Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) - Part 3/3

[Kyle]Day Nine and Ten (April 12th & 13th)

The leg from our Alligator River anchorage to Elizabeth City, North Carolina was open enough and windy enough that we got to do everything but the ends of it under sail, giving us a welcome break from the recent piling-up of engine hours.

One amusing moment came when Maryanne called the Alligator River Bridge operator to request an opening. The process went pretty much by the book. Then he apologized and said he needed to ask a few more questions. Apparently, the higher-ups at the State Capitol in Raleigh had come up with a plan to curb drug smuggling by requiring him to have all boats passing his bridge to answer a short questionnaire about themselves and their boat. It was the first day of the new policy and he clearly thought it was ineffective.

"Are you Americans?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any drugs on board?"

"No."

"Well, off you go, then!"

Smugglers foiled!?

That's not the amusing part. The amusing part was that when he was talking to Maryanne, he threw in more Darlin's and Sweetheart's than cars waiting for a drawbridge. When he signed off, I was surprised he didn't ask her if she was free on Saturday night.

When the woman on the boat behind us called for an opening, I was expecting more entertainment, but the process was pretty business-as-usual. Same with the next one. Hmm? I suspect the difference had to do with their distinctly American accents versus Maryanne's adorable British one. I guess making a bunch of semis wait for a boat isn't as romantic as holding up a line of lorries for a yacht.

Even though we already finished circumnavigating AGES ago, Elizabeth City is the first place that we returned to put the boat in the same (general) spot after passing it going the other way to begin the aforementioned voyage. As such, it was time to dig out all of our courtesy flags and dress ship for our arrival. The tradition is a bit show-off-ey for my taste, but we only have to do it once per time around, so that's not too bad. We actually did do the thing, though, so it's not like we're trying to con anyone.

Begonia arrives in Elizabeth City, NC

Actually, Begonia looked pretty good flying all the colorful flags of the countries through which we have been lucky enough to sail. Closer inspection showed them to be in a wide range of condition, from ones that only had been a few days aloft in calm conditions to tattered rags that had been shredded by months of use in storm after storm. Our current Australian flag, for example, is our fourth and has lost half its length to the whipping winds. That makes them each not so much decorations as little stories.

We did not arrive to cheering crowds. We were in the quiet gap between the morning departures and the late afternoon arrivals. Most of the few people that were there when we tied up didn't even see us show up. Later, a few ambled over and some of them even asked what the deal was with all the flags. Most just shrugged at the answer, but we did get a few "Attaboy"s.

We were meeting our friend Ron, who we have known since we each had our boats at Ocean Marine in Portsmouth, Virginia in 2003. He was kind enough to let us bury him in package deliveries until we arrived and also offered to take us anywhere that we needed to go while we were there. We called and he said he would be at the boat in fifteen minutes.

Ron is "getting on a bit" as he puts it and he has been keeping us up to date with his medical adventures over the almost ten years since we had seen him last. Thus, at the appointed time, I spied an older gentleman painstakingly making his way from the parking lot to the boat. Ron said he was going to meet us at his car, but maybe he had changed his mind.

The thing is, this guy kinda looked like Ron, but also kinda didn't. It was hard to tell from a distance if that was him or if it was just another passerby. When he saw me in the cockpit, he hailed me and I went to say hi. A lot of years had passed. It could be him.

Then Maryanne came out and her face lit up. She climbed over the lifelines and gave the man a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. That was my cue to join in. {Maryanne: In fairness, Kyle had already called down to say "It's Ron" and by the time I exited the boat he was chatting to a very Ron-like gentleman, I just assumed it was Ron, I had no idea that Kyle was still deciding}

After a few seconds of small talk, she silently mouthed to me, "This isn't Ron."

Maybe not, but now he's got no reason to think sailors aren't just the nicest people.

When Ron did arrive, it was SO obviously him. I can't believe I doubted my own eyes. Our reunion was warm and instant. We knocked a few errands out and then he took us to dinner, where we finally had a chance to properly catch up on each other's last decade.

Quality time with Ron: an old friend and fellow sailor

We did a longer version of the same the next day, except that this time, we finished at the area's best Mexican restaurant, owned by the same family for something like thirty years. Oooooh, man, that was good! I have soooo missed American-style Mexican food in all of its spicy, saucy, cheesy goodness. My eyes were rolling back in my head. That was such a treat. When we got back to the boat, my stomach felt like I had just got home from Thanksgiving dinner at Mom's, but what a great meal that was.

