Next landfall - Florida?

Very short update - After spending the night at an anchorage near Georgetown, we are heading for the open water - our next stop in 48 hours will be San Augustine, FL!  The weather looks good, so we'll see.  We will be out of update range for a couple of days, look for an update on Saturday (or sooner as we draw closer to the shore).

Lightkeepers Marina

We made it!  We have finally left the great state of North Carolina!  Seems like we've been there forever, but we crossed over into South Carolina late in the afternoon.  Using ActiveCaptain (a service I absolutely love, by the way), we scanned for suitable marinas or anchorages for the evening.  We found a nice potential anchorage behind Bird Island, but reading up on it in ActiveCaptain made us doubt whether we could safely anchor there (and reprising our "Escape from Carolina Beach" post tomorrow morning).

Looking down the ICW a few miles, we found a cluster of nice-looking marinas with excellent reviews.  We picked Lightkeepers Marina in North Myrtle Beach and pulled in around 5pm.  No Lightkeepers employees were still around, but we snagged one of the empty slips for the night.  A really cool thing - next to us is a 2003 Beneteau 361, almost identical to ours!  We've been visiting with them all afternoon, comparing notes and getting lots of good ideas.

This marina is very nice.  Not too many amenities, but they have a GREAT swimming pool, plus washer/dryer and nice showers.  All for $1 a foot!  Pretty cool!

As we were getting ready to walk to the road to find some dinner, we bumped into a gentleman exiting the men's room.  Ben and Jeannette struck up a conversation and before you know it, we were all involved.  Turns out this fellow, Jack, spends half his time just down the road from us in Bonita Springs!  On top of that, he has friends in Westerly, RI!  Crazy!  Since he had just arrived from Ohio, he offered to let us pile into his car and drive us over to Bob Evans to eat dinner.  Before we departed, Ben, Reece and I went with him to visit his boat - an incredible Symbol 51 motor yacht.  We then had a wonderful meal with Jack, sharing stories of our journeys and our plans for the future.  It was great to meet you, Jack, and I hope we can keep in touch!

The plan for tomorrow is another day in the ICW, then pop out on Thursday morning for an off-shore run to San Augustine, FL.  The weather looks to finally be cooperating, so we'll see!

Escape from Carolina Beach

On Monday, we got a bright and early start motoring down the ICW.  Our stopping place that night was going to be Carolina Beach, not far from Wilmington.  We pulled into the anchorage and found what appeared to be a nice spot in about 10 feet of water.  At high tide.  When we woke up this morning, it wasn't high tide anymore and our adventure began...

The anchor came up easily and I turned the boat toward the channel to leave.  I glanced down and noticed the sounder read "5.6ft".  Hmmm...  That's kinda shallow.  Oh well.  I looked up and continued toward the channel.  All the sudden, the boat seemed to "climb" as the keel crawled up a sandbar and the sounder read "3.6ft".  Now, 5ft draft sailboats don't operate well in 4.6ft of water, which we were now in.  I spun us around and began trying to find a way out of our predicament.

On our boat, the depth sounder transducer is in the very bottom of the hull, about 8 feet ahead of the leading edge of the keel, which is angled toward the rear of the boat.  Since this is about 1ft below the water line, you add 1ft to the reading to get the true depth (so 3.6ft is actually 4.6ft of depth).  This is useful, allowing me to use the depth sounder like a blind man's walking stick, trying to find deep water before actually getting stuck in the mud.  You have to go really slow though, and weave back and forth.

As we puttered around the shallow anchorage, trying to find a gap, I began to wonder if we were going to be stuck here for several hours waiting for the tide to come back in and free us.  Fortunately, the floats that we assumed to be crab-pots were actually home-made channel markers.  Skirting these allowed us to escape!  We were free!  Now on to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina!

Don't trust bridge operators

We are anchored not far from Camp Lejeune in a nice anchorage called Mile Hammock.  We are settled in after a good meal, and everyone is going to bed as the air conditioner cools things off nicely.  A few hours ago, we had a bit of excitement.

