...the saga continues....Up early and over to the lock tender’s hut the next morning for the promised coffee! UHaul, or UTurn, greeted us and the coffee was poured all around. Robert even microwaved us some little breakfast biscuits. How’s that for service? A morning spent with nice people and listening to really great stories from the lock tender on some experiences he’s had…quite the tales…started our next leg down the Dismal Swamp.
We left Sue and Vick at the dock to continue on their travels, which took them back through the lock, and continued on with Double Dutch and Smoooth Move down the Dismal. After coffee and stories, Lock Tender Robert and UTurn/UHaul had to jump into the pickup and drive down to open up the Deep Creek Bridge for us as we departed.
Our next stop was the Great Dismal Swamp Canal Visitor’s Center where we would tie up for the night. This Visitor’s Center is right off Highway 17 and accommodates both boats and cars! I think it’s the only one in the country that does that. We had a lot of people from their cars come down to talk to us. This area was also the site of a Civil War battle in which Confederate soldiers prevented the Yankees from blowing up the locks. So much history out here!
Later in the evening we were approached by an Island Packet 445 coming down the Swamp. As there was no room left on the dock, they “rafted up” with us. This means they tie directly to our boat, side to side. This is done quite often in crowded areas. If they need to get off their boat they must walk across our deck. The etiquette is not to walk through the cockpit but across the foredeck. And here we met Marthalou and R.T. How’s that for some southern names? And their accent suited them perfectly. They were bringing their boat down from the Richmond area to Oriental, NC for the winter, traveling with their friends Chess and Karen. They use it as a floating condo. Nice, nice people. By the time we left them I was talking just like Marthalou! Y’all!
The next morning we were all up early and ready to go at daybreak, wiping the dew off the boat and enjoying the mist on the water. It’s so pretty. I wish you could all experience this. We were headed for Elizabeth City. We’re now in North Carolina! We had to traverse another lock, this time going down 8 feet. And this lock tender wasn’t as nice or efficient! Oh well, I guess they can’t all be Roberts. He wasn’t even monitoring his VHF radio so we had to figure out what he wanted us to do. The other boats filed in, preparing to tie up on the starboard side. We were prepared for that, too. Then suddenly the lock tender motions with his arms to go to the other side! Like the guys do at the airport, but without the flashlights. “Ran! Does he want us to wait out here on that side or does he want us to go in on that side? What do you think?!” “Hell if I know!” Pretty soon we’re so close we can hear him shouting. He wants us to tie port to. Good grief. Why don’t you use your damn radio, mister? I pulled Kwanesum over and Randy frantically switched all the lines and fenders to the port side. A Chinese fire drill for sure. (Can I say that anymore?) As the water comes in, you need to tend the lines to keep them taut. Much harder for Lonnie who’s single-handing. We were all on our way again in no time. Well, maybe not in no time, but we finally got underway.
As we arrived in Elizabeth City, all the boats decided to tie up at the same spot, the city docks. We fit in nicely except for s/v Gift of the Magi, which is Marthalou and R.T.’s boat. Too big! But there was room around the corner. We had lots of help tying up from gentlemen standing along the dock. Randy jumped off to thank them and low and behold one is the mayor! Great service there in E City. He invited us all to a wine and cheese reception at 4:30pm put on by the Rose Buddies just for us. Apparently it is a tradition in this town started by a gentleman in honor of his wife. He loved roses and had them growing everywhere in his yard. When he saw boats come in he would pick the roses and come down to the dock to welcome the boats with a reception. After his death, the town continues the tradition in his honor. It was very special. It reminds us all to stop and smell the roses.
"As the gateway to the Outer Banks, Elizabeth City stirs memories of the time when Blackbeard sailed the waters, trains were still a way of life and Wilbur and Orville stopped for provisions on their way to Kitty Hawk," mentions a brochure we found. We did not experience these stirred memories but perhaps they're there somewhere. We did however enjoy the little part of the town we were in at the water side in the little time we were there.