Farther along the ICW, they were having bridge and lock trouble. Great Bridge was having some sort of electrical fault in their control panel for the lock and bridge there. We weren't going that way, but we were expecting a lot of boats to divert to the shallower and slower Great Dismal Swamp route we were planning to use. The problem we had was with the Gilmerton Bridge, just beyond the Dismal Swamp. They had construction going on with a reduced opening schedule starting tomorrow afternoon. The only way to get there in time would be to go through the Elizabeth City bridge a day early so we would have time to be at the first locking into the Dismal Swamp Canal the next morning. We bid Ron farewell, squeezed in a visit to the very well presented visit to the very well presented Museum of the Albemarle, and at the next opening, went through the bridge and anchored for the night in a quiet section of the Pasquotank River.

Leaving Elizabeth City

Day Eleven to Norfolk (Apr 14th)

We were surprised when we got to the South Mills Lock, at the beginning of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal, to find only one other boat waiting. By the time the lock keeper was ready, we had both been joined by two power boats as well. Once we were all tied up in the lock, we were finally close enough to converse. The first subject was how fast we planned on going through the canal. We answered 4.5 knots since that is the speed we would need to make to get to the Deep Creek Lock on the northern end for its 1330 opening (actually, it was 4.3 with a buffer). The other three boats had the same 1330 goal, so we all agreed no passing would be necessary and we would all maintain our current sequence for the duration.

About two minutes after leaving the lock, the boat behind us gave us a call on the radio. "Hey, Begonia. Our speed transducer doesn't work too well at these low speeds. What does yours read?"

Mine reads I know you have a GPS like every other boat in the world and you know exactly how fast we're all going. "I've got four point seven right now" I said.

"Uh, do you mind if we slide by you real quick?"

It sure beats having you breathing down our necks all morning. "No problem. We'll ease out of the way for you."

At this, the second power boat announced he was going to pass us both. Fine.

An early start again, but calm waters and bright sunshine made for a pretty day (full of reflections), most of it in the Great Dismal Swamp

The Great Dismal Swamp Canal is very straight, but because of the natural horizon and the overhanging branches, it is only possible to see about two or three miles ahead. Over the next couple of hours, all of the boats in front of us gradually disappeared into the foliage. We kept plodding along and between our GPS and the canal's well-placed mile markers, we made sure we were staying just ahead of our goal of eleven minutes, fifty-one seconds per statue mile.

As we approached the lock and bridge at the Deep Creek end, we emerged from the trees (one of which had taken our masthead wind vane as a trophy) to find the other three boats loitering around in the narrow canal. Forty minutes later, they were still doing so as we coasted to a stop behind them. Five minutes after that, the bridge was lifted and we all went through. These are the people who will always beat you to the next red light.

Once out of the lock, we turned the corner into what I have previously said is the ugliest section of the entire Intracoastal Waterway. I still stand by that, although I must admit they have tidied up about a fifty-foot section of it since then. It is within this section that the Gilmerton Bridge lies at the apex of a sharp bend. We got through it okay before the construction closure.

On the other side, for the first time in ten years, we could see the buildings of the Norfolk, Virginia skyline. We made it! We made it!

We Made it back to Norfolk (the area we'd spent 4 years as our home)

Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) - Part 2/3

[Kyle]Day Five and Six (Apr 8th & 9th) - we head off but return to the start

When I got out of bed in the pre-dawn darkness, the weather was pretty bad. The temperature had really dropped and sideways rain was already slashing at the boat. We had one open-water stretch in Palmlico Sound where we had to transition between the Neuse and Pungo Rivers. I knew it was going to be pretty miserable, but was hoping the early start and the extra mileage we made the night before would mean we could be out of the worst of it and anchored by afternoon.

After topping my base layers with my fleece-lined wetsuit, I put my foul weather gear over the whole lot and headed outside for my stint at the helm. We tried for a lull in the rain, but Maryanne got pretty drenched during her few short minutes at the windlass while she retrieved our anchor.

We got a decent start, but the weather in the Neuse was even worse than I had expected. The Nuese is shallow and the short, steep chop was at just the right wavelength and height to almost stop Begonia as we slammed into each new wave face. As the wind continued to build, we did start coming to a complete halt every now and then, with our only directional control being provided by the action of the prop wash over a small section of our rudders. With worsening conditions, we eventually got to where we were only moving forward the minority of the time. It was slowly becoming apparent that not only would we not be anchored by afternoon, we would be lucky to make it to the Pungo by dark.