After leaving Morehead City and continuing down the ICW, we decided to not push too hard today.  We negotiated some sketchy shoaled areas along the way, but as we approached the Onslow Beach Bridge, we thought the hard part of the journey was behind us.  About a half-mile away, I radioed the bridge operator and requested an opening.  Since this stretch is very straight, he replied "Keep on coming, Captain, I've been watching you for a while and I'll open it when you get here".  We kept going at full speed and began to draw close.  Now getting nervous, my finely-tuned senses are detecting a distinct lack of bridge-openness.  In fact, I'd have to say that bridge seems to not be opening at all!  I slam into reverse as I hear "Sorry, Captain, the bridge is a little slow today!" as the thing finally begins to swing open.

Unfortunately, there also happens to be a nasty current pushing me towards the unopened bridge, so though my full reverse does halt my progress, but also pushes us sideways on the bridge pilings.  Rebecca and Ed jump up to the edge to halt any significant damage, but we are all given a good scare before we slide past the swinging bridge.  I mumble some distinctly un-Christian thoughts toward the bridge operator as we pass by, but I am grateful that some scratches are all I have to show for the experience.

Our destination tomorrow is Wilmington!

An Appointment in Morehead City

In Christian circles, there is the notion of a "divine appointment", where you find yourself deliberately steered to a time and place to encounter someone or experience some event.  I believe it happens all the time, but we are only rarely allowed to see God's hand directly.  Yesterday, we got to experience this in a wonderful way.  As we approached Beaufort/Morehead City, we began to make plans for some time ashore.

As some of you may have experienced, it does in fact get HOT as you go South in the Summer.  We have been planning for this, but we thought we could put off air-conditioning for a while through the use of wind scoops and open hatches.  Well, the reality is, the only true relief from the heat and humidity is a real air-conditioning unit.  We have a small generator to run an A/C, but we needed to buy one, plus build the support structure to keep it safely in the companionway door.  As we traveled down the ICW, we located a marina not too far from a Lowes that we could possibly walk to.  When I got on the phone with the dockmaster, he basically told me not to come to his marina.  He said it was too shallow (even though it was recently dredged) and that he was alone and couldn't give us any help.

Feeling rebuffed, we went to "Plan B", which was the Morehead City Yacht Basin, a truly first class facility that had a mini-van loaner car.  As we pulled into one of the slips, we happened to meet a couple of folks, Rob and Cheryl, touring the marina.  They were quite friendly and very interested in the boat and everything we were doing.  They had never been on a sailboat, so we immediately invited them aboard and showed them around.  A neat bond seemed to quickly develop, though we didn't really pick up on it at first.  During the conversation, they asked what we did to keep cool at night, so we shared with them that we needed to run over to Lowes to purchase a small A/C unit, 'cause it was starting to become uncomfortable.  Rob exclaimed that he had a couple of unused air conditioners in his garage and absolutely insisted that we take one!  They asked us to wait 40 minutes while they ran home to get it!

Sure enough, they returned shortly with the perfect room-sized unit.  We hauled it up onto the boat and plugged it into the generator.  Success!!!!  No more hot/humid nights!!!  They wouldn't take any money, so we asked them to let us at least take them to lunch.  One of Rob's side jobs is at Big Apple Pizza in Morehead City, so he suggested there.  We piled into the loaner mini-van and followed them to the pizza place.  Since we only got the van for 2 hours, the plan was to eat together, then do our grocery shopping.  Once we got there, however, we had so much fun visiting, our 2 hours were up before we even left the restaurant!

Rob and Cheryl, it was wonderful meeting you and that air conditioner is blowing cool air on me right now as I type this post - it is greatly appreciated!!!!  I know you've found the blog, so PLEASE send me or Rebecca an email so we can add you to our Facebook and keep up with you guys from now on!  And Cheryl, we really want to know if you get that job!  :)

And I am very grateful that we were steered away from one place and directed to another, at just the right moment!  God is Good!

Update from Oriental, NC, plus pictures and comments from the last several days

Since we have a really good signal here in Oriental, North Carolina, I thought it would be a good idea to catch up on some of the stuff we've done while Internet coverage was so bad.  First, here is the path we've taken to get here:

We started out by leaving Willoughby Bay and passed right back the gigantic Navy base(s) in Norfolk.  Rebecca took a bunch of pictures, but made me promise not to put too many on the blog.  As many of you know, I am a military nut, so I was in heaven as went passed by all these ships.  Here is just a taste:

A visiting French frigate

The USS Eisenhower

The battleship USS Wisconsin, now a museum

An old transport ship that I can't identify, plus the brand-new George H.W. Bush carrier in the background

After passing through downtown Norfolk, we made the turn into the Dismal Swamp Canal.  This canal is over 200 years old (George Washington was involved in constructing it) and is a very neat way to travel by boat.  Before you can get into the canal, you first have to rise about 6 feet.  To do this, you go through a lock!  Here as some pictures from that experience:

Waiting for the lock to open

Virginia pelicans are rather strange

Into the lock

We have a long way to go, lol

Hang on tight!