This is when we made the decision to travel on with Double Dutch and Smoooth Move. (you’re right, Lonnie…putting that extra ‘o’ in there is a pain in the neck!) We had our first Skipper’s meeting and decided to leave at 0’dark-thirty in the morning, heading to mile 102.2 where we would anchor at Deep Point off the Alligator River. At this point a power boat came in and it was people Theo and Marion (Double Dutch) had met in Norfolk. We invited them over and met our second pair of Canadians, Monica and Al on Painkiller. Skipper’s meeting’s over. Let’s just have fun! It is so damn fun just sitting and talking with these people.
We woke to a gorgeous morning and headed out, waving goodbye to Monica and Al. We decided to take a short cut across the Albemarle Sound. In doing so, we played ‘find the opening’ amongst all the crab pots! We knew this would happen and it’s not too bad, but they were everywhere. It seems as if they can put crab pots wherever they damn well please. And they can tag them with whatever kind of buoy they want…whatever color. Some of them look like recycled milk bottles. I don’t think this would fly in California. They would have some kind of regulation on this. At times…regulation can be a good thing. We’re zig zagging our way through.
Along the way, we saw the blimp hanger the mayor told us about. It is leftover from World War II and apparently this is where they make 99% of the blimps today. Just not the Goodyear blimp. And by golly we did see Snoopy on the Met Life blimp as we sailed by.
As we were trucking down the river who should drive up but Painkiller! They were going to stay in E City a couple of days, but the day was so beautiful and they saw all they wanted to see there in 3 hours, so they decided to follow us. Good deal! Now there were 4 of us buddy-boating.
We crossed the Albemarle, then the Neuse River and turned into the Alligator River. We turned into Little Alligator River and found our anchorage for the night. Ran and I have not anchored much…not a lot of anchoring in the SF Bay… so we are still pretty new at the procedure, but we did well! We’re still getting used to handling Kwanesum anyway, as she’s a much heavier boat with a full keel, which is harder to maneuver and turn on a dime. Thus…the bow thrusters. Bow thrusters are my friend. Good, good bow thrusters.
Captains meeting….5pm! All headed to the power boat tiki bar.
It was such a beautiful night. A zillion stars everywhere. Because we are not used to anchoring, Ran and I were up several times during the night to check on everything. Every little noise would prompt us to check. At one time, around midnight we heard a steady noise and it was a tug pushing a barge…really pretty to see during the night. Kind of an odd thing to say about a tug pushing a barge, but it was neat. And again…the stars were amazing. Up at dawn to get going and another tug and barge passed by. Beautiful mornings and the tug and barge just added that extra touch. OK…you had to be there, but it was neat.
The next point of travel decided by the Skipper’s Meeting would be mile 157.3 on the ICW, the docks of the RE Mayo Shrimp Company in Hobocken, NC. Went through the Pungo River into Goose Creek. The docks here at our stop are….old. Very old. There are 3 old shrimp boats tied up to the docks but plenty of room for us, too. But be careful when you get off the boat. The docks are indeed precarious. Skipper’s Meeting on Double Dutch tonight. Bring the mosquito spray…they’re on a roll. This is a narrow canal, mind you, and during the evening…the tugs come by with their barges. It is a sight to see. The next decided point of travel would be Beaufort, NC.
We woke up to fog. Well there you go! I’ve done fog before…big, tule fog. No problem. We try to wipe off our dodger because of all the dew on it…so we can see. We’re ready…everybody ready? Let’s go. Randy and Ellen…you lead today. OK, no problem. I get behind the helm and off we go. I’m watching the chart plotter and there’s a little fishing boat right in the channel! Well, come on…why are you in the channel?! Sheesh! And they’re crab pots. Crap…I hate dodging the crab pots. Specially before I’ve had my coffee. Pretty soon I hear Theo yelling…”Ellen! This way!” I was so worried about the fisherman and the crab pots I was heading the wrong direction! Even though I had the chart plotter telling me exactly where to go. Ugh. OK…I’m back on track. Then…after Randy wiped off the dodger window a zillion times he said “Why don’t we just unzip it and put it up out of the way?!” duh…..now there’s a good idea! That way we can see! Yay! That would be a great idea!
