SC - CHARLESTON

A map of the ICW.  At the top of the map is Annapolis.  We're about 1/2 way down the map in Charleston, SC.   Jacksonville is just south of the Georgia/Florida stateline.

He Said:  Hello from Charleston: We have now spent about 10 days here in Charleston and we are enjoying it very much.  After 1 week we decided to spend a second one here. The winds were going to start kicking up for about 5 days in a row and we felt that it is safer buckled into a dock as opposed to traveling.  Also the marina here has the 2^nd week at a nice discount so we signed up.  When we stay in a place for 2 weeks like we are doing our lives are very normal, kind of like being back in Phoenix but having water all around us.

Daily we have barges passing the entrance to our marina.

 

There's always activity at our marina.  We saw this rescue mission - fortunately, it was only practice.

 

The weather here has been a little crazy although this past Monday we nearly set a record high at 83 degrees.  So for the first time in 6 months we made our way to the Charleston Municipal Golf Course.  Simple stuff at home like golfing is a lot more challenging here. We walked our clubs to the city bus station, then jumped a bus to the course.  About a 15 minute walk then about a 30 minute bus ride. Now for the rest of the golf story.  As we were sitting at a light a motorhome decided to take our driver’s side mirror with him.  Not the end of the world, other than our driver had to wait for his supervisor since it was kind of an accident.  He said it would be at least an hour before the bus could leave again.  We had a tee time in a little over an hour so we decided to walk with our clubs to the course.  The toughest part was crossing a long uphill bridge while carrying our sticks.  When we finally arrived we were singing the blues to the guy in the pro shop.  I made him feel guilty enough that he gave us the “locals” price for our round which saved us about 35% - very nice of him.  We played the back 9 twice because the front 9 was being worked on.  All in all, we both played pretty good especially since it had been 6 months since we last played.  I think since my heart deal Pat has played twice and I’ve played 3 times.  That’s not much golf in a year, and I realized how much I miss not playing.  Hopefully this winter in Florida we will have a few chances to play.  The bad news is it is like playing in the winter in Phoenix.  If you golf you know what the prices are like in winter months in both AZ and Florida.  We will see what happens.

 

As seen on the golf course.  Not what we see on Phoenix courses.

 

Everything with the boat has been going great.  When you are tied up to the dock for 2 weeks not too much happens to the boat. Having said that, last Tuesday we had 40 MPH winds all nite long.  You talk about a rocking boat, we had it.  We were on an end dock with a 44 ft catamaran sitting in front of us.  You should have seen the wind and waves work his boat.  We had 5 of us trying to get his boat from slamming so hard into the dock.  This went on until about mid-nite.  He only weighs about 15,000 lbs. and we are closer to 30,000 lbs.  This is pretty much the reason for his boat nearly drowning and ours not so bad.  It was still a long, long rocky nite.  This was enough excitement for a good while.  The good news is that everyone survived it just fine.

 

If you look really hard you can see the fin of a dolphin swimming in our marina.  They were actually jumping out of the water off the stern of the boat. 

Here are 2 dolphins swimming just outside our marina.  We see them everyday

 

Other than listening to some music at the local bars, catching happy hours, taking our walks and just hanging out, our lives are very normal. This is a very cool town with tons of good old history, a lot from the slave days here in the south.  I watched the OSU/Illinois game last Saturday at a local fun little bar here in town.  It was a Michigan/West Virginia Bar, but they did put on the Buckeyes for us few OSU Fans. This Sat. we play Indiana back in Columbus, and I will probably go back to the same bar to catch the game.  We need a few more wins and a loss by either Florida St. or Bama to have any shot at the BCS Championship Game.  Time will tell.

 

Our plan is to leave here this coming Sunday or Monday and travel to Beauford for Thanksgiving. We will anchor a nite or 2 and spend some time in a slip -  this will depend on weather and winds.  Our good friend Tim, from Seattle, will be in the area during Thanksgiving, and we will meet up with him on the Friday after the holiday.  He will stay on the boat with us for 4 nites then catch a flight back to Seattle.  We will be staying in Hilton Head SC at that time.  We’re still planning on crossing the Ga./Florida border by about the 5^th of next month.

 

Tired hands, hope all is well!

