We are in the Atlantic Ocean east of Isle of Palms, South Carolina (map). Even though today's ocean forecast was identical to yesterdays, seas are, in fact, much calmer today, with an almost glassy appearance along a good part of the route. That made it easy to spot several dolphins, although we did not see any whales today (so far).
The price we had to pay for such lovely conditions out here was to leave in pea-soup fog this morning. A dense fog advisory ran until 9am, and even though we were up at 6, we waited until 8 to have the best possible visibility. A 9am departure would have put us into Charleston after sunset, and that harbor can be very confusing after dark.
We adjusted the radar as best we could, and picked our way back out into the ocean by following our breadcrumbs and the radar returns from the buoys. We also fired up the massive Kahlenberg automatic fog horns, which had both cats scrambling for cover. These sound at roughly one-minute intervals, and I confess that it even takes the humans a few minutes to stop jumping every time they go off. The fog burned off about an hour after we made the turn at the end of the south jetty.
Last night we collapsed early, after a hearty dinner and a couple of glasses of wine. We were beat from a long day, and also we had no Internet access to speak of -- my phone kept going in and out of coverage, and it was all I could do to post the blog I had written earlier in the day. I could not post the photo I had of the teak shower stool, nor could I correct my, umm, faux pas, wherein I had written that it was faux teak -- Louise, upon reading it later, corrected me indignantly, as it is a hunk of actual teak instead. The gaffe is now corrected and the photo has been added to the post. Somehow Blogger overwrote my post date, however, so I had to take a guess to fix it.
We had very securely anchored with 180' of chain in about 26' of water, and we watched the boat swing both directions in the current so we thought we'd sleep soundly. Nevertheless, we were rudely awakened around 1am by a screech, followed by whirring. I ran on deck to hear water churning past the stern, as if we were under way, and Louise yelled up that the prop shaft was turning. The current had picked up to over 3 knots, and the whirring sound was the gearbox as the prop windmilled at something over 100 rpm. We guessed the screech was the shaft overcoming the "stiction" of the cutless bearing as the relentless current finally set it spinning.
A freewheeling prop on a marine transmission can be a real problem, and I am embarrassed to say that we had not researched beforehand what to do about such an event with our particular transmission. When we had been looking at twin-engine boats, I had paid careful attention to transmission models and what we'd have to do in the event we needed to run safely on one engine only, but the ZF280 was not one of the models I had researched.
The good news is that even in the heavy current, the anchor had not moved an inch. I quickly started the main engine to get lube oil flowing to the transmission and raw water flowing into the stuffing box, and we ran the engine at 900rpm for the next hour while we tried to figure out what to do. The manual we found on board, for a slightly different model, was no help, as it made no mention of freewheeling. And doing further research was difficult with almost non-existent Internet coverage.
After an hour of hammering at it we learned that most hydraulic-clutch ZF models can be freewheeled with no harm so long as the temperatures remain low. I could tell the gears were splashing in oil, so that made sense. We also checked that plenty of water was coming in through the stuffing box while the prop spun freely in the current, making me extra-glad we opted to switch out the dripless style for a conventional packing gland and stuffing. A quick check with the IR pyrometer revealed nothing but cool temperatures, and we went back to bed with the 100+ rpm whir in the background.
Of course, we'd anchored and docked in currents above three knots many times in the past, and it took us a while to realize why we had not experienced this before: this is the first time we've done so since we replaced the shaft and bearings and had the whole driveline aligned. Unsurprisingly, it takes less force now to windmill our propeller.
The run from Winyah Bay to Charleston is much closer to land than yesterday's run, to the point even of having a dog-leg in it to go around Cape Romain Shoal. Now that we're less than ten miles offshore of a number of populated communities, we've had pretty good Internet access on and off for the last hour or two. I thought I would take advantage of the calm and empty seas to get today's post written; tonight we should be anchored off Fort Johnson just inside the Charleston Harbor entrance.