Now we’re fumbling our way through the fog when Randy says, “I think I see a boat coming straight for us.” Oh, jeez. OK. I’m really putting my Porterville fog eyes to work here which is actually good training. Tule fog is a great training ground for future ship’s captains. I see the boat. It’s Painkiller! They had left earlier, but because they don’t have radar and there was lots of fog, they thought they’d stop and let Randy and Ellen lead since they have radar. Only problem is…Randy and Ellen forgot they had radar and hadn’t been using it! Hello?! Randy and Ellen?! Anybody home?!? We happen to have a super great radar that overlays onto our GPS. But if the brain doesn’t remember that……it’s useless.
Ahem…. After turning on our expensive and wonderful radar…we trucked on down the waterway…headed to Beaufort, NC.
Arrived at Beaufort and tried to figure out where we’re going to be for the night. Oops! It’s getting shallow! We are at Town Creek Marina and wanted to anchor out there, but there are a lot of shoals in that area. We got on the wrong side. The dock master hailed us on the VHF radio and we got back on track. Thought we might go into a berth but the space was too tight. It’s hard to maneuver Kwanesum in tight spaces. So we decided to go back and anchor where everyone else was…but there’s not a lot of room and a lot of depth. Crap. We aren’t great at this anyway, and now we have to decide where to fit in amongst the boats so there’s enough room to swing around. Our technique is still being polished. We found a spot. Let’s drop the anchor. “Ellen…move it back. Reverse. OK. I think we’re good. Get me a beer.” (note from Ellen: we’ll get better at this as we go. Practice makes perfect.) Phew. Wine for me…beer for the Ran-man.
Weather’s not great, but it’s a nice anchorage. We can dinghy to the other side and go into their old town near the water. Very nice. Ran and I go in and walk to town, have some lunch…buy a couple of rugs for the boat and pick up some beer at a store. Back in the dinghy…back to the boat. Good day.
Skipper’s Meeting at the tiki bar. Love that tiki bar on Painkiller. No…wait….I think we were at Double Dutch…oh well…doesn’t matter. It’s always good. Next point of travel, Camp LeJeune, NC. It’s a marine base. You can’t go ashore, but you’re allowed to anchor in this one spot at Mile Hammock Bay. (Skye however was granted permission to go in and do her thing. Skye is special…and we know that.)
We’re in…anchored…we’re getting better at this…and the military are running some exercises. I love it. I just love our military. They have neato boats they’re running around in all around us…after dark, even…without lights. Cool. And the helicopters are flying right over our boats. It all makes my heart pound with pride. I applauded when they went by us. They appreciated it.
Skipper’s meeting….I forget where….point of travel will be mile 295.1, Carolina Beach, NC.
This was quite a day. As we go down the ICW it becomes more of a challenge. A lot of shoaling has taken place. We are following several books that have details of what to expect and what to avoid. We try out best to follow their suggestions and keep in the deeper part of the channels. It doesn’t always work. The first to go aground was Double Dutch. They have a 7 foot draft, which is pretty deep. They got in trouble. Painkiller being a power boat, was able to turn around, go back, and pull them off. Excellent. Otherwise they would have to wait for the tide to rise. Really, really nice of them to turn around, come back, and do that.
We travel on and Smoooth Move gets in trouble. Lonnie turns the boat and powers it forward and gets off. Excellent. Moving on down…being really vigilant of the buoys and the depth…Lonnie goes aground again. He, too, has a deep draft. We are just ahead of him and slow down…back up a bit…try to help. We’ve caught something in our prop. Crap, crap, crap! I hate when that happens. Lonnie turns his boat and gets off. Excellent.
We continue motoring on, feeling the boat shake knowing something must be caught somewhere on the prop or rudder. Not good…but it seems ok. We wait for the bridge to open. This is our second or third bridge we have dealt with this leg, and it gets old. These bridges only open on the hour! Some open on the half hour and the hour, but this one only on the hour! Ugh…. Means you have to putz around and wait and hope you don’t get into some honking current that sends you where you don’t want to be! Double Dutch got into trouble waiting for one bridge. The current caught them and they had to put their anchor out to stop them before they started under the bridge before it opened! Mast would have been gone for sure. But Theo got his anchor out pronto and held fast. Phew! They were ok.
Bridge is finally open and we all file through. We feel this thing we’re caught on. Boat is shaking. OK…just get through the bridge, Kwanesum! Ran powers up and whatever it was seemed to fall off and we smoothly powered through. All righty! Good girl, Kwanesum. All is ok and we’re going on. Coming up on a spot the book said to be vigilant. Stay to the red side, it said…more depth there. We do…we go aground. And we just have a 4 foot draft! Good grief. Randy turns the boat…turns on the bow thruster….we’re off. No harm, no foul. We’re on our way again. Love those thrusters!