 

Take Care, Jack

 

She Said:  The weathermen were right.  The weather was as awful as they predicted – right up there with the Nor’ Eastern in Deltaville.  Because of the high winds and our location, we had our worse night ever on the boat.  I will never forget that night and hopefully we will never experience anything like it ever again.  The wind was coming out of the northeast at a consistent 25-30 MPH (gusting to 45 MPH) and pushing us against the dock.  We had all nine of our fenders out protecting the starboard side of the boat against the pounding.  The pounding was so hard and so prolonged that one fender broke (I didn’t even know they could break).  After hitting the dock we would bounce away from it until the lines would catch us and jerk us back to the dock.  It sounded and felt like MTB would break.  I don’t know how we got any sleep that night.  We actually thought about getting a hotel room.  It was BAD.  The gusting stopped, but the winds still kept howling.  Temps dipped to 29 degrees.  It was a long, long 36 hours.  We had to get off the boat the next day; we were still rocking while standing on land. 

 

This is a 2.5 mile bridge that spans the Cooper River connecting Charleston and Mount Pleasant.  We see it from the marina.  I liked the way it looked in the fog.

 

Fortunately, Charleston is just as fun and interesting as we remembered.  Our marina is really convenient to historic Charleston, along with grocery, hardware and drug stores.  We met up with our friends, John and Debbie, and had a fun day taking in the city’s sights.  A couple of nights later we met them for dinner and live music (Kevin Church).  We enjoyed Kevin so much that we’ve seen him several times since then.  I had great barbeque one night at Queology (an award winning recipe) and dessert at my favorite night spot, Kaminskey’s.  Charleston is a great city to walk around and we’ve walked it almost everyday we’ve been here.  One of the interesting things we visited was the Old Slave Mart where enslaved people were sold at auction.  We’ve enjoyed Charleston so much that we decided to stay for a second week.  We enjoy getting to know the cities we travel through and living like locals.

 

This is typical Charleston architecture - you see it all over Charleston.  The porch is on the side of the house.  This was originally done to reduce property taxes.

Charleston’s bus service is great.  It’s only $0.85 for seniors, and it gets us everywhere we want to go.  Our most memorable bus ride was the one to the golf course.  We were parked at a light and a motorhome hit us.  It was no big deal – the mirrors hit.  Well . . . the motorhome didn’t stop so we had to pull over until the bus officials could get to the bus.  We had a tee time (yes, we finally got the clubs out), so we couldn’t wait the hour-plus that was projected so we set off on foot – 2 miles – to the course.  The most unbelievable thing was when the bus driver said we would be delayed because we were in an accident, the woman sitting across from me (who, like most people on the bus, didn’t even know we were in an accident) said that she was injured.  I don’t know what the outcome of that was, but she was not more injured than I was.  Unbelieveable!

  

We knew that weather would be an issue on this trip, but it’s been more than we anticipated.  Living in Phoenix weather is just not something you think about – it’s almost always clear and sunny.  Conversely, the weather we’ve experienced on the ICW changes almost daily.  As an example, while in Charleston we’ve seen temps go from 29 to 85 degrees over a couple day period.  In Phoenix, the weather rarely had an impact on what we would do.  While on the water, the weather (especially the wind) determines if we’re going to travel, how comfortable we’ll be while docked/anchored and the overall enjoyment of a town.  We have been averaging about one nice day for every three not-so-nice days – today is gorgeous.  It’s been a real challenge.  It looks like we won’t be able to count on consistent nice weather until about central Florida.  There’s a lot to see between here and there, so we’ve accepted that cool, windy weather will be part of our life for the next four to six weeks.  I guess I need to buy some cold weather clothes. 

 

Wishing y’all a very Happy Thanksgiving.

SC - MYRTLE BEACH AND GEORGETOWN

He Said:  Hello North Myrtle Beach.  We departed on Tuesday in the morning with about a 50 mile trip ahead of us.   All went well other than all of the very shallow water we travel in.  Paying lots of attention and steering the whole time is very important.  Normally we simply use our auto-pilot, but not so much in the IntraCoastal.

We arrived in mid afternoon at N. Myrtle with intentions of spending just Tuesday at the marina.  We reached out for Richie and Dana, our friends from Phoenix, but couldn’t hook up until Wednesday nite.  No problem, so we just hung out another eve and met up on Wednesday.  We had a great time visiting at the local pub and then headed back to our boat for a short visit.  N. Myrtle Beach is really cool, and the little village-like area was about 100 ft. from the boat.  It made our visit very simple.

 

Dana and Richie Bungert

 

After 2 nites there we headed out on Thursday morning for a pretty long ride to a little anchor area we had heard about.  We traveled down a creek area and found a beautiful little area to spend the nite.  It was very cool that our anchor situation is becoming a ton simpler each time we do it.  Following a nice peaceful evening we headed out the following day for Georgetown, SC.

