Daytona Days

Hi everyone - here we are in a marina at Daytona Beach for a few days.

Daytona markets itself at 'the most famous beach in the world' - I don't know if that's true. There are other contenders, surely - Waikiki, Malibu, Venice Beach, the Riviera - even Bondi, perhaps. The Beach was actually the original Daytona racetrack. Its white sand is packed hard for a long straight stretch, a perfect site for high speed and spectacle. Now there's a huge racing complex of course, the setting for the Daytona 500 and other big international events. Cars are permitted on the beach, and there's a line-up of them all along the beachfront, some with sunbathers on the roof! We went for a bike ride along the beach - plenty of people 'swimming' though this looked like a bit of a challenge in the very shallow water.

Like a lot of other places, Daytona is showing the effects of prolonged economic downturn with lots of closed-down shops and businesses. The only places that really seem to be thriving are those familiar scavengers of misfortune - pawn shops, jail bonds and low end law firms. It's a sad thing, because the really distinctive quality of the American people is their spirit of enterprise and their optimism. People want to work and to build a future, but so much is stacked against them at the moment.

We did our usual orientation by going to the local museum/ art gallery, a really interesting collection which includes a terrific Cuban gallery of pictures and artefacts rescued and stored by Battista as the revolution began. There was also a wonderful exhibition of nature photography and another of the early artefacts of Coca Cola production, as Daytona was home to the original Roots bottling company.

We're on the live-aboard dock where the boats have been beautifully decorated and lit up for Christmas, and we've met some very friendly and generous fellow boaters to celebrate with. We did the Skype call home to talk to the kids and family at the traditional Hogan family lunch - wonderful to see everyone, but at the same time it does make us aware of just how far away you all are. We love you and miss you all. May 2012 be the year we catch up with every one of you at home, or somewhere in the world.

St Augustine

After a few days getting the fuel tank cleaned out and waiting out the wet windy weather in Fernandina Beach Marina, we headed back into the Waterway for the passage to St Augustine, and it was a pleasant and uneventful trip most of the way. We chugged along – there was a bit of wind and some yachts managed to make a bit of use of it. We passed Brian and Michelle aboard the Jennie B, whom we had met in Fernandina Beach. They are keen and skilful sailors, and when there isn’t enough wind, they just push their yacht along with the dinghy. The homes along the waterway seemed to grow larger and more luxurious with every mile, but apparently we ‘ain’t seen nothin yet’!

Unfortunately we ran into problems within sight of the St Augustine Municipal mooring field, missing the notorious ‘Red 60’ marker and striking the bottom quite hard. Common Sense was fine – Terry backed her out safely – but I was coming up the companionway steps at the time and landed flat on my back from the impact. Nothing broken, thank goodness, but a sore head and some colourful bruises. A well-padded bum is clearly an asset in these circumstances.

We’re in a mooring field here, where the reasonable price of $20 gets you your mooring, access to bathrooms and the cruisers’ lounge, internet, rubbish disposal, dinghy docking and pump-out. It’s calm and safe, and only a short dinghy ride into the historic downtown section of St Augustine, once a walled city and with a solid claim to be the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in America. The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed here in 1513 and the town was founded in 1565. One of the things Ponce de Leon was looking for was the Fountain of Youth – he didn’t find it, but it is here, and you can knock back a little paper cup of the nasty sulphurous stuff if you really want to. A 17^th century fort, the Castillo de San Marcos, dominates the view of the city from the water.

The town has plenty of ugly history – the death of local Indians from European diseases; the massacre of French Hugenots, a yellow fever epidemic that killed a third of the populace – but it is incredibly beautiful, with lavish Spanish-style architecture and fine gardens. Henry Flagler (Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil) was responsible for turning St Augustine into a tourist destination, building two fabulous hotels in the town and also commissioning the railway that effectively joined Florida to the rest of the country. The Hotel Ponce de Leon is now a private college, but it is open for tours (which help to fund the college’s program). It is clearly what you get when a billionaire says, ‘spare no expense!’ – Tiffany glass everywhere, 14 ct gold leaf in the vast murals, mosaics, carvings, terracotta work from Spain… and even new-fangled electric lights! It’s easy to imagine the wealthiest New York socialites in the early years of the 20^th century spending the winter season at dinners, balls, playing tennis, flirting and gossiping, or doing deals in the smoking lounge. Now the students of Flagler College get to live and study in what must be one of the most beautiful and extravagant campuses anywhere.