We arrive at Mile 295.1 Carolina Beach. It was very beautiful along the way despite the stress of watching our depth the whole time. There are some beautiful houses. Some big boats! Mostly fishing boats. We’re really glad to be here. Ran and I decide to go into a marina. We need fuel, water, provisions and need to do laundry. The others anchor out just around the corner. Randy also wants to have someone dive on our boat to see if something is on our propeller or rudder. It’s time to stop anyway. It’s good to have electricity you don’t have to worry about. When we’re at anchor we have electricity but you have to be careful how much you use and it’s all 12 volt. We have small inverters we can plug in to but they don’t like it when the power isn’t up at a certain level. The solar panels we have really keep the power up. But it goes fast when you use it. So it’s nice not to worry about it for a couple of days.
The diver found the culprit today. A big ole piece of plastic. All twisted around. I’m so glad we stopped and checked this. Kwanesum is glad, too.
There’s a weather front here now. We traveled during a little rain yesterday, so it’s good to stop for a few days. And there’s internet here. Good deal. I slept in. Nice.
Skipper’s Meeting…where are we going next? (By now, I forget where we had these meetings. =) We rotate boats. It’s just too fun.)
Well…the sail boats want to go outside to the Atlantic for this stint to Charleston, SC. The ICW gets even shallower from this point on. It’s just too stressful and difficult for the sailboats…we want to go outside. It would be an overnight sail, but that’s ok. We’ve actually wanted to do this anyway. Seems like the best thing is to go out at Cape Fear Inlet and back in at Charleston. Because of the weather that’s hanging around it looks like we won’t leave until Tuesday. Today is Friday. But we can rest here and prepare. It will be a different journey. So we’ll need to prepare the boat for that. We will need to travel straight through for 30 hours or so, so different shifts at the helm will be in order. Let’s do it. I’ve been waiting for this.
Ran and I have a dear friend that is now in Wilmington, NC and we are looking forward to meeting up with her tomorrow.
We’ll leave you here and keep you posted on the next leg of the trip. Stay tuned!
We left Sue and Vick at the dock to continue on their travels, which took them back through the lock, and continued on with Double Dutch and Smoooth Move down the Dismal. After coffee and stories, Lock Tender Robert and UTurn/UHaul had to jump into the pickup and drive down to open up the Deep Creek Bridge for us as we departed.
Our next stop was the Great Dismal Swamp Canal Visitor’s Center where we would tie up for the night. This Visitor’s Center is right off Highway 17 and accommodates both boats and cars! I think it’s the only one in the country that does that. We had a lot of people from their cars come down to talk to us. This area was also the site of a Civil War battle in which Confederate soldiers prevented the Yankees from blowing up the locks. So much history out here!
Later in the evening we were approached by an Island Packet 445 coming down the Swamp. As there was no room left on the dock, they “rafted up” with us. This means they tie directly to our boat, side to side. This is done quite often in crowded areas. If they need to get off their boat they must walk across our deck. The etiquette is not to walk through the cockpit but across the foredeck. And here we met Marthalou and R.T. How’s that for some southern names? And their accent suited them perfectly. They were bringing their boat down from the Richmond area to Oriental, NC for the winter, traveling with their friends Chess and Karen. They use it as a floating condo. Nice, nice people. By the time we left them I was talking just like Marthalou! Y’all!
The next morning we were all up early and ready to go at daybreak, wiping the dew off the boat and enjoying the mist on the water. It’s so pretty. I wish you could all experience this. We were headed for Elizabeth City. We’re now in North Carolina! We had to traverse another lock, this time going down 8 feet. And this lock tender wasn’t as nice or efficient! Oh well, I guess they can’t all be Roberts. He wasn’t even monitoring his VHF radio so we had to figure out what he wanted us to do. The other boats filed in, preparing to tie up on the starboard side. We were prepared for that, too. Then suddenly the lock tender motions with his arms to go to the other side! Like the guys do at the airport, but without the flashlights. “Ran! Does he want us to wait out here on that side or does he want us to go in on that side? What do you think?!” “Hell if I know!” Pretty soon we’re so close we can hear him shouting. He wants us to tie port to. Good grief. Why don’t you use your damn radio, mister? I pulled Kwanesum over and Randy frantically switched all the lines and fenders to the port side. A Chinese fire drill for sure. (Can I say that anymore?) As the water comes in, you need to tend the lines to keep them taut. Much harder for Lonnie who’s single-handing. We were all on our way again in no time. Well, maybe not in no time, but we finally got underway.