 

Sunset on Thoroughfare Creek while anchored

 

Our travel day was not a long one and we arrived in GTown at about lunch.  Our intentions were to anchor again, but the anchor area was very limited to a certain area.  There was about 20 or 25 boats, and we were challenged as to where to throw the anchor.  Once your boat starts to swing with the current changing it requires lots of room, and we felt like we would have been too tight for comfort. The end result was we decided to head into the marina for the nite.  We really enjoyed the small city; it was another really cool area. About 50% of the city is employed with the company that I retired from (International Paper). We headed out that nite and talked to a few locals that were also in the printing business.  You could see the smoke coming from the IP plant but strange enough it did not smell like a city with a paper mill in it.

 

On Saturday morning we left GTown and headed S for a pretty long day.  We headed to Dewees Creek to throw our anchor again and found a little creek off of the ICW only about 15 miles S of Charleston.  We anchored in about 10 ft. of water and had a very peaceful Saturday nite.  We really like the peace and quiet of anchoring and also the 0$$ cost.  We like to mix up our evenings with docking and anchoring.  There are lots of advantages and disadvantages to both, but at the end of the day we really enjoy both as different as they are.  We did not mind traveling most of Saturday because my Buckeyes had a bye so I didn’t spend my day looking for a bar to catch the game.

 

Sunset while anchored on Dewees Creek

 

We rolled out of the creek at about 10AM and headed to Charleston. We left later in the morning so our timing the current would work to our favor. We arrived early afternoon on Sunday to a slack tide.  We like docking the boat near slack tide due to the fact the water is not making your life difficult when docking.  We had slight winds to deal with but all went well.  We plan on spending a week here in Charleston.  We were here about 14 months ago but only spent 2 nites and felt it was not nearly long enough.  The main part of the city and everything else is supposed to be only about 5 minutes by foot, we like this.  

Fall colors on the Waccamaw River.  This width is typical while traveling the ICW 

 

Keeping the boat exactly in the center of the narrow waters and keeping out of shallow water (under 5 ft.) has been very challenging and the most difficult part of the trip. We are about 400 miles down the ICW, about 1/3 of our way to Key West.  We are still planning on Florida by the early part of December and spending at least 4 winter months down there.  Anybody looking to warm up this winter ring us up, and we will let you know exactly where we are planning on being.  That’s about it for now.

 

Take Care, Jack

 

 

She Said:  The batteries were installed, but we did not leave for North Myrtle Beach as planned.  The trip to Myrtle Beach has 3 major obstacles – 2 of which are minimized if we travel during high tide.  The battery installation was finished too late in the day to allow us to travel during high tide so we decided to stay another night in Southport. 

 

We did leave Southport early the next morning, and it was a good thing that we waited.  There are 2 inlets (where there’s access to the Atlantic from the ICW) that we would be transiting that are shoaling and creating very shallow water.  We need 3.8” and we’ve heard that the water is as low as 2.5”.  Because we crossed these areas during high tide, and we followed the guidance of boaters who recently transited these areas, we made it through just fine.  It seems like almost everyone we’ve talked with has either gone aground or seen a boat aground in these areas.  (One boater we talked to was one of 4 boats that went aground at the same time.) We’ve been lucky – but we’ve also been smart.  The third obstacle that we transited was called the “Rock Pile” – a 3+ mile stretch of the Pine Island Cut.  It took the Army Corps of Engineers 2 years to blast through the limestone in this area, and it’s still very narrow with rocks under the center of channel and alongside the channel.  It’s so bad that it’s recommended that boaters broadcast their crossing to commercial vessels because it’s too narrow and dangerous for two vessels to cross at the same time.  I can’t tell you how relieved I was to finally arrive at Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach. 

 

This was a great area to spend a couple nights.  We were docked next to 120+ specialty shops and 20+ restaurants.   No big purchases for us, but we had lots of good food.  This part of the ICW is fresh water and there were alligators in the area.  We didn’t see any, but Jack was on the look-out.  Best of all we met up with some old friends from Phoenix – Dana and Richie Bungert.  It was so good seeing them again and getting caught up.  The evening flew by.

 

 

We have our golf clubs with us, but we haven’t used them yet.  When we’ve had the opportunity to golf, the weather hasn’t cooperated.  When the weather’s been good, we haven’t been near a course.  There was a golf course near the marina in Myrtle Beach, but we weren’t able to take advantage of it.  It was a really different course – there was a cable car that transported golfers and their club across the ICW.  You can see how the golf clubs ride outside the cable car. 

 

After 2 nights, we set sail down the Waccamaw River – what an absolutely gorgeous waterway.  We anchored on the Thoroughfare Creek off the Waccamaw.  This was an entirely different anchoring experience for us.  First of all, it was the first time we anchored completely on our own - there was absolutely no one near us.  Secondly, this was the first time we anchored in a creek – we have always been in bays/coves/harbors.  It was a little unsettling (translation:  I didn’t sleep very well), but everything was fine.  Another successful anchoring – we may get the hang of anchoring yet!  And, the new batteries were wonderful – we didn’t need the generator at all.

 

Spanish Moss on a tree along the Waccamaw River

 

 

The red and green things are beached channel makers that we rely on while navigating the waterways

 

The winds finally quieted down, but the temps are still cool.  I had three layers of clothes on when we left the next morning for Georgetown.  Georgetown was briefly settled in the 1500s and has had its ups and downs.  It was a major center for indigo and rice, then lumber and steel.  A few weeks ago there was a major fire on the waterfront that destroyed 6 store fronts.  Today there’s an International Paper plant, shrimping, and tourism.  We arrived early hoping to once again anchor.  The anchorage was really crowded and the winds picked up – we debated whether we should even stay.  We ultimately decide to stay, and we got a slip at a marina.  The town was a pleasant surprise – really quaint, nicely maintained, great architecture, a fabulous bakery, and plenty of shops and restaurants.  We really enjoyed our short stay here.

 

Georgetown shoreline

We had another long travel day, so we were up and out early Saturday morning.  We had only one difficult section of the ICW and everything went smoothly.   This stretch of the ICW wasn’t very picturesque – lots of marshes and not much else, except dolphins.  We found a nice anchorage and dropped anchor around 3:30pm.  There were several dolphins as we pulled into the anchorage area and one dolphin was swimming around the boat after we set anchor.  It was really cool.

 

Our only neighbor while anchored on the Dewees Creek

We had a short trip Sunday morning to Charleston.  The marinas in Charleston are on either the Ashley or the Cooper Rivers.  The problem with docking on rivers is the current, so we wanted to time our arrival during slack tide.  We also wanted to travel during mid to high tide.  Even though the trip was short, it was challenging.  We went through some really shallow water – glad we waited for a favorable tide.  The arrival in Charleston was easy, and we quickly settled in.  Our marina has a great location and we’re looking forward to a week in Charleston.  The weather is supposed to be awful – record setting lows and wind advisories – but the city will be fun!

NC - WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH, CAROLINA BEACH, SOUTHPORT

He Said:  Hello Again.  We are trying our best to catch up on our blog, this is the reason for 2 within such a short time.  We are about a week in front of where we say we are so we would like to catch up.  It’s too hard to remember where we were a week or so ago.  How pathetic is that??

 

We ended up staying 2 more nites in Oriental on the free city dock.  We really enjoy the area and the price on the dock is very attractive to us.  We also met some fun people who were also traveling south to either Florida or the Bahamas and it is always fun comparing notes and learning from more experienced boaters, mostly sail boats, but all heading the same direction.  Lots of the sailors go outside (into the ocean) instead of choosing the Intra Coastal which is our route.  Most sail boats need about 7 to 8 ft. of water and their height is about 65 feet - this makes most bridges very challenging for clearance.  Also the fact that the ICW is much shallower than the 7 feet they need makes the ocean waters much easier to navigate.

 

We very much enjoyed our last 2 days in Oriental and headed South on Monday AM.  We departed on time and headed to Beaufort where we spent just 1 nite.  This town was very cute but a pretty long hike in to town.  We found a cute little pub on the water and enjoyed some bargain tacos and a couple of cold ones.  When we arrived at the bar there were only 8 people sitting outside, and we knew 4 of them from a few weeks prior.  We mentioned in an earlier blog that most of the people we run into are doing pretty much what we are doing including the 4 at the bar.

 

We left Beaufort and headed towards Camp Lejeune (Marine Corp) searching for an anchorage with good success. This area was doing lots of military maneuvers - pretty cool, but not so quiet.  At times we felt like we were being fired at.  We are certain that our distance away was fine but every now and then you wondered about it.  We spent 1 nite in this area with no problems.  There was no town nearby so pretty much stayed close to the boat.  

 

Watch tower in Ft. Lejeune

 

We headed out the following morning and headed to Wrightsville Beach to also anchor.  Here we could dingy into the town in about 5 minutes.  Since we are into November the town was not jumping but was very cool.  The locals say that in the summer it is jamming. The ICW and the Atlantic are pretty much next to each other - maybe ½ mile apart at the most.  We went into town both nites and found a cool Mexican cantina and also a sports bar.  The cantina had terrific food along with terrific prices on both food specials and cocktails.  On Wednesday we packed up our beach stuff and spent a couple of hours that afternoon just hanging on the beach - nice to see the surfer dudes and the waves again - but we really are enjoying the calmness of traveling the ICW.

 

Some of the bigger houses along the ICW

 

We have been seeing a far amount of dolphins here in North Carolina.  We had a few about 20 ft. from the bow of the boat -  way too cool.  I think if they had any idea how excited we get every time we see them sliding thru the water maybe they would show-off a little more.

 

Little Pink House - check out the sunken boat and shed alongside house.  You see it all along the ICW

 

We left Wrightsville Beach on Friday morning and headed to Carolina Beach, just about a 2.5 hour trip.  We arrived before lunch time with no issues. The marina we stayed at was very, very peaceful (maybe the Eagles were singing about this place with Peaceful Easy Feeling).  The bigger issue was I found a really cool sports bar in town to watch the OSU/Purdue Game. This game was pretty much over at halftime like the Penn State Game was the week before.  I think in the combined first halves we outscored both teams something like 100 to nuttin.  Not complaining, but also not too exciting.  Carolina Beach was very cute but the hike from our marina, which was operated by the state of North Carolina, was a fair distance.  We spent 2 peaceful evenings on boat and then headed to Southport. 

 

Lazy Parrot, Carolina Beach where Jack watched OSU game

This also was a pretty short travel day for us - we arrived on Sunday at about lunch time.  This is a cute little marina with just 1 little bar for mostly boaters.  We are planning on having our batteries tested again.  We are pretty certain we have a slight battery issue and need to take care of it.  When we are plugged in to our 50AMP it is no big deal.  When we are anchoring it becomes an issue.  We run our generator for a few hours when we are anchoring, but feel that we are having to run our generator way too often. We will have these checked out again and it is important we take care of this issue, whatever it is.

 

Sunset from MTB in Carolina Beach

 

We are planning on leaving on Tuesday and arriving about 5 hours later in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  We hope to visit Dana and Richie Bungert while in Myrtle Beach.  Richie had a little restaurant in Phoenix before heading to the Carolinas.  A few exciting things for us: on the 5^th I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary of being filleted (I’m feeling good), and the 7^th will be our 10 year anniversary.  Holy cow how time flies when you’re having fun - I actually mean that. We should be in Charleston, SC in about a week.  We’re going to spend a week there.  After that we’re heading to Georgia then still hoping for Florida the first part of December.

 

That’s about it for now. 

 

Take Care, Jack     

 

 

 

 

She Said:  The good news is we’re still in Oriental – we got the free dock for 2 nights.  The bad news is the weather is freezing cold.  There were frost warnings, and in the morning some of the sailboats had frost on their sails.  Temps on MTB were in the mid-50s when we woke up in the morning.  Good thing the heater works well.  We knew we would have some cold weather, but we’ve had more than expected.  I’m getting tired of the few sweaters and long pants that I have on board.

 

The pig roast was such a huge success that we couldn’t get tickets, but we were able to get into the Halloween party.  There was a live band (they were great) and lots of costume.  It was fun night.  The next day we were hanging out at the marina visiting with other boaters when a boat pulled into the marina, honked, and was waving.  It turned out to be our friends John and Debbie.  With a little maneuvering we were able to get them into the other free dock alongside us.  We did a little pot luck aboard MTB.  They are a great couple and we enjoy their company.

 

MTB on the left with Debbie & John and their boat Bonnie Blue
 

 

We left the next morning for Beaufort, NC.  Because of the treacherous waters around Beaufort, there are lots of sunken wrecks including Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge (discovered a few years ago).  Blackbeard did his pillaging and plundering in these waters in the early 1700s. As we exited the ICW for the town of Beaufort, we encountered dolphins.  Jack is a great dolphin spotter.  They are so much fun to watch and travel with.  I have not gotten a picture yet – I’m too busy watching them.   We made the short walk into town and hoped to see the wild Shackelford horses.  These horses were brought to area by early explorers.  It’s unknown whether the horses survived a shipwreck or were left behind from an abandoned colony.  They roamed the area until the 1940s.  At that time they were rounded up and brought to Shackelford Island to protect them.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see the horses.  But we did see lots of boaters from earlier ports.  It was fun catching up with them and their adventures.  I’ve been looking for North Carolina barbeque and there was a good barbeque restaurant in town, but it was closed.  We settled for the “best” burger in Beaufort.