Rising up!

The door opens

Bye, bye, Deep Creek Lock!

The Dismal Swamp Canal is very narrow and nearly perfectly straight, with just one turn.  It is a very weird experience to pilot a sailboat through the woods, but that is what we are doing:

In the woods

It really is a swamp

Not too exciting, just don't hit any trees!  :)

After crossing the North Carolina border, we arrived at the Dismal Swamp Visitor Center, which is unique in that it has facilities for both cars AND boats!  We spent the night tied up to the dock:

Really nice dock, far from the ocean

Reece enjoying the boardwalk at the Visitor Center

At first he was scared of the granddaddy-longlegs, then he couldn't stop playing with it!

A beautiful place

Straight as an arrow

The next morning, we resumed our trip, which means we had to descend down to sea level once again.  Mill Creek lock, performs that function when heading South:

Now we go down 6 feet, everybody grab a line!

The welcoming committee

The door behind us closes

Ed makes a friend

The other member of the committee comes to inspect

Down we go!

And now at the bottom

Next we traveled on to Belhaven, otherwise known as the land the Internet forgot!  We had varying degrees of connectivity, usually between none and bad.  Belhaven is a sad little town - nothing but empty store fronts, with just a few businesses.  We did find a nice place to eat, which was good, 'cause I think it was the ONLY place to eat!  Just before we dropped anchor in Belhaven, we stopped at Dowry Creek Marina to refuel, top off the water tanks, and pump out the holding tank.  Very nice marina and great people!  On the way, we had an interesting bug join us for the ride:

We let him go on the shore at Belhaven.  Very neat creature!

The next day, we made for Oriental.  There are two free slips maintained by the town, but they are usually occupied.  As we went, we watched the Harbor webcam and saw one side was empty.  We crossed our fingers and made it before anybody else got it!  If you hit that link right now, you'll see us there!  We intended on making for Beaufort this morning, but Oriental is truly a neat place for boaters, so we decided to hang out another day.  The boat next to us on the dock is SeaSpan, a Valiant 40 owned by Jeff and Elise, who are also bloggers!  We spent the day with them and had a great time!!!  It was great to meet them, and since they are from St Petersburg, Florida, we hope to see them again!

Well, I guess this is enough of a mega-post.  I think we'll walk over to Toucan's and some chocolate cake and some drinks!  See ya!

We are anchored in Belhaven

We made it to Belhaven, NC, just fine, but my Internet connectivity is VERY poor.  I have no phone service at all (AT&T), the Verizon RavenX barely works, but Rebecca's cheap MetroPCS phone is just fine! Go figure!  If you need to reach us for the next couple of days, call Rebecca, lol!

I should be able to update more extensively once we get to Oriental tomorrow.

Lots of new posts and pictures coming, but...

I have lots of new stuff to post, but our Internet access is not very reliable out here in rural North Carolina.  Over the last couple of days, we cruised by the Navy base in Norfolk, entered the Dismal Swamp Canal, went through two locks, overnighted at the Dismal Swamp Visitor Center, went through a bunch of interesting bridges, dodged a million crab pots, and successfully navigated one of the more treacherous portions of the Intracoastal Waterway (known for grounding boats like us).

Once we have a more reliable connection (hopefully in Belhaven), we'll upload some pictures from all this!

A little excitement in Willoughby Bay, the School of Ed, and planning for the next couple of days

After an easy ride into Willoughby Bay from Deltaville, we anchored not too far from a big catamaran and a trawler.  That proved to be somewhat of a mistake, as it turns out.  We had a simple meal of tator-tots and hot dogs (Andy Macy's favorite), then the storm we were watching in the distance suddenly pounced on us!  As we were scrambling to put up the food and dishes, and to close all the hatches, we noticed that the big catamaran was in trouble!  According to my wind meter, the wind was blowing 30kn, the waves kicked up to 4ft+ and that catamaran was dragging her anchor like it was hardly set.  The really bad news was that she was headed directly for us!!!