As we arrived in Elizabeth City, all the boats decided to tie up at the same spot, the city docks. We fit in nicely except for s/v Gift of the Magi, which is Marthalou and R.T.’s boat. Too big! But there was room around the corner. We had lots of help tying up from gentlemen standing along the dock. Randy jumped off to thank them and low and behold one is the mayor! Great service there in E City. He invited us all to a wine and cheese reception at 4:30pm put on by the Rose Buddies just for us. Apparently it is a tradition in this town started by a gentleman in honor of his wife. He loved roses and had them growing everywhere in his yard. When he saw boats come in he would pick the roses and come down to the dock to welcome the boats with a reception. After his death, the town continues the tradition in his honor. It was very special. It reminds us all to stop and smell the roses.
"As the gateway to the Outer Banks, Elizabeth City stirs memories of the time when Blackbeard sailed the waters, trains were still a way of life and Wilbur and Orville stopped for provisions on their way to Kitty Hawk," mentions a brochure we found. We did not experience these stirred memories but perhaps they're there somewhere. We did however enjoy the little part of the town we were in at the water side in the little time we were there.
This is when we made the decision to travel on with Double Dutch and Smoooth Move. (you’re right, Lonnie…putting that extra ‘o’ in there is a pain in the neck!) We had our first Skipper’s meeting and decided to leave at 0’dark-thirty in the morning, heading to mile 102.2 where we would anchor at Deep Point off the Alligator River. At this point a power boat came in and it was people Theo and Marion (Double Dutch) had met in Norfolk. We invited them over and met our second pair of Canadians, Monica and Al on Painkiller. Skipper’s meeting’s over. Let’s just have fun! It is so damn fun just sitting and talking with these people.
We woke to a gorgeous morning and headed out, waving goodbye to Monica and Al. We decided to take a short cut across the Albemarle Sound. In doing so, we played ‘find the opening’ amongst all the crab pots! We knew this would happen and it’s not too bad, but they were everywhere. It seems as if they can put crab pots wherever they damn well please. And they can tag them with whatever kind of buoy they want…whatever color. Some of them look like recycled milk bottles. I don’t think this would fly in California. They would have some kind of regulation on this. At times…regulation can be a good thing. We’re zig zagging our way through.
Along the way, we saw the blimp hanger the mayor told us about. It is leftover from World War II and apparently this is where they make 99% of the blimps today. Just not the Goodyear blimp. And by golly we did see Snoopy on the Met Life blimp as we sailed by.
As we were trucking down the river who should drive up but Painkiller! They were going to stay in E City a couple of days, but the day was so beautiful and they saw all they wanted to see there in 3 hours, so they decided to follow us. Good deal! Now there were 4 of us buddy-boating.
We crossed the Albemarle, then the Neuse River and turned into the Alligator River. We turned into Little Alligator River and found our anchorage for the night. Ran and I have not anchored much…not a lot of anchoring in the SF Bay… so we are still pretty new at the procedure, but we did well! We’re still getting used to handling Kwanesum anyway, as she’s a much heavier boat with a full keel, which is harder to maneuver and turn on a dime. Thus…the bow thrusters. Bow thrusters are my friend. Good, good bow thrusters.
Captains meeting….5pm! All headed to the power boat tiki bar.
It was such a beautiful night. A zillion stars everywhere. Because we are not used to anchoring, Ran and I were up several times during the night to check on everything. Every little noise would prompt us to check. At one time, around midnight we heard a steady noise and it was a tug pushing a barge…really pretty to see during the night. Kind of an odd thing to say about a tug pushing a barge, but it was neat. And again…the stars were amazing. Up at dawn to get going and another tug and barge passed by. Beautiful mornings and the tug and barge just added that extra touch. OK…you had to be there, but it was neat.