Lots of interesting little shops and specialised museums (the Lightner is terrific), good cafes (we liked the Spanish bakery for empanadas and excellent bread)and some pleasant bars for Terry to add to his beer repertoire, St Augustine was a great place to spend three or four days. And yes, it’s getting warmer as we work our way down the latitudes!

The Cold Grey Atlantic: ocean passage to Fernandina Beach

We’d had enough of hanging in the waterway waiting for bridges to open, huddling in our survival blanket through cold nights, and barely dodging shallow mudbanks. One guy we met in Deltaville told us he’d been aground seven times on the Georgia section of the ICW. There seemed to be only one solution – skip Georgia and the rest of South Carolina, and take to the high seas! So we waited one more day for better weather and headed out, bound for Florida and that elusive warm sunshine. Fernandina Beach at the northernmost coast of Florida seemed like a reasonable target – about 36 hours of continuous sailing. Conditions looked good, with 10 – 15 knot winds from the north and north-west, following seas and a strong tidal current to carry us out of Charleston to the sea.

 About nine other sailboats at the Charleston City Marina had plans to leave on the Thursday morning, but only one – a nice Island Packet that soon passed us – headed out at dawn. Before too long the sails were up and Common Sense was scudding happily along with waves, wind and tide all pushing us along. With the land almost invisible, we were still in quite shallow water about 30 ft  deep – quite different from our home coast in Western Australia, where it drops off to deep – and then to very very deep - quite quickly. Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins joined us from time to time, we saw some kind of a whale hanging in the water – I think it was a killer from the dorsal fin, but I’m not sure if they live here – and Terry had a seal pop up to check him out.

It was a long day, even though the course was fairly straightforward. The difference was that we would not be looking for an anchorage or a marina at the end of the day, but travelling through the night. I was a bit anxious at the prospect of being on watch and responsible for the boat while Terry slept, but the conditions were reasonable and the moon was nearly full. It would be OK. We’d be motoring on auto-pilot. It would be OK. The sun set and the moonlight was beautiful on the water. On my first watch, a pod of dolphins sped alongside, their fins dragging lines of phosphorescence through the water. It got colder and the wind and waves picked up. We were both frozen within our eight or so layers of clothing and I don’t think either of us really slept during our down time.

On my early am watch, the seas were big enough for some fairly serious rolling. Just enough for that edge of nausea to set in – combined with the cold, the anxiety and the sleeplessness it was reminiscent of a chemotherapy session.  Not exactly what I’d signed up for. I kept my spirits up by composing doggerel verses in my head (I highly recommend this – you can make yourself laugh at the worst of times). This one went something like:

I don’t want to drown in the cold grey Atlantic/I’d rather be somewhere warmer and calmer

The Mediterranean, blue and romantic/ or drinking cold beer on Grand Bahama…

And so on. The poem got worse, and so did the conditions.

And then, as we all know, the darkest hour is just before dawn. At 5am, on Terry’s watch, the alarm for the fuel filter came on. We switched to the second filter but there was gunk in that too and its alarm went off about twenty minutes later. Terry changed the fuel filters with the boat pitching and rolling, with me trying to steer the least rocky path down the waves (which I could barely see). We managed to putter along until the sun rose. Then it was up with the sails again, engine off and we  did a steady 5 to 6 knots, tacking a few times, all the way to the mouth of the St Mary’s River. Boat US were on standby, but Terry used our spare fuel and all our spare filters to motor gently into Fernandina Beach. We checked into the marina, which was expensive, but we needed to be on the dock to get our fuel tank cleaned out, and the conditions were getting colder and windier by the minute.  We had a hot shower, Terry cooked a great chicken stew in the pressure cooker and then we slept like a pair of corpses for about ten hours. Blissful.

Charleston, South Carolina

Hi y'all
This is a beautiful small city. The heart of Charleston is a two mile wide peninsula between the Cooper and Ashley Rivers, a very walkable community where beautiful old homes, courtyard gardens, massive spreading live-oak trees and spired churches of all denominations appear at every turn. The houses tend to be narrow fronted, with long porches down one side and barred basements and outbuildings. History provides the reasons for this design - residents were taxed according to their frontage; and the barred buildings housed slaves. There is a lovely historic waterfront, now dominated by the Arthur Ravenell Jnr Bridge, visible from the water long before you reach the city.