Had I thought about it when we were still in the protection of the anchorage, I could have set up Begonia for sailing. It would have been a horrible, wet slog with a lot of tacking, but she would have been able to make headway to windward in this. Now it was too rough and I was too clenched up from the cold to consider it safe to be going through the acrobatics of holding on while trying to unzip the mainsail bag. With a sigh, I put the helm over and turned us around.

After spending the whole morning burning a lot of fuel to go practically nowhere, with the help of the wind we were back in Adams Creek in only twenty minutes. It wasn’t until Maryanne helped me peel the layers of wet clothing off of me that I realized how cold and fatigued I had become.

I was so deflated. After coming all this way, we were finally only days from reuniting with old friends. I knew we were going to have a couple of less-than-ideal days, but I thought we would be able to grit our teeth and power through them. We had made promises. We had set dates. I felt like I had let everybody down.

Waiting out the rain and howling winds of the next day-and-a-half from inside the warmth of our heated cabin, I couldn’t help feeling like I should have tried harder. Perhaps if I had worn another layer, left earlier, or put up the sails and tacked, we could have made it around the corner into the Pungo, where the chop would no longer pound us to a halt. It was nice not to have to be out there in it like we would on an ocean crossing, but it was hard to really relax on our unplanned feet-up day, knowing that we were so close and that everybody had to scramble at the last minute to change plans on our behalf.

Day Seven and Eight (Apr 10th & 11th) - to Elizabeth City

The wind had only started to die down from the storm of the last two days, but it was on the decline, so we headed out to give what should have been Day Five another go. The rain had stopped, which helped morale a lot, but the clearing skies had removed the cloudy blanket holding in the night’s heat, so it was COLD. It was cold enough to be below the dew point in the open water, which put us in a pea-soup fog for the first half of the morning.

At Eastham Creek, we pulled off the ICW and set anchor. Overnight, the rest of the storm blew through. We woke to clear skies and a light, but cold wind.

By the time we made it through the Alligator-Pungo Canal into the Alligator River, we had shed most of our layers and the wind was almost completely gone. The wide river was so placid that we didn’t even need to seek a protected anchorage for the night. We just pulled out of the channel, waited until the depth sounder reached 2.5 (meters) and dropped anchor.

No photos from the rainy days, just these from day 8 (a much nicer day, with a bit of fog in the wider waters)

Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) - Part 1/3

[Kyle]Day One (Apr 4th)

It was time to get moving again. We left Charleston at dawn along with a whole cohort of boats that had been waiting out the weather. Most were powerboats that were faster and significantly shorter in height than us. They were already receding around the next curve in the waterway when we arrived at the first bridge. By the time it opened to let our mast through, the other boaters were well out of sight. We spent the rest of the available daylight mostly by ourselves, slowly gliding by marshland that was occasionally interrupted by a mile or so of waterfront housing, every one of which seemed to be at least a part-time Bed and Breakfast.

Day 1: Charleston to Winyah Bay (ICW mile 406)

By sunset, we had made it to Winyah Bay, just downstream of Georgetown, South Carolina. We weren’t quite fast enough to get there before the midges came out for their evening feed, though. We anchored pretty far from shore, so the situation was probably a lot better than it could have been. It would have been nice to sleep with the hatches open, but not nice to wake up covered in little, itchy bites. I guess that’s what fans are for…

Day Two (Apr 5th)

Following our pre-dawn departure, we had a very atmospheric first few hours as the flooding tide took us up the Waccamaw River from Winyah Bay. There was not a breath of wind, which made the water an upside-down version of the views above. We went through thick fog interspersed with cold, clear spots where the mists clung to the tops of cypress trees whose buttress roots splayed out before entering the mud below the water’s surface.

As the sun rose further, all of the moisture burned off and we were soon hiding from it under the bimini to keep from being cooked.

High tide arrived just as we passed the tidal border between the waters fed by the inlets for the Waccamaw and Calabash rivers. Now the ebb was helping us along. I would love to take credit for timing it that way, but we would have needed every minute of daylight anyway, so we were going to have to take whatever we got.