The next point of travel decided by the Skipper’s Meeting would be mile 157.3 on the ICW, the docks of the RE Mayo Shrimp Company in Hobocken, NC. Went through the Pungo River into Goose Creek. The docks here at our stop are….old. Very old. There are 3 old shrimp boats tied up to the docks but plenty of room for us, too. But be careful when you get off the boat. The docks are indeed precarious. Skipper’s Meeting on Double Dutch tonight. Bring the mosquito spray…they’re on a roll. This is a narrow canal, mind you, and during the evening…the tugs come by with their barges. It is a sight to see. The next decided point of travel would be Beaufort, NC.
We woke up to fog. Well there you go! I’ve done fog before…big, tule fog. No problem. We try to wipe off our dodger because of all the dew on it…so we can see. We’re ready…everybody ready? Let’s go. Randy and Ellen…you lead today. OK, no problem. I get behind the helm and off we go. I’m watching the chart plotter and there’s a little fishing boat right in the channel! Well, come on…why are you in the channel?! Sheesh! And they’re crab pots. Crap…I hate dodging the crab pots. Specially before I’ve had my coffee. Pretty soon I hear Theo yelling…”Ellen! This way!” I was so worried about the fisherman and the crab pots I was heading the wrong direction! Even though I had the chart plotter telling me exactly where to go. Ugh. OK…I’m back on track. Then…after Randy wiped off the dodger window a zillion times he said “Why don’t we just unzip it and put it up out of the way?!” duh…..now there’s a good idea! That way we can see! Yay! That would be a great idea!
Now we’re fumbling our way through the fog when Randy says, “I think I see a boat coming straight for us.” Oh, jeez. OK. I’m really putting my Porterville fog eyes to work here which is actually good training. Tule fog is a great training ground for future ship’s captains. I see the boat. It’s Painkiller! They had left earlier, but because they don’t have radar and there was lots of fog, they thought they’d stop and let Randy and Ellen lead since they have radar. Only problem is…Randy and Ellen forgot they had radar and hadn’t been using it! Hello?! Randy and Ellen?! Anybody home?!? We happen to have a super great radar that overlays onto our GPS. But if the brain doesn’t remember that……it’s useless.
Ahem…. After turning on our expensive and wonderful radar…we trucked on down the waterway…headed to Beaufort, NC.
Arrived at Beaufort and tried to figure out where we’re going to be for the night. Oops! It’s getting shallow! We are at Town Creek Marina and wanted to anchor out there, but there are a lot of shoals in that area. We got on the wrong side. The dock master hailed us on the VHF radio and we got back on track. Thought we might go into a berth but the space was too tight. It’s hard to maneuver Kwanesum in tight spaces. So we decided to go back and anchor where everyone else was…but there’s not a lot of room and a lot of depth. Crap. We aren’t great at this anyway, and now we have to decide where to fit in amongst the boats so there’s enough room to swing around. Our technique is still being polished. We found a spot. Let’s drop the anchor. “Ellen…move it back. Reverse. OK. I think we’re good. Get me a beer.” (note from Ellen: we’ll get better at this as we go. Practice makes perfect.) Phew. Wine for me…beer for the Ran-man.
Weather’s not great, but it’s a nice anchorage. We can dinghy to the other side and go into their old town near the water. Very nice. Ran and I go in and walk to town, have some lunch…buy a couple of rugs for the boat and pick up some beer at a store. Back in the dinghy…back to the boat. Good day.
Skipper’s Meeting at the tiki bar. Love that tiki bar on Painkiller. No…wait….I think we were at Double Dutch…oh well…doesn’t matter. It’s always good. Next point of travel, Camp LeJeune, NC. It’s a marine base. You can’t go ashore, but you’re allowed to anchor in this one spot at Mile Hammock Bay. (Skye however was granted permission to go in and do her thing. Skye is special…and we know that.)
We’re in…anchored…we’re getting better at this…and the military are running some exercises. I love it. I just love our military. They have neato boats they’re running around in all around us…after dark, even…without lights. Cool. And the helicopters are flying right over our boats. It all makes my heart pound with pride. I applauded when they went by us. They appreciated it.