Charleston was the site of the first shots fired in the Civil War (known here as 'the recent unpleasantness' or 'the war of northern aggression' depending on the company you're in), at Fort Sumter. The city has survived military attacks, devastating fires, a major earthquake and Hurricane Hugo, so resilience is part of its character. I especially enjoyed the Museum of the Confederacy, a collection of artefacts collected from veterans themselves by the Daughters of the Confederacy. There are personal items like pocket bibles, tobacco pouches, letters from home; uniforms bearing pieces of red tape placed to show where bullets entered; home-made boots; an impressive collection of weaponry; haunting photographs of boys in oversized uniforms.

We've stayed on because the weather has turned awful - winds are gusting to 50mph and it's a bit scary. Here's Terry's Charleston news:

Well, here we are on the Megadock in a $2-a-foot marina with laid-on downtown shuttle etc.  We have multi-million dollar ocean liner boats like Rice Quarters and Themis for company.  Themis is owned by the lawyer who won $246 BILLION in damages from the cigarette companies for 46 US States.  Say his cut was 20%?  Rice Quarters is owned by his law firm partner.  Other boats in the line are not worth talking about, probably only in the $2 million vicinity.  Then there’s us in the cheap seats but everybody seems to like the look of ours.

http://www.charlestoncitymarina.com/photos.html

Having a great time.  Pass on that, I’m telling lies. This is more trouble than Irene was.  Luckily we’re on the inside and only being blown away from the dock and back.  Those on the other side of the dock are being whacked into it repeatedly and partly under it.

One boat, named Sovereign was anchored out in the channel.  It broke free and raced back into the Megadock, hit two power cruisers and did a lot of damage to one of them.  Apparently the owner is in DC and was coming down tonight to move the boat into the marina.  They rang him to tell him it was already here.  I was in the Marina Office paying up when the marina’s insurance guy was there.  The marina guy told him he didn’t know what sort of boat is was other than he thought is was a 40’ er.  I said it wasn’t, it was a 43.6’ er – it said so on the side.  The marina guy got the boat card out and said “well, he told me it was only 40’” so he changed it.

We’ve doubled up our lines at each end just for some peace of mind.  Probably no practical advantage.

The forecast said 15-20.  It’s been blowing over 50mph on a regular basis i.e. every few minutes in the squalls. Sustained 30+ so I guess most of the swing bridges up the ICW will be staying shut, forcing all up the line to back up for a few days.

Supposed to go down to 9 tonight and back around to the north.  Still a bit large outside but say 5-8’ swells.  Friday smaller, Saturday building a bit but we should be safely inside Fernandino Beach by then.

Charleston is a very nice place and the people have a very laid back and pleasant disposition.  They say that the only proper noun here is “Y’all”.  Even the Xmas flags have “Merry Christmas Y’all” on them.  It’s been voted the best-mannered city in the US something like 11 years running.

We’re hunkered down in here, snug and warm and just enjoying each other’s company, talking and sticking our heads up every now and then to see if Noah’s arrived with his ark yet.

We went off to the Charleston Museum yesterday afternoon with my friend Larry.  We went in his ex AirForce Step Van.  Carol's seat was an office chair attached to the desk in the back.  I sat on the speakers he used to use in his DJ Business.  It runs on oil he gets for free from the Chinese restaurant where he lives.  It has to be pre-heated before the diesel will start so he uses 2 golf-cart batteries to run everything.  They also run two domestic air conditioners he has poking out the side of the truck. It has an industrial horn jammed into the grill for a car horn.  Sounds good when it goes off, too.

We went into the markets this afternoon and visited the Confederate Museum.  Very interesting. Lots of down-home artifacts from the Southern side of what they call "the recent unpleasantness in these parts"

The boat in last pic got blown out of the anchorage, too.  Apparently the guy who owns it has been living on it for 17 years!!  It has no sails, has straps for dock-lines because he never ties up to anything and has a beat up umbrella for a bimini.  He said someone stole one of his anchors. He managed to maneuver to where he is - he's right in front of Themis, worth some $15 million. He's a bit strange.

Hope you are all well and happy.

Hoges double-tied and hanging on for dear life.