 

Leaving Beaufort we planned to travel about 45 miles and then anchor for the night (it’s about time we tried out the new anchor and windlass).  We transited a lot of bridges that only opened on the hour so we had to time our travel to avoid waiting around for the bridge opening.  We were also transiting the Fort Lejeune Marine Corps Base Firing Range and maneuvers were planned for the day – that meant more possible delays.  What we didn’t expect was our first barge.  It was traveling really slowly and we wanted to pass.  Every time we tried to pass our depth finder alarm went off.  We eventually got around.  Another first to check off the list.

 

That's our wake as we made our first tug/barge passing.
 

 

Along the way we once again ran into John and Debbie (and more dolphins).  We decided to anchor in Fort Lejuene in a manmade harbor created for marines to practice amphibious landings.  It took us two tries to set the anchor, but once it was set everything was good.  We had happy hour with John and Debbie and then went back to MTB for dinner. 

 

The firing went on until dark.  There were also a lot of helicopter landings on the shores of the harbor

 

 

We left the next morning for Wrightsville Beach.  With a successful anchorage behind us, we decided to anchor in Wrightsville Beach.  It was a nice area to anchor because everything was a short dinghy ride away.  This small town is busy “in season” but pretty quiet this time of year.  We found a great Tex-Mex restaurant (with $1 PBRs for Jack) with homemade chips and salsa – yum!  The next day the weather was great and we spent a couple hours on the beach (Atlantic Ocean).   The wind picked up so we headed back to MTB.  Good thing we went back when we did, because within an hour we started drifting.  A neighboring boat thought that something must have attached to our anchor.  He was right – there was a big piece of wire net hooked to the anchor.  We removed the net, reset the anchor and kept our fingers crossed.  The wind picked up that night, and I have to tell you I didn’t sleep very soundly.  I kept getting up to be sure we were still holding – and we were.  It’s good to have a really successful anchoring under the belt.

 

Jack on the beach in Wrightsville Beach, NC

 

The winds were predicted to be strong the next few days so we decided to get a slip and wait out the wind.  We traveled about 15 miles to Carolina Beach and stayed at the State Park Marina.  It was really windy coming in and we were thrilled to have a dockside tie-up.  (This is where you tie-up alongside a dock and don’t have to pull into a U-shaped slip.)  The marina had very little activity, and I really enjoyed the quiet time.  We stayed on board Friday night and enjoyed some down time.  We were woken up Saturday morning by a big thump.  It was a sailboat leaving the dock that lost control in the wind and current and slammed (maybe bumped is a better word) into MTB.  The captain was able to get the boat under control without doing any damage to either boat.  Whew!    

 

Looking out of the marine onto the ICW in Carolina Beach

 

The winds were strong, but the temps were in the 70s.  We walked into Carolina Beach – bigger and more spread out than Wrightsville Beach, but very similar – where we had lunch, Jack watched Ohio State football and I checked out the local stores.  We stopped into the local Food Lion grocery store for a couple things and ended up with 8 bags (which we had to carry on the 1.5 mile walk back to MTB).  

 

After living without shore power for several nights, we decided that we really needed to replace our four “house” batteries.  We made several phone calls before finding the right batteries and then several more to find someone to install them.  We made arrangements to have the work done about 15 miles away in Southport.  The ICW route to Southport takes us down the Cape Fear River – a major shipping channel that leads into the Atlantic.  The currents can run 6 miles per hour so it’s important from a fuel perspective to time our trip on the “ebb.”  Another consideration is the wind direction.  When the current and wind oppose one another the trip is very rough.  Fortunately, the wind and current were going the same direction so we had not only a quick trip, but a comfortable one. 

 

As soon as the batteries are installed, we’re off for North Myrtle Beach, SC.  Hopefully the winds will subside and the temps will go back into the 70s.              

 

 

ICW - NORTH CAROLINA - COINJOCK, BELHAVEN AND ORIENTAL

He Said:  Good-bye Norfolk.  About 100 yards from where we hung in Norfolk is mile 0 of the Intra-Coastal Waterway.  We left as projected after fueling up, watering up, and pumping out.  Our trip to Coinjock went very well.  We had to travel thru 1 lock and about 7 or so bridges.  Pulling into the lock for the very first time was a little strange since we had no idea what to expect.  The water movement was only about a foot or so.  Before we knew it we were done.  The very nice worker lady had treats (candy) for everyone so of course we really liked her.  We arrived in Coinjock in mid afternoon and pulled along side of a very long dock.  We love this because no backing in or pulling in at all - just pull along side of the dock just like you are fueling up.  We enjoyed our evening here and met some really nice folks.  Of course we ran into them in the bar at the dock which was the only place on our side of the water to grab a bite.

 

Going through our first lock.  We are behind the sailboat on the right.
 

 

We left Coinjock early on Tuesday AM and followed some of the boaters we talked to the prior evening down the ICW.  Our next stop was Belhaven where our plan was to anchor for the first time in several months.  As we arrived we had been reaching out for a couple we met earlier, and they had already tossed their anchor.  As we pulled into the anchor field, of course the wind was kicking up as we should have expected.  Our buds, John and Debbie, invited us to raft with them.  This term is much different in the anchoring world than jumping onto a raft and floating around with a cold beer between your legs.  Rafting is basically tying the 2 boats together and using only their anchor.  Of course, we put out 4 bumpers to protect us both.  Everything worked out great, but the next day was also windy.  Thank heaven John and Debbie said that if the winds did not let up then it was no big deal to raft with them a 2^nd nite.  Of course we took them up on the offer and everything worked out perfect.  I guess the only bad thing is we are still delaying our anchoring which we really have to figure out as we head South.

 

Sunset in Belhaven

 

I am going to lightly discuss the differences between the ocean and ICW.  The easiest way is to say it is simple, night and day! In the ocean we deal with winds, sometimes large waves, deep ass water, seeing no land, and making certain we understand our charts.  If not, no big deal, we simply get lost.  The challenges of the ICW are so very different. The average depth is about 8 feet depending on the tide and shoaling.  As we travel thru channels, rivers, and waterways that are maybe 4 or so miles wide the picture changes.  We feel in narrow and shallow areas the biggest challenge is keeping the boat floating - as in not running aground - so far so good. We follow what is called the Magenta Line on our GPS screen.  It is very, very important to stay as close to the line as possible.  No big deal if you go to one side or the other - you will then be in about 1 or 2 feet or water.  We don’t float in that, but it helps not burning any diesel while you wait for BoatUS to tow you off.

 

Traffic jam after waiting for a bridge.

 

Following our 2 nites in Belhaven, mostly hanging on the boat, we departed for a town called Oriental. The trip went just fine and we arrived on Thursday the 24^th, just in time for one of our 63^rd BD, guess who??  While in Oriental, which we loved by the way, we made an anchor change.  We had a 30# Delta and now we own that and a 45# Delta.  50% more weight is good.  We also have 200 ft. of chain.  Hopefully this will get us thru this anchorage mind game we have going on.

 

We went into the little bar about 50 ft. from the boat and celebrated my BD.  The place was slow but we meet some very nice people that we enjoyed visiting with.  We returned on Friday nite and the joint was rocking - maybe 100 people or so, but mostly locals.  The whole marina area is very cool with a Tiki Bar in the middle of the area.  You can even bring in your own cocktail, how cool is that? We may spend 2 more nites in Oriental if the free city dock opens up.  It only has room for 2 boats like ours and is free for 48 hours.  We will see what happens.  Once somebody leaves then it is first come, first serve.  We will keep our fingers crossed.  Speaking of fingers, mine are getting tired and it is 5 o’clock somewhere - actually right where we are at.

 

The Oriental Marina

Take Care, Jack

 

She Said:  We made it.  We’ve got a few days of the ICW behind us.  With the exception of the weather, I’m happy to say it’s what we hoped for.  There is real “community” of boaters.

 

We got up early, fueled up, pumped out, and hit the water around 8:30am.  As we headed down the ICW we could see a long line of boats (mostly sail) ahead of us.  It’s not bumper-to-bumper traffic – all of the boats leave quite a bit of space between – but we were definitely traveling in a pack which gave me some piece of mind.  I like being in the number four position – if three boats are safe ahead of us it must be OK.  Sailboats need deeper water than we do, so it’s usually safe to follow them

 

One of the many bridges we passed under

 

We were told that the first 12 miles would take us 2.5 hours, and that’s about what it was.  There were a lot of low bridges that we had to cross under – some are almost always up, some go up on request, and some go up on a schedule (usually on the hour and half hour).  We also had one lock.  Fortunately for us, the lock only dropped us about 2 feet so it was a very easy lock to maneuver.  The lock attendants were very helpful and it was pretty much a non-event – it was over before we even noticed that we dropped 2 feet. 