Ed had the plan of fending the boat off of us, while I started the engine and did some contingency planning (let out more anchor rode?  power to the side and let her go by? power forward and pull our anchor up and run away?).  Finally, we see two guys come out onto the deck - one starts the engine and one goes up to inspect the anchor (yah, you are dragging, buddy).  Ed asks them if they need help and the guy acts like we are at fault (yeah, we are dragging our boat UPwind - good call, captain).  After head-scratching for a minute, they decide to pull up their anchor and power out of there.  We are then entertained for the next hour as we watch them move around the Bay, trying to set their anchor.  Eventually, they get it, a good distance from us, thank goodness!

Official product endorsement - We LOVE our Manson Supreme anchor.  That sucker has NEVER dragged (drug?) on us and we've been in some really good storms.  The set-up we use is a 35lb Manson Supreme anchor attached to 60ft of 5/16in hi-test chain and 200ft of 5/8in 3-strand rode.  Properly set, that anchor is like tying off to a piling.  It literally sets within 5ft of the drop point and it just doesn't move.  Best of all, it easily resets through a 180 degree turn without any trouble.  During last night's storm, we didn't move an inch.  The only drawback, and it is a small one, is that it digs deep and pulls up a huge mud ball when weighing anchor.  To me, that is a small price to pay for a good night's sleep.  In the boating world, asking what is the best anchor is like asking what is the best religion - and you'll get passionate arguments for and against every anchor.  To my mind, though, the only anchor I'll ever trust completely is a Manson or Rocna (very similar anchor).

After a breakfast of French toast and bacon, Ed and I went to the shore to see if we could fix a problem with our dinghy's little Nissan outboard.  It idles great, but whenever we try to go fast, the motor would die.  Idling around isn't a good plan when there is significant wind, so we needed to get it fixed.  The plan was for Ed to fix it, but nooooo, Ed had no interest in that.  He wanted ME to fix it, while he helped!  I wasn't totally excited about this, since I was convinced that the motor would never work again after it blew up!  Ed insisted I could do it, so the School of Ed began.  While Ed supervised, I completely took apart the carburetor, then cleaned and rebuilt it.  It actually wasn't nearly as hard as it looked.  After testing the engine, we discovered that it still had the same problem!  Next we dismantled the gas system and found some floating trash in the gas tank that was possibly blocking the intake.  Still didn't fix it.  Finally, Ed noticed an adjustment screw on the side of the carburetor - BINGO!  Problem solved!  Engine runs great and now I know how to disassemble and clean a carburetor!  Thanks, Ed!!!

Finally, we worked out our schedule for the next couple of days.  Mile "0" of the Intracoastal Waterway begins about 14 miles away, with the first lock 10 miles after that.  Our plan is to be at the one of the mid-day lock openings and then go about half-way down the Dismal Swamp portion of the ICW.  There is a nice place to tie up for the night, then we'll resume our journey to Elizabeth City, North Carolina.  This will officially begin the ICW part of our trip to Cape Coral, Florida.  We will be truly on our way at that point!

Ben and Jeannette's 49th Wedding Anniversary in Broad Creek, Deltaville, now headed back down the Chesapeake

When we got up Friday morning, the Chesapeake was a totally different creature.  Where before she was pounding us with waves and wind, now she was calm with light winds.  Ben and Jeannette had spent the night with friends in the Norfolk area and were now driving up to check on their sailboat - a 30ft S2 named Mathilde.  After a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pastries, we headed around Stingray Point and into Broad Creek.  This is a VERY nice area with close to a dozen marinas all packed close together.  Ben met us at the dock at Walden Marina, where we got a transient slip for $30 for the night (that is insanely cheap, by the way).

There, Ben introduced us to his friend, Phil, who acted as chauffeur, giving us rides to see Mathilde and some great lunch at Cocomos.  They hid it well, but this was a special day for Ben and Jeannette - their 49th wedding anniversary!!!  After getting back to our boat, Ed and I went back to Mathilde by dinghy and did some work on the electronics and top-side cleaning as a present for them both.  I'm not sure how much good I did (I've never been a particularly good cleaner), but she definitely looked better! In the mean-time, Ed got their electrical system working, especially the battery charger and the AIR CONDITIONER!  Yes, their boat has a nice little set up with an AC unit sitting in the companion way hatch!  We are going to have to set up something like that on Second Wind, no doubt.