The Carolinas - Down the Icy W

Yes we did leave it a little late to join the snowbird exodus, so now we’re tagging along with the stragglers, feeling that icy chill at our backs (and most other places). Cold nights and the wind chill factor at the helm aside, there are some advantages in being a tail-ender, in particular the lack of crowding in anchorages and on the ICW itself.

Our last few days have mainly been spent negotiating canals and creeks down the east coast of North Carolina. Miles of waterside mansions, condos and a golf course every mile or so (I’ve seen this area advertised as the ‘Golf Coast’).  We saw the other side of things when we anchored in Calabash Creek and dinghied into the fishing village of Calabash to have a look around. We bought  fresh shrimps and flounder at a dockside stall and were offered a ride into town by a very generous local chap named John Brown (as a dedicated Confederate sympathiser, he was a little embarrassed about his name!) He seemed to know everyone we saw and was quite forthright in his opinions about what ‘Yankee money’ was doing to small communities like this.

Calabash Creek was a beautiful anchorage, by the way, with cypress forest and marshes providing habitat for dozens of different bird species, and a resident family of four dolphins for entertainment.

The South Carolina section of the waterway is generally less developed, with much of it still forest, marshland and vast acres of abandoned rice plantations which have not been cultivated since the end of the nineteenth century, when the end of slave labour meant that they were no longer economically viable. After a long cold day on the water we opted for a night at the Bucksport Marina, a friendly and pleasant stop where hot showers, great home-made burgers and power to heat the boat were very welcome. Ralph, the owner, told us that the site of the marina used to be a busy port for the export of cypress to England, and that the bottom of the canal here is filled with 300 year old ballast.

The next day was a big one – up at dawn to catch a strong tidal current up the Little River, alongside Myrtle Beach and past historic Georgetown, through Winyah Bay, the Minim Creek Canal, McClennanville, up Harbor River to an anchorage in a maze of marshes here in Awendaw Creek. It’s perfectly quiet and a half moon and thousands of stars are mirrored in the dark water. It’s hard to believe that just thirty miles away is the big city of Charleston. We should be there by noon tomorrow.

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.

Terry's Beer Tour of the World #4

Sam Adams Boston Lager

http://www.samueladams.com/index.aspx

Good without being great.  A bit flat.  This is a very large boutique? brewery if that’s not a contradiction.  They have a great website and an extensive range of beers that should keep everyone happy.  They are very much into seasonal beers and release different labels throughout the year.  It’s Oktoberfest time so that’s now been released but it looks a bit sweet for mine.

Bass Pale Ale

http://www.bass.com/home/

Nice drop.  Website doesn’t go anywhere – it’s part of Anheuser Busch here so that’s where you get led.  They have great ads in Las Vegas on the bus stops like “Making British Food tolerable since 1889” and so on.

Lagunitas Pale Ale

http://www.lagunitas.com/home.html

A bit on the sweet and chewy side with a lot of caramel.  Not something I’d buy again and I still have 5 to go.  The IPA and Maximus were also in the shop but not the Pilsner.  I’d like to give that a try before I called stumps on the brewery itself – it’d probably be a much better offering than this.  They do a Wheat Beer as well but I don’t like any wheat beers so that’s not something I’d hold against them. 

Sapporo. 

http://www.sapporousa.com/

Large can  - I don’t like things in tin (although when I was younger, we all drank ‘tinnies’?).  Giving some allowance for the tin, the beer was quite good.  I think the Japanese do most alcohol things well.

O.B.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Brewery

(Korean)  “Oriental Brewery”.  Pale gold with decent head.  Not a lot of flavor.  Drinkable when you’re focused mostly on the food – not something I’d drink on its own but OK with a Korean feast of Kimchi and snack plates.

Coopers Sparkling Ale

http://www.coopers.com.au/

  – had dinner at “The Australian” tavern in NYC on 36^th between 6^th & 7^th.  Australian pies were great but the sausage rolls were awful – some kind of yuck sausage meat.  Carol’s Chicken Pie was good.  I’ve had Coopers in here before but it’s one of my favourite brands and I’ll put it in again if I want to.  Sparkling, Pale… there’s a range of goodies there.  Watch out if you go to the tavern, though -  the Coopers are $7 each on the menu but $8 each on the bill.  Young Australian waiter was a Curtin journalism graduate from Perth looking to make his way in NYC.  Nice guy.