 

This is a single pivot bridge which opened on the half hour and hour

 

We met some boaters in the locks and played follow-the-leader with them for the rest of day.  At one point we were in the number 3 spot.  Boat 1 went in one direction and Boat 2 went in a different direction.  For some reason Jack started to blindly follow Boat 2, but then corrected and got back on course.  Good thing, because we saw Boat 2 head toward the shore, bump bottom, and bounce back into the waterway.  (Everything was OK.)  The total trip was 50 miles from Norfolk to Coinjock, NC.  There are 2 marinas in Coinjock (across the river from one another) and nothing else.  Just about everyone stops at one of the two.  We stayed at Midway Marina and had dinner at Crabby’s.  It was a great place to visit with the other boaters, share stories, and learn from the veterans.

 

Our plan was to anchor out on night two.  We met a couple, John and Debbie, who also planned on anchoring and they invited us to join them.  We were apprehensive about anchoring because we have very little anchoring experience and none of it has been very good.  So anchoring with someone was the perfect solution for us.  The next morning John and Debbie left about an hour before us.  It was a good travel day and they decided to travel farther than we originally planned.  Although it meant a longer travel day than we’re comfortable with, we decided to bite the bullet and travel 85 miles in about 10.5 hours to join them.  As we approached the anchorage area, John and Debbie invited us “raft” with them.  “Rafting” is when one boat anchors and the other boat ties up to the anchored boat.  They joined us for happy hour aboard MTB.  We had a really nice evening with them.

 

We got up early the next morning planning to travel about 50 miles to Oriental.  After checking the weather we decided that we should stay anchored for another night and not deal with the windy conditions.  John and Debbie made the same decision so we stayed rafted with them another day.  After taking care of boat stuff we spent a quiet afternoon on MTB.  That evening we joined John and Debbie for a delicious dinner of homemade soup and fresh baked bread.  Both the food and the evening were excellent.  We did finally depart the next morning for Oriental. 

 

The shore line changed a lot.  This is a marsh area with cypress trees.

 

The ICW is a combination of natural waterways (rivers and sounds) and man-made “cuts.”  So far, the cuts have been the easiest to navigate, the sounds the roughest, and the rivers the most challenging.  The cuts are typically long, straight bodies of water and the depths are pretty consistent so there’s little concern about staying in a particular path.  The natural waterways have fluctuating depths and you really have to pay attention to where you’re going.  The water in the North Carolina ICW looks like tea because of the tannins that are emitted by the cypress trees that line the shores.  (I prefer my tannins in my red wine, thank you.)  The front of the boat has a brown “moustache” stain from the tannins in the water.  Jack cleaned it one day and the guys at the marina told him he was wasting his time; I guess we’ll have to wait until we get into South Carolina before MTB is shiny white again.

 

This is our wake.  Check out the brown color.  This is caused by the tannins.

 

As I’ve said, we like to follow other boats – there’s a sense of security and confidence that comes when traveling with others.  But we have found that if we travel too closely our depth finder signals an alert – which doesn’t instill a sense of security or confidence.  It took us a few unnerving alerts until we figured it out.  Other than those few scares, we arrived in Oriental without incident.  Unfortunately, our docking wasn’t our best effort.  The wind caught us on our first approach and held us against the pilings.  But we didn’t panic and on our second approach we were in like champs.   In our defense, we didn’t see anyone make it in on their first try that day. 

 

Oriental is a small, quaint town and the marina was in the heart of things.  One of our goals while in town was to find a new anchor since we were pretty sure that our anchor was too small for the boat.  After a couple of trips to the marine consignment store we ended up with the perfect anchor.  Not only that, but a couple of fellow boaters helped Jack install the anchor (OK – they did all the work while Jack watched).  So now we not only have a working windlass, but we have an appropriately sized anchor.  Look out anchorages – here we come!

Our first night in Oriental was Jack’s birthday.  There was a cute little Tiki Bar right in front of our boat, but we were so busy working on the anchor that we never got over there for any Birthday Cheer.  We did, however, get to Toucan’s Restaurant.  It didn’t look like much, but we had a fantastic shrimp and scallops dinner.  The scallops were so sweet – awesome!  We met a couple that was in town celebrating their wedding anniversary.  They had never been on a live aboard boat so we invited them back to MTB for a nightcap.  We visited with them until well after midnight.  It was a fun evening and nice celebration for Jack’s birthday.   The next day we finished up chores, bought some shrimp from a local shrimper (we are now in shrimp country – think Forest Gump), provisioned-up for our departure and before we knew it, it was time for dinner.  We stopped in Toucan’s for a quick drink before heading back to MTB for dinner.  The restaurant was full of locals and they all told us about the Halloween party and pig roast the next day.  It was strongly suggested that we stay for the festivities.  If we can get the free dock – we will stay.  Wish us luck!