Day 2: Winyah Bay to Sage Island (ICW mile 329.5) - now in North Carolina

I had planned on anchoring for the night in the Calabash, right on the border between North and South Carolina. I had done it once before and really didn’t like it. There is a lot of tour boat traffic through there and they seem to take a certain pleasure in charging and then swerving to throw big wakes on the anchored boats. There is no suitable alternative nearby. With our all-day boost from the current, we had just enough time to carry on, now on the flood coming in Calabash’s inlet, to get all of the way to a very peaceful spot on the Shallotte River where it was just us and one other catamaran. That was so much better.

Day Three (Apr 6th)

As our pre-dawn-to-dusk schedule remained the same, the moon and thus the tides came later. We were starting to get out of sync, but only a little. We were doing okay until about the time we saw Lydia waving at us from Take Five at the marina in Southport. By the time we turned north to follow the Cape Fear River, the current was holding us back more and more by the minute. We got excited when it turned in our favor as we transited Snow’s Cut to the New River, but then we were right back to fighting it again. We had a nice tailwind, though, which allowed us to keep our speed where we would like it. It took us right until the last minute of daylight to get to our anchorage at Sloop Point, just out of the busy channel for all of the boats moored at the docks on Topsail Island.

As we headed northward, the houses on both sides of the ICW got more numerous and much bigger. We saw single homes that were much larger than the buildings we have seen on some small islands that house the entire government. More impressive was that since the water is so shallow and marshy, each home has a loooong railroad trestle-style pier leading from the house to the ubiquitous center-console fishing boat, jacked up on a lift at the end. Most of the piers had thick railings on each side, as well as a covered seating area by the boat. Each one looked like they took more lumber to build than the house. Out of all of the thousands that we saw, only two had someone obvious out enjoying them. I imagine that if you are lucky enough to have one of these homes, you will ironically need to spend most of your time somewhere else, working to pay for them.

Day 3: Sage Island to Sloop Point (ICW Mile 264)

Day Four (Apr 7th)

Our luck with the current finally ended. A big blow was on its way and none of the anchorages that were available in the next sixty miles offered much protection. The best plan I could think of was to continue past Beaufort, North Carolina into the more protected waters of the little creeks to the north in the section between Bogue Sound and the Neuse River. To make this work, we had to leave Sloop Creek in the last few hours of the moonless night. This synchronized us with the current, but in the wrong way. Every time we would pass an inlet, we would go from fighting the flood to fighting the brand-new ebb.

This leg of our trip started beautiful and calm with glassy water and the slightest of tailwinds, which was not enough to be worth deploying any sail for a speed boost. By afternoon, lowering clouds arrived along with a building headwind that slowed Begonia down even more. Even though it was Saturday, all of the recreational traffic quickly thinned until it was just us plodding slowly away in the channel.

By the time we made it to the Beaufort/Morehead City area, the sound of the wind through the rigging was completely droning out the engines. When we finally made it out of Bogue sound, we were better protected from the wind and waves, which helped our speed through the water, but the adverse current picked up to more than compensate for the gain. We were now fighting the building flood coming south down Adams Creek from the Neuse River.

We got to our anchorage twenty minutes after sunset. We were as far as we could get and still be protected from the building swell in the Neuse. That was a long day. Since the next day’s weather was supposed to be worsening, we knew it was also going to be a short night with an early start.

Day 4:To nowhere in particular (ICW Mile 188.5)

Charleston, South Carolina

[Kyle]Charleston is one of our favorite cities on the East Coast, so we were happy to make landfall there after nearly seven years away from the U.S. Even before we had cleared in, we were already invited to cocktails aboard Take Five by Bill and Lydia, who are Chesapeake-based members of the Offshore Cruising Club (OCC) were also passing through Charleston. Joining us for cocktails were Kurt and Carol, the Charleston port officers for the OCC, the very same group that had been there on our arrival to say "Hi" and help tie our lines. What a warm welcome and a lovely first evening back in the USA.

Charleston has a classic style and is a pleasure to just amble about the many historic streets

After Take Five departed the next morning, we spend the bulk of our day doing the usual boring marina jobs that build up between visits. Among the jobs, it was the first time in several months that we had access to fresh water and a hose, so Begonia received some long overdue pa-treatment. Maryanne did some basic grocery shopping in the first real supermarket we’ve seen since we left South Africa back in the new year (thanks kindly to Carol, the local OCC port officer for the assistance). We were both flagging at the end of the day, but insisted on walking downtown for dinner as an excuse to enjoy the beautiful city along the way. Actually, we weren’t planning to go that far, the local Yacht Club was advertising a pizza night and that sounded just right for us. Once we arrived though, they confessed to some staff issue, and told us the only pizzas on offer were frozen ones from Walmart. We took the hint, and went off to find a proper pizza joint. We ended up at New York Pizza, where they were so faithful to the style that it was impossible to eat a slice without folding it in half like the New Yorkers do.

Our next day was reserved for proper tourism. We started with a trip to Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. The Confederates relentlessly blasted it to rubble from all sides within the first few hours. Hearing the accounts and looking at the photos, it seems amazing that any of the Union soldiers within survived at all. All did, in fact, and were later allowed to surrender the fort and return to their Union ships without further harm. They even got to keep their flag. By the time they got the fort back four years later, it was basically just a mound of dirt riddled with bricks.

Fort Sumter - where the first shots were fired of the American Civil War (1861)

We spent the balance of the day walking through Charleston’s stately streets, the college (university) buildings and the town’s many museums. We chose a route back to the marina via Fast and French, a restaurant recommended by Kurt and Carol. It is small, with only a long bar and just a handful of tables and it is endlessly charming. We were very lucky to get a couple of the spots at the end of the bar.

Beautiful Charleston kept us quite busy

After we sat down (at Fast and French), a whole string of regulars came by to be told their usual table wouldn’t be available for a while. All took the news in stride and none seemed to begrudge us the time to fully enjoy our delicious meal at a proper French pace while they paced the sidewalk outside trying to appear busy.

We walked home with the warm glow of full bellies that included some good wine and arrived just as one last cold rain shower announced that the time had come to dive inside for the rest of the night.

Return to the U.S.A.

[Kyle]When the wind had finally moved far enough to the northeast from north, we pulled up anchor and left The Bahamas for the U.S. Even though we were sailing close to the wind, the sail was pleasant with the last of the reefs to windward flattening the seas. In due course, that all ended and we were soon having to hold on and dive out of the helm seat to avoid the errant wave. By sunset, we had reached the edge of the Gulf Stream. Our speed over ground climbed into the teens and stayed there for the next day and a half.

As we shot north, the wind and waves gradually veered astern. Conditions morphed from annoying to pleasant. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream kept the temperatures nice and tropical, even though we were pushing into what was the end of the Northern winter just ten days previously.

The wind started to blow hard from the south. We used as much sail as the gusts would allow since we knew it was forecast to continue veering to the west and increasing to gale force. The last hundred miles to Charleston, South Carolina are in pretty shallow water and I didn’t want to be there in forty-knot gusts.

An Easy sail with Pelicans at both ends of the passage

When our second and last morning came, we had just left the Gulf Stream. We were seventy miles out and all the forecasts were saying the gale should be arriving any minute now. When we finally sailed into the flat water between the breakwaters at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, the most wind we had seen so far was eighteen knots. By the time we sailed past Fort Sumpter just a few minutes later, we were going upwind at seven knots with only three square meters of jib unrolled. The channel turned directly upwind, so we rolled it up and started the engines. It was a few minutes before they were warmed up enough to drive us forward into the building thirty-knot gusts.

When we arrived at Charleston City Marina to clear in, we were pleased to find that our assigned space was alongside their big megadock, with no fancy maneuvering required. A lot of the boats who were scheduled to leave had elected to stay through the blow, so they cleared out a little slot that was barely longer than Begonia. The wind was blowing directly onto the dock, so all I had to do was use asymmetric power to keep us centered in our gap and aligned with the dock as the wind blew us in sideways, letting the fenders absorb the impact. Leaving would be pretty much impossible now, so it’s a good thing we have a couple of days to let the storm blow itself out before we have to try.

Aside from the dock crew ready to assist us, we were also greeted by two couples from the local Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) port officers (Kurt and Carol) and visiting OCC member boaters (Bill & Lydia) that had been monitoring our progress – we had quite the welcome. Our on-line clearing-in request wasn’t going as smoothly as expected so we were not quite sure what our legal status was without an "all clear" message; we opted to thank everyone from a distance and agreed to meet up later once rested and official.

We last left the USA by boat in November of 2016(!), and have only manged a few brief returns via plane: Kyle to collect parts and visit with his Mom while we were in Chile (March 2018), and a quick day trip to San Francisco to reset our visas in January of 2020. Our planned "proper" vacation around Easter of 2020 was all cancelled due to Covid, so visits with family and friends are long overdue.

We had a warm welcome from fellow OCC Members on our arrival
Bill and Lydia (of Take Five), and Kurt and Carol(Charleston OCC Port officers )