TsingTao

http://www.tsingtaobeer.com/home_lager.php

Can’t remember if this has been in before – we had two very good meals at a Chinese called “Main Noodle House” on 6^th down from 39^th.  Great food.  Tsing Tao is a bit sweet but generally goes well with Chinese food.  Website is interesting, too.

Harp (On tap)

http://www.diageo.com/en-ie/ourbrands/categories/Pages/Beers.aspx

 at O’Reilly’s on 35^th near our hotel.  Drinking it you aren’t aware that it’s actually beer.  No great hops bite.  After a couple you start feeling a bit light-headed and you’re reminded that it really does have alcohol in it.  And quite a bit, too.  Like it a lot.  One of Diageo’s brands which also include Kilkenny and Red Strip and Guinness and a few others.

Brooklyn Lager

http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/beer/

I thought this was more like an India Pale Ale.  Golden, nutty, rich.  It was a bit too full of hops for mine but Carol liked the intensity.  The other beers look good – Brown Ale, Pilsner, Pennant Ale & Pale Ale.  They have a draught offering of a wheat beer but we all know what I think of wheat beers.  I would look for these in New York City and try to get one of each.  If you scroll to the right through the beers, there are a few more that look interesting.  A Winter Ale with a Shepherd’s Pie might be good.  In the US, they always offer Shepherd’s Pie with beef mince?  Shepherds herd sheep, not cattle.  Should be Cottage Pie but they don’t seem bothered with the incongruity.

Leinenkugels.

http://shop.leinie.com/

Yep, straight up, that’s what it’s called.  Great website.  From Wisconsin, home of the Green Bay Packers, who know a thing or two about football.  They say when Green Bay is playing at home, you can shoot a cannon down mainstreet and not hit a thing.  Green Bay is owned by the people of Green Bay, not by a single owner, so the whole of Wisconsin supports them.

Great beer, this.  No fizz to speak of as it’s an ale, not a lager. The alcohol sneaks up on you in the second stubby.  Very drinkable – 4.7%.  If you ever get the chance, it’s worth picking up a carton.  Don’t really go for the other beers though -  wheats, berries etc.??  This is excellent, though.

At the Heart of the Empire - our week in New York

Remember Tom Wolfe's novel Bonfire of the Vanities? Movies like Wall Street, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Godfather, King Kong, Night at the Opera, Moonstruck, Ghostbusters, Taxi Driver, As Good as it Gets ...?  About a million TV shows ( Friends, Sex and the City and Seinfeld are just the first few that come to mind). What about iconic locations - Central Park, Broadway, Madison Avenue, Brooklyn Bridge, the Guggenheim, Yankee Stadium, Wall Street, the Empire State Building, Times Square and of course that big green statue in the harbour. Songs. Fabulous collections of art and artefacts that everyone recognises. Larger than life characters; big stories of success, over-reaching, greed, idealism, extraordinary achievements and tragedy.

My point is that all of us in the western world already know this city, perhaps even better than we know our own. So, while our week in New York City was amazing and exciting, it was also remarkably familiar. The other way you know you are at the centre of the empire is the people. You walk down 5th Avenue and hear fifteen languages. There are sophisticates in designer clothes, serious powerbrokers walking like they own the street, women in saris, Hasidic Jews with black hats and ringlets, cool black dudes who may well be famous rappers, protesters about everything, bag ladies and gentlemen, you name it. Now that everyone talks to themselves on their cell phones, it's actually pretty hard to tell who the crazy people are. Anyway, nowhere we went was threatening or scary, it was just fascinating.

New York is an expensive city to stay in, particularly if you want to be in a safe neighbourhood where you can walk to at least some of the attractions. Expedia solved that one for us - the Hampton Inn on 35th was in the Fashion District, just a street away from the Empire State Building, and we were able to book six nights for about a third of the standard rate. It was great - clean, friendly and with those most important amenities, a hot bath and a really comfortable bed at the end of a long day of walking.

The other good investment was a New York City Pass, which gets you in to a range of the big attractions for about half price. There are several alternative passes, but we opted for the $79 one that gives you entry to six major attractions: the Empire State Building, river cruise, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim, Natural History Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. If we had been staying longer, there is a card that gives you entry to about 50 places for roughly $200 and is really good value.

