week in Washington DC

We had done a couple of day trips to Washington, catching the commuter bus from Kent Island at 6.30 in the morning. However, we found this pretty frustrating – you’d really only be able to see one attraction, and be left with a sense of all the wonderful things you couldn’t get to. So we decided to give it a full week – hence the 200 mile side excursion up the Potomac on our journey south.

Well the first thing to say is that Washington is a tremendous contrast to New York. It’s all very stately, dignified and imposing, full of important institutions, marble monuments and civic pride. The streets are broad and just about everywhere you look is a View – typically of the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial which line up along the vast Mall. Law courts, the White House, the State Department, FBI Headquarters, the National Archives and of course the various wonderful museums of the Smithsonian are all here. It doesn’t have New York’s vitality and extravagance, but there is a different kind of energy here that has to do with political power and social change. It’s an amazing feeling to stand in the shadow of the huge white marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, to read the words of the Gettysburg Address inscribed on the walls, then to realise you are standing right where Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech to the multitudes assembled below.

Here are some of our Washington highlights:

The huge National Gallery of Art, especially its collection of antiquities and the beautiful Degas exhibition.

The National Portrait Gallery, as much for the stories as for the art. All the presidents are there, of course, and there is an excellent special exhibition on Ronald Reagan called ‘One Life’ which showcases his careers as commentator, actor, governor and President as well as his battle with Alzheimers. Along with all the well-known public figures, entertainers, scientists and sports stars, I really enjoyed learning about people I had never heard of, but who have made a huge difference to our everyday lives. For example, Charles Drew, an African American doctor who pioneered the Blood Bank – and resigned in protest when they attempted to segregate blood supplies by race. Or Virginia Apgar who was responsible for the ‘Apgar Rating’ used to monitor the health of virtually every newborn in the Western world…

Riding the excellent Metro system – about $30 for a whole week’s travelling anywhere in DC very quickly and comfortably.

Beautiful Botanical Gardens near the Capitol building, full of orchids at the moment.

The Museum of American History, especially for some of the quirky things in its collection, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers and the original muppet puppets.

A wonderful Indian meal, tour of Georgetown and catch-up with our lovely friends Cara and Jay from I-Dock back at Mears Point Marina.

A walk through Alexandria, where patriots gathered to plan revolution. The Torpedo Factory Art Centre is a highlight here, with about 80 studios let to working artists – you can watch them at work as well as viewing and purchasing artworks.

Arlington National Cemetery, across the river on the Virginia shore. The property originally belonged to General Robert E. Lee, but was taken over by Union forces and used a s a burial ground during the Civil War. The home still stands there, with a commanding view over the city of Washington. Lee’s is quite a poignant story – he personally believed in the union and was against slavery, but he resigned from the army when his beloved state of Virginia seceded. He commanded the Confederate forces against many of his former friends and peers from West Point Academy. Visiting Arlington is a profoundly moving experience – the acres and acres of white crosses for those who served in conflicts over two centuries stretch out over rolling green hills sheltered by huge old trees, now in autumn colour. John F Kennedy is buried here by the eternal flame, along with Jacquie and their infant children. The Tomb of the Unknowns with its honour guard. The Vietnam Memorial, thousands of young men’s names inscribed in black marble.

Sailing back down the river we passed by George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, standing proudly on high ground on the Virginia shore. A last memorable image from a memorable week.

Up the Potomac

We’d planned to be gone well before this, but various jobs had to be done, in particular the installation of our tricolour, anchoring light and strobe at the top of the mast (thanks Tyler, mast monkey extraordinaire!) the fitting of tank monitors and the replacement of the rode on our second anchor – which I spliced myself (just call me Deckhand Dora). Well now it was time to stow everything in its proper place and stock up on some provisions, and, most importantly, to say farewell to some special friends. In particular Captains Dave and Penny Renoll and Jane Waddell were wonderful examples of the hospitality this country is famous for. Dave even braved a freezing cold early morning to give us a hand with our departure and to wave and take some photos as Common Sense made her way through the Kent Narrows Bridge for the last time. We sincerely hope that our Mears Point friends will keep in touch and that we will meet up again, preferably somewhere nice and warm!

October 28^th was fine with a north-easterly assisting us on a course almost due south down the Bay to Solomon’s Island. We counted at least a dozen other fully equipped sailboats heading in the same direction, obviously all part of the winter exodus to warmer climes. We anchored for the night in Mill Creek, a pretty location just inside the mouth of the Patuxent River, where we found two other yachts already settled in. After such a good day’s sailing we were a bit upset to hear the weather forecast for Saturday – very cold with strong gusty winds, rain and the possibility of SNOW – in October! This pretty much decided our plans for the next day – stay put, read, cook muffins and soup, add another layer of clothing every hour or so as the temperature plummeted (we looked like Tweedledum and Tweedledee by the end of the day) and stick our heads out every now and again to admire the effects of sleet on the water. Our excellent Manson Supreme anchor once again proved its worth, holding steady through strong changeable winds throughout the night.

 But the bad weather passed, as all things must, and Sunday morning dawned fine and clear. Common Sense made that day’s fifty miles in excellent time, though our efforts under sail were a bit dispiriting – each time we raised them it seemed to be a signal for the wind to drop from 15 knots to five. At 11.30 we reached the broad mouth of the Potomac River and changed our course to bear north-east, pretty much into the wind. We passed the mouth of the St Mary’s River, site of historic St Marys City where Maryland’s first European settlers founded a Catholic community in 1634. We plan to stop here on the trip back down river. Another interesting site was St Clements Island, once a thriving 400 acre farm now reduced by erosion to a mere 40 muddy acres. A big white stone cross commemorates this fragment of colonial history. Our goal for Sunday night was Cobb Island, at the mouth of the Wicomico River, a tributary just over thirty miles up the Potomac. It was a little challenging finding all the marks to get in behind the island, but we were rewarded with a beautiful sheltered anchorage and a perfectly silent calm night.  We refuelled the next morning at Shymansky’s Marina where we chatted briefly with some of the friendly Cobb Island folk, heading out before a falling tide could leave us stranded in the shallow fuel dock.

The next day’s passage was smooth and uneventful. There was virtually no traffic on the river as it wound its way through old plantations and wild forest. It was hard to believe we were so close to the biggest population centres in North America. We decided to find a marina for the night, mainly to get a little warmth back into our bones after heading into a chill wind all day, but our efforts to enter Aquia Bay were thwarted when we ran out of depth just short of the marina. We had to head back out into the main river, where, fortunately, we found a pleasant little bay on the Maryland side sheltered from the wind by cliffs and tall forest (Wades Bay). Another layer of clothing would have to do.

On our final day we made good speed with the current behind us. This was a beautiful part of the river, with magnificent colonial homes and estates on the Virginia shore (including Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home) and woods in vivid autumn colour. Terry and I held our breath as we approached the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, marking the entry to the city of Washington. It has a clearance of 70 feet and our mast is 65, but it really did look like we were going to lose the top few feet. At 14.30 we made our way into the Washington Channel where Jeremy, the dockmaster at the Gangplank Marina, assisted us into our slip.

Entering a city from the water gives a totally different perspective, a bit like entering a theatre from backstage. You get to see some of its inner workings rather than just the public face – it’s really interesting, as waterfronts often are. Anyway, here we are in DC, having sailed up the Potomac River(!) A blog of our Washington adventures will follow soon.