Fleeing Southwards from the Cold
(Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolinas)
12th October - 2nd November 2004
At our first stop we arrived just before dark in Solomons and left just before sunrise, without setting foot ashore. Strong winds were forecast and Deltaville, another day further south, seemed like a good spot to wait out an improvement in sailing conditions.
We had seen most of the sights of Deltaville on our previous two hour visit, it's that big a place! Little did we know the excitement that was in store.
The Captain feeling the cold.
When the time came to head out of Deltaville, the tide was extremely low and we were worried about running aground in the narrow channel out of Jackson Creek. Another boat, Kairos, with a shallower draft left first and told us they found a spot with only 6 feet, so we waited another half hour or so for the tide to rise, before heading out ourselves. At one point in the channel we went over a hill - a new first for Anju, who actually drove right over the hill, we felt her rise up and go down the other side!
Out in the Chesapeake the wind was strong, 15 - 20 knots, and we were at 30 - 60 degrees off the wind, so it was a hard and cold trip. We had current against us all the way, so despite the strong wind, we only managed about 5 knots. We cut every corner we could, across the shoals near the entrance at Hampton Roads, so we wouldn't lose any ground against the wind. The entrance to the channel was tough with both the current and wind against us, so we crawled along at about three knots for a while. We were finally happily anchored just before dark at Hospital Point in Norfolk.
Ralph, Jeanette, us, Nancy and Dean at Uncle Louie's.
In Norfolk we were able to catch up with friends old and new. First we invited Jim and Joanne Matthews, OCC members we'd met in Deltaville, to visit Anju and try Phil's famous curry. We spent a lovely evening until it was time for them to head home, when a thunderstorm started with torrential rain. They survived their trip back to shore in the dinghy and Joanne kindly took us in her car on a provisioning trip later in the week.
We also got together again with "old" friends (OK, we met them in July), Dean and Nancy based in Norfolk and Ralph and Jeanette from Cape Charles, who treated us to an evening out in a local deli/restaurant called Uncle Louie's.
The wind was blowing us onto the dock, so we struggled off next morning, which was was tricky with all the other boats milling around waiting for the bridge opening. A couple of hours later at North Landing, we had to move over in the channel to let a tug boat go past and were nearly aground! Later we fuelled up in Coinjock, another dock which was hard to get off with the wind blowing us on. It was quite a traumatic day but worse for another boat at the fuel dock who accidentally filled their diesel tanks with petrol! After another couple of hours we anchored south of Buck Island in a place which could have aptly been named The Middle of Nowhere! We snuggled up warm inside Anju with cold north winds howling outside and we psyched ourselves up for the Albermarle Sound crossing next day (our experience crossing northwards was still fresh in our minds).
Luckily on this occasion our crossing was uneventful. The Alligator Bridge on the far side even waited for us to arrive and delayed its opening for us, which was friendly. The next part of the trip up the Alligator River Canal was long, straight and boring, about 20 odd miles in the drizzle with only trees to look at. At one point we hit a submerged object but luckily were undamaged. Many tree stumps litter the edges of the canal and lie invisible just below the surface! Just before dark we anchored in Pungo River. The ICW was beginning to feel like a forced route march and still the weather was no warmer!
Worn down by the rigors of the ICW, we'd planned a short trip next day but ended up doing over 50 miles, with a long stretch up the Neuse River. We anchored, just before dark again, in Cedar Creek. The next day we would finally reach Beaufort, North Carolina.
Strangely as we approached Beaufort next morning, with an escort of dolphins, we both simultaneously decided not to stop in Beaufort but to carry on to Swansboro instead. As we approached Swansboro, we decided not to stop there either and carried on to try the anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay, close to a military base. We were nervous about the depths in the channel into Mile Hammock Bay but we called on the VHF radio to boats already anchored and "Orient Express" came back and told us there was plenty of water. They were right and there were already several boats anchored in there. It seemed idyllic and over sundowners, we watched fascinating incoming helicopter/planes, when flying they were planes with propellers but when they wanted to land, the propellers rotated to become rotor blades. Unfortunately when they continued coming in until around midnight it made the anchorage somewhat less idyllic!
In Wrightsville Beach we went to thank Bruce and Gail on "Orient Express" for their help the previous evening. Bruce asked Phil if happened to know how to fix a water leak on the water pump on a Yanmar 3QM30 (H). Not only had we actually found somebody with an engine as "experienced" as ours but we'd spent a good deal of time recently in Venezuela finding out how to fix the very same problem, so were able to give him the parts lists and one of our spare water seals and explain what had to be done.
Sunrise at Wrightsville Beach - time to hit the road again!
This Atlantic route may be straighter but it's no warmer!
When the fog finally lifted, we passed a peaceful day motoring through the swamps of South Carolina, past huge houses with very long docks, where it must have been a quarter mile walk from the house to the boat. It must be pretty shallow outside the main channel!
We decided to be adventurous and head to a recommended anchorage off the ICW at Mosquito Creek, where we hoped we would be able to buy some fresh seafood. The anchorage was reported and charted to have 7 foot at the entrance at low water but when we arrived two hours before low water, we ran aground, so opted for plan B instead, finding ourselves anchored in another "middle of nowhere" creek.
It was ironic that the day we switched our clocks to winter time was the first time it began to feel warm. Of course the downside to the hour change was that now we had the opportunity to get up even earlier every day, as dawn came at around 6 am.
Birthday Boy has his cake and eats it!
It was also election day in the States and we were alarmed to discover that we were unable to replenish our dangerously low gin stocks, as the liquor stores were closed for the event. This was presumably to make sure that you weren't voting under the influence! We'd been hoping to celebrate the disappearance of the irritating candidates' TV advertisements. After about six months of them, we still weren't sure what anybody's policies were but we certainly knew that all the candidates didn't like each other much!
Now we had Georgia on our minds.........