The galleries were sensational, though there are so many wonderful artworks that it can get a bit overwhelming. The Dutch masters were the highlight of the Met Museum for me, but MOMA had the best collection overall - Starry Night is there, of course, along with two of Monet's full three panel Waterlilies series. Some really beautiful Cezannes and my personal favourite, Chagall; Picassos that span his whole career, Dali's Crucifixion and Persistence of Time. I could go on and on ... and that's just the 4th floor! (Just a quick note - there was a case of Dadaist pieces too, including the famous fur cup and saucer from their first exhibition. And original pieces from the Bauhaus. And Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural drawings. And...). Once again, it's about NYC as a centre of western culture. Its major icons and artefacts from ancient Greek statuary to the next big thing are collected here, usually by extremely wealthy and influential people for whom art patronage and philanthropy are amongst the obligations of the seriously rich.

Of course New York is all about money, and part of what makes it so fascinating is the layers of commercial use that are still visible everywhere. Old buildings are converted to new uses, but the ghosts of 1930 advertising billboards can still be seen on their walls. In Macy's you can still ride the original wooden escalators. Trendy little restaurants spring up in low rent neighborhoods. Everywhere you walk is interesting and full of life and energy. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protests are part of this energy, I guess, though at the moment it's a pretty incoherent and unfocused protest. I've listened to dozens of protestors interviewed and none of them really seem to know why they're there apart from some general sense of grievance against someone - banks, governments, financiers, rich people. Maybe some sort of direction will emerge - it might influence the Democrats in the way the Tea Party has influenced the Republicans. Anyway, we decided to give the area a miss, just in case things turned ugly.

The cruise down the Hudson and East Rivers was well worth doing, offering a different perspective on Manhattan and its relationship to New Jersey, Brooklyn and to the other islands. The Liberty statue and Ellis Island carry such a weight of history for so many immigrants to the US, and it was also very sobering to see the famous skyline without the towers. There were quite a few sailboats about, but it would have been challenging threading through all the ferries, barges, tugs and other working boats - I'm glad we decided to bus it here instead of undertaking a very long sailing trip. Yet another perspective was the spectacular one from the top of the Empire State Building at night - it really is a city that doesn't sleep. A couple of moments to remember: I got crapped on by a pigeon in Times Square. Smart Arse #1: 'That means good luck around here.' Smart Arse #2: 'Yeah, it means you gonna get some new clothes'. Free handout boxes of awesome dark chocolates in Central Park, on condition that you share them with a friend and a stranger. 

We saw a couple of shows, Memphis which was fabulous, and The Perfect Crime which was a bit tired - the theatrical equivalent of a pot-boiler. There are so many restaurants it can be a bit overwhelming to make a choice. We ate at a good local Korean (there is a sort of 'little Korea' near the hotel), Chinese and various delis. Terry worked very hard on research for his beer blog (next update soon). On reflection, it would have been good to go somewhere special - maybe next time we'll head to Patsy's, Frank Sinatra's favourite Italian restaurant, or one of Anthony Bourdain's recommendations. And yes, we will go back. It's inexhaustible, and only limited by your own time, energy and money. This time around, we did the mainstream things that everyone does. There are layers and layers of stories here to explore.

So, now we're back on Common Sense in a marina that is pretty much deserted. It's getting cool quickly, which I guess it has to if you're going to fit four clearly defined seasons in a year. The Annapolis Boat Show is on this coming weekend and we have a few more bits and pieces to pick up there. After that, we'll head off on the long slow journey south, to sunshine and clear blue water.

Reflections on Water

Coming from the west coast of Australia means beaches of white sand and rugged limestone. Water comes in all the variations on the theme of blue, from blue-grey through holiday-brochure turquoise to the indigo of the deepest ocean.

Chesapeake Bay water is the green-black of motor oil, whether it's three feet or thirty feet deep. It teems with life, reminding you of the millions of primordial life-forms concentrated in every drop of oil. It's fecund, biological water, the colour of life. Surprising and mysterious things surface - huge silver fish leap and then vanish; schools of tiny fingerlings are herded by miniature pike; the fins of a ray lift suddenly from the murk; a hideous mud-coloured fish is scooped up by an osprey, briefly astonished to find itself swimming through the clear blue of the sky. Crabs huddle in the shallows, males grasping the females, twin sets of goggle eyes tracking you.

At night the water is oily black, reflecting the red, green and white channel markers in long ladders of light. Sunrise and sunset it is silver pink, like molten metal.