Official service company endorsement : Our Raymarine autopilot has been fussy, and after taking it apart, Ed discovered that the belt was old, brittle, and about to completely fall apart.  We looked on-line at several places, but wanted to check locally first.  I'm glad we did!  We used Ben's rental car to go over to Marine Electronics of Hartfield and met Kevin Fay there.  He had the belt waiting for us and then gave us a ton of valuable advice on getting the most out of the device, including care of the mechanical parts, as well as recalibrating the software.  Truly outstanding service and I will be contacting him in the future about the rest of the Raymarine system on-board Second Wind!  Thank you very much, Kevin!!!!

After fixing a leak in the floor of the dinghy, pumping out the holding tank, and topping off the water tanks, we are headed back down the Chesapeake.  We are thinking our destination is back to Willoughby Bay for the night, with the intention of entering the Dismal Swamp portion of the ICW shortly thereafter, maybe Monday morning.  We aren't entirely sure yet.  While we are anchored in Norfolk, I understand I have some family in the area that I haven't seen in a very long time, so we are going to see about contacting them.

Next update should be from the Norfolk area!

Didn't quite make it to Deltaville...

Well, that was a rough passage.  Steep, choppy waves and 20+ mph winds made for a taxing sail.  We decided to pull into Godfrey Bay, just south of Deltaville and ride out this nasty southeastern wind and waves.

The high points?  We were surrounded by a huge pod of dolphins, right next to the boat again.  I could almost reach over and touch them as the swam along beside us.  And after we anchored, we had a nice spaghetti dinner and now we are ready to crash for bed!

A nice time in Willoughby Bay, and heading up to Deltaville next

What kind of friend spends his afternoon driving you around Norfolk, helping you buy stuff for the journey, then at the grocery store buys you 6 big ribeye steaks, then COOKS them for you on the grill?  That would be the Jason Rusk-type of friend!  What a great blessing you are, my brother!

 We had a great meal, and wonderful fellowship.  We'll miss you, Rusk family, but we'll find a way to see you again soon!!!  Remember - Disney World = Not far from Dean & Rebecca's house!

A couple pictures at Willoughby Bay:

A wonderful spot, especially if you enjoy the sights and sounds of freedom!!!

Our time in Willoughby Bay is complete, now we are heading up the Chesapeake to Deltaville.  Ben and Jeannette have rented a car to go visit some friends from when they lived in this area.  They will be meeting us up in Deltaville, where their boat is parked.

We are anchored in Willoughby Bay, Norfolk, Virginia

We arrived here about 9:30am this morning and are very much enjoying the continuous military show.  All around us, we've got aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, all flavors of helicopters and airplanes, and even a rescue boat.  To a military history nut, this is just heaven!

The ride down here was easy last night, and we arrived in front of the Chesapeake Bay entrance at about 5:30am.  Going up the Bay, however, the wind turned onto our nose and the wind picked up substantially.  The Chesapeake has short, sharp waves that can be uncomfortable and these were no exceptions.  Fortunately, we didn't have far to go to our selected anchorage, though we did have to wait for the Aegis cruiser, USS Normandy, to pass by.  The fact that we have right-of-way as a sailboat didn't seem to carry much weight, hahahaha...  :)  In all seriousness, we slowed down and didn't go anywhere near the channel when the warship was passing through.

Here is the course we took:

The wind was directly off our stern most of the way and very weak, so we motored pretty much the whole way.  The seas were almost completely flat once again, which made for a fast passage.

The reason we chose this particular anchorage is that we'll get to spend some time with our dear friend, Jason Rusk, who is stationed somewhere around here.  We've already made contact with him - he doesn't have duty tomorrow, so we'll get to see him then!

Rebecca got some surprise birthday presents this morning, though Reece told her all about them yesterday afternoon!  Jeannette made a special breakfast, just for her, then they had fresh tuna steaks for a late afternoon dinner.  The steaks were a treat from some guys fileting fish at the Sunset Marina in Ocean City.  Later this evening, Rebecca, Reece and I took the dinghy over to the shore for some ice cream.  Not a bad birthday, I hope!