Our reservation at Charleston Marine Center does not start until Sunday, although I will call them to see if they've had a cancellation earlier. We'll stay anchored in Charleston Harbor until they are ready for us. I am looking forward to a week of downtime to get some projects done and take in some more of Charleston proper. We've also had our mail forwarded there along with a number of items we've ordered in the past week.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Whale-watch cruise
We are anchored in Winyah Bay, just off the entrance channel west of North Island and not far from Georgetown Light (map). The actual community of Georgetown, South Carolina, where we stayed on our way north up the ICW, is another ten miles further up the bay.
We had a nice run today from Southport, although in quartering seas of 3' or so, which made for a lot of motion. Both cats registered their unhappiness by losing their breakfast -- no surprise for motion-sensitive Angel, but these seas even got to George, albeit much later in the morning.
The boat handled it just fine, and the humans were mostly OK too. Due to the very early start and faced with the prospect of ten plus hours of little to do on the open water, we opted to shower underway, which posed a small but surmountable challenge.
Actually, the majority of blue water boats have small seats or ledges built into the showers, for exactly this circumstance, and we do have such a seat ledge in the guest shower, but, oddly, the builder chose not to put one in the master shower. Knowing this would become a liability, Louise had shopped around some time ago for an adjustable teak shower stool that at least looked somewhat nautical.
We can adjust the legs of the stool so that it sits half on the shower floor and half on the ledge a few inches above it (the ledge that, we've mused, could simply have been made two feet taller to solve this problem from the get-go). When it is not being used it lives on the flybridge, where, in its lowest position, it serves as a footrest for the helm chairs. It's actually intended as an "assistive device" and we've gotten some ribbing from friends about how quickly we are getting old.
The early start also meant leaving the marina in the dark and making our way out into the river before first light, just a few minutes behind the first ferry of the day at 6am. By the time we passed the Southport waterfront we were actually able to see the water and we had no trouble making our way out the inlet past Bald Head Island. We passed the ferry, which runs much faster than we do, on its return trip.
I ran most of my pre-departure checklist last night, right after loading the scooter on deck when we came back from a tasty but too-large dinner at Frying Pan Restaurant downtown. The restaurant, named after the infamous shoal off Cape Fear, is fairly new and had not come up in my search -- I found it on a quick scouting run when I went out for auto parts. I'm glad I did, as it had a great view, a really nice Christmas tree, and decent food. They will close for the season in a couple of weeks, after the local holiday flotilla.
Another first for us on today's run, in addition to making use of the shower stool, was having to add fuel to the day tank under way. I had topped the tank up last night, which means 75 gallons or so. That would have been enough for today's 75-mile run under many conditions, but we had to wick it up this morning.
On a crossing like this it is impossible to time every factor to be optimal. We chose today because of reasonably good ocean weather, and we lucked out in having a mostly slack tide at Winyah Bay. But that meant leaving the Cape Fear River with nearly three knots of current against us. Our normal cruise RPM of 1800 had us doing just four knots, and we could not afford to burn another half hour of daylight just getting out of the river, so I cranked it up to 2150.
I ended up turning 2000 for most of the next hour, too, and we had sucked down 20 gallons of fuel in the first couple of hours. Once we were on the long southwesterly leg I was able to drop back to 1900 rpm, which is still burning more than we'd like, but that gave us an arrival estimate near 5pm, and we did not want to chance arriving at the anchorage after sunset. I put an extra 20 gallons or so in the day tank mid-morning, so we would not risk running low on fuel just as we were trying to negotiate the inlet.
Sometime mid-morning and again mid-day, we spotted several dolphins and a pod of whales. Both the dolphins and whales came over to check us out, but dolphins lose interest in Vector quickly because we don't move fast enough for our bow wave to be any fun for them. We spotted another group of dolphins here in the anchorage right at sunset.