Skipper’s meeting….I forget where….point of travel will be mile 295.1, Carolina Beach, NC.
This was quite a day. As we go down the ICW it becomes more of a challenge. A lot of shoaling has taken place. We are following several books that have details of what to expect and what to avoid. We try out best to follow their suggestions and keep in the deeper part of the channels. It doesn’t always work. The first to go aground was Double Dutch. They have a 7 foot draft, which is pretty deep. They got in trouble. Painkiller being a power boat, was able to turn around, go back, and pull them off. Excellent. Otherwise they would have to wait for the tide to rise. Really, really nice of them to turn around, come back, and do that.
We travel on and Smoooth Move gets in trouble. Lonnie turns the boat and powers it forward and gets off. Excellent. Moving on down…being really vigilant of the buoys and the depth…Lonnie goes aground again. He, too, has a deep draft. We are just ahead of him and slow down…back up a bit…try to help. We’ve caught something in our prop. Crap, crap, crap! I hate when that happens. Lonnie turns his boat and gets off. Excellent.
We continue motoring on, feeling the boat shake knowing something must be caught somewhere on the prop or rudder. Not good…but it seems ok. We wait for the bridge to open. This is our second or third bridge we have dealt with this leg, and it gets old. These bridges only open on the hour! Some open on the half hour and the hour, but this one only on the hour! Ugh…. Means you have to putz around and wait and hope you don’t get into some honking current that sends you where you don’t want to be! Double Dutch got into trouble waiting for one bridge. The current caught them and they had to put their anchor out to stop them before they started under the bridge before it opened! Mast would have been gone for sure. But Theo got his anchor out pronto and held fast. Phew! They were ok.
Bridge is finally open and we all file through. We feel this thing we’re caught on. Boat is shaking. OK…just get through the bridge, Kwanesum! Ran powers up and whatever it was seemed to fall off and we smoothly powered through. All righty! Good girl, Kwanesum. All is ok and we’re going on. Coming up on a spot the book said to be vigilant. Stay to the red side, it said…more depth there. We do…we go aground. And we just have a 4 foot draft! Good grief. Randy turns the boat…turns on the bow thruster….we’re off. No harm, no foul. We’re on our way again. Love those thrusters!
We arrive at Mile 295.1 Carolina Beach. It was very beautiful along the way despite the stress of watching our depth the whole time. There are some beautiful houses. Some big boats! Mostly fishing boats. We’re really glad to be here. Ran and I decide to go into a marina. We need fuel, water, provisions and need to do laundry. The others anchor out just around the corner. Randy also wants to have someone dive on our boat to see if something is on our propeller or rudder. It’s time to stop anyway. It’s good to have electricity you don’t have to worry about. When we’re at anchor we have electricity but you have to be careful how much you use and it’s all 12 volt. We have small inverters we can plug in to but they don’t like it when the power isn’t up at a certain level. The solar panels we have really keep the power up. But it goes fast when you use it. So it’s nice not to worry about it for a couple of days.
The diver found the culprit today. A big ole piece of plastic. All twisted around. I’m so glad we stopped and checked this. Kwanesum is glad, too.
There’s a weather front here now. We traveled during a little rain yesterday, so it’s good to stop for a few days. And there’s internet here. Good deal. I slept in. Nice.
Skipper’s Meeting…where are we going next? (By now, I forget where we had these meetings. =) We rotate boats. It’s just too fun.)
Well…the sail boats want to go outside to the Atlantic for this stint to Charleston, SC. The ICW gets even shallower from this point on. It’s just too stressful and difficult for the sailboats…we want to go outside. It would be an overnight sail, but that’s ok. We’ve actually wanted to do this anyway. Seems like the best thing is to go out at Cape Fear Inlet and back in at Charleston. Because of the weather that’s hanging around it looks like we won’t leave until Tuesday. Today is Friday. But we can rest here and prepare. It will be a different journey. So we’ll need to prepare the boat for that. We will need to travel straight through for 30 hours or so, so different shifts at the helm will be in order. Let’s do it. I’ve been waiting for this.
Ran and I have a dear friend that is now in Wilmington, NC and we are looking forward to meeting up with her tomorrow.
We’ll leave you here and keep you posted on the next leg of the trip. Stay tuned!