Kinda tired tonight, so we are shutting down soon.  More updates tomorrow!

Blog comments...

I was wondering why nobody was commenting on the blog posts.  It seems that the comments aren't working quite correctly.  We are changing some settings to see if I can get this working.  Please use this post to test comments.

Dolphins!

The highlight of the trip so far was the first day of our off-shore trip.  We saw some dolphins and a few came close for a view, but nothing prepared us for what we saw in the video Rebecca recorded!

We have arrived in Ocean City, Maryland

When we left Stonington Harbor on Friday morning, our destination was Block Island.  As we cleared the breakwater, however, we decided to skip Block and make directly for Cape May, New Jersey.  Going to Block would have probably trapped us there for a couple days, since we had a pretty small weather window.  We had plenty of fuel and favorable sea conditions, so we made the decision to go for it.  The sun was bright and the seas were eerily calm, and we made great time to the tip of Montauk at the end of Long Island, NY.  In fact, it was so good, we changed our minds and chose to make directly for Norfolk!  As the miles and hours passed, we began to settle into a rhythm.  Here are a few pictures from that first day:

Jeannette and Ed, letting Otto do the work

I put this here against my will.  Good grief, not my favorite picture

Reece goofing around

Jeannette chillin'

Ben enjoying the ride

Crew of Second Wind

Absolutely gorgeous day

Full sail

The highlight of the whole trip happened pretty late in the afternoon, but I'll have to show the video in a separate post (the upload to YouTube is taking a while).

Late the next day, we began to get concerned about the timing, both of our destination arrival and the weather.  At our current speed, we would be getting into the entrance of the Chesapeake early in the morning (good), but possibly low on fuel (bad).  If we chose to go into Cape May, we'd being entering in the middle of the night - not a good choice at all (an unfamiliar port at night can be risky).  Looking at the charts, we decided to head for Ocean City, Maryland, which is a good bit south of Cape May and good progress toward Norfolk.  Looking at our cruising guides, there are several good marinas and Ocean City is easy to get into.  Here is our course:

As it turns out, it was an excellent choice.  We are docked at Sunset Marina, where we've refueled, pumped out the head, refilled the water tanks, and washed off the boat.  Now we are resting, recuperating, and planning our next leg of the journey.

Some random thoughts and events from the trip:

• Night sailing is just awesome!  The sound of the wind and the water and the boom of the sails - it is fantastic.
• Navigating at night is nerve-wracking - lights disappear, bounce around, seem to come closer, then fade away.  Ed was looking at a ship and misread the lights and gave himself a good scare.  He figured it out pretty quick, but he was shaken for a few minutes. 
• Steering in the open ocean is very different than our usual sailing - there are no landmarks and you rely completely on your equipment, mainly the steering compass.  It takes a while to get used to this.
• There were many, many hours where there was literally *nothing* on the horizon - we were completely alone in the ocean.  A very unnerving feeling.
• We mostly avoided seasickness, though Reece surprised us with a couple sudden "I have a headache in my mouth"..../hurl moments.  Yuck.  The rest of us took some mild remedies, mostly precautionary.
• Sleeping when underway is quite different than at anchor - since the boat is heeling, the normal berths don't quite work right.  In our aft cabin, Rebecca and Reece ended up squished together on top of me, which was a problem because I had to keep getting up to help adjust sails or take the wheel for my watch.  Ben and Jeannette were supposed to be in the forward cabin, but they were frequently getting bounced to the ceiling when pounding through waves.  It all worked out, but we were quite tired when we reached port.
• Motor-sailing is great - we traveled 327 miles in 40.8 hours while consuming only 22.7 gallons of diesel!  Our overall average burn rate was 0.41 gallons per hour - very, very good.  Excluding the sail time, we averaged 0.66 gallons per hour at 2600 rpm and 0.56 gallons per hour at 1900 rpm.  Given the right conditions, we really could cross oceans!
• Eating during a multi-day passage is usually limited to snack food and sandwiches, but a hot pizza after two days a sea was a great treat!  We all agreed it was just what we needed after

Okay, I'd better wrap this post up here and let the others contribute their thoughts!