After the showers, whale-watching, and getting dinner started, we were wont for things to do. There is too much motion to tackle boat projects, and cellular data coverage quits a few miles offshore. We each had a nap, did some route planning, regular engine room and deck checks, and the like, and I typed most of this blog post into a text file this afternoon. Mostly, we just chatted.
Tomorrow the weather looks good for the next leg, to Charleston, so long as we do not get fogged in in the morning. It's a shorter day, just 57 nautical miles (around eight hours), so we won't have to leave in the dark. Our marina reservation in Charleston does not start until the 8th, so we will be anchoring for a few nights first.
We had a nice run today from Southport, although in quartering seas of 3' or so, which made for a lot of motion. Both cats registered their unhappiness by losing their breakfast -- no surprise for motion-sensitive Angel, but these seas even got to George, albeit much later in the morning.
The boat handled it just fine, and the humans were mostly OK too. Due to the very early start and faced with the prospect of ten plus hours of little to do on the open water, we opted to shower underway, which posed a small but surmountable challenge.
Actually, the majority of blue water boats have small seats or ledges built into the showers, for exactly this circumstance, and we do have such a seat ledge in the guest shower, but, oddly, the builder chose not to put one in the master shower. Knowing this would become a liability, Louise had shopped around some time ago for an adjustable teak shower stool that at least looked somewhat nautical.
We can adjust the legs of the stool so that it sits half on the shower floor and half on the ledge a few inches above it (the ledge that, we've mused, could simply have been made two feet taller to solve this problem from the get-go). When it is not being used it lives on the flybridge, where, in its lowest position, it serves as a footrest for the helm chairs. It's actually intended as an "assistive device" and we've gotten some ribbing from friends about how quickly we are getting old.
The early start also meant leaving the marina in the dark and making our way out into the river before first light, just a few minutes behind the first ferry of the day at 6am. By the time we passed the Southport waterfront we were actually able to see the water and we had no trouble making our way out the inlet past Bald Head Island. We passed the ferry, which runs much faster than we do, on its return trip.
I ran most of my pre-departure checklist last night, right after loading the scooter on deck when we came back from a tasty but too-large dinner at Frying Pan Restaurant downtown. The restaurant, named after the infamous shoal off Cape Fear, is fairly new and had not come up in my search -- I found it on a quick scouting run when I went out for auto parts. I'm glad I did, as it had a great view, a really nice Christmas tree, and decent food. They will close for the season in a couple of weeks, after the local holiday flotilla.
Another first for us on today's run, in addition to making use of the shower stool, was having to add fuel to the day tank under way. I had topped the tank up last night, which means 75 gallons or so. That would have been enough for today's 75-mile run under many conditions, but we had to wick it up this morning.
On a crossing like this it is impossible to time every factor to be optimal. We chose today because of reasonably good ocean weather, and we lucked out in having a mostly slack tide at Winyah Bay. But that meant leaving the Cape Fear River with nearly three knots of current against us. Our normal cruise RPM of 1800 had us doing just four knots, and we could not afford to burn another half hour of daylight just getting out of the river, so I cranked it up to 2150.
I ended up turning 2000 for most of the next hour, too, and we had sucked down 20 gallons of fuel in the first couple of hours. Once we were on the long southwesterly leg I was able to drop back to 1900 rpm, which is still burning more than we'd like, but that gave us an arrival estimate near 5pm, and we did not want to chance arriving at the anchorage after sunset. I put an extra 20 gallons or so in the day tank mid-morning, so we would not risk running low on fuel just as we were trying to negotiate the inlet.
Sometime mid-morning and again mid-day, we spotted several dolphins and a pod of whales. Both the dolphins and whales came over to check us out, but dolphins lose interest in Vector quickly because we don't move fast enough for our bow wave to be any fun for them. We spotted another group of dolphins here in the anchorage right at sunset.
After the showers, whale-watching, and getting dinner started, we were wont for things to do. There is too much motion to tackle boat projects, and cellular data coverage quits a few miles offshore. We each had a nap, did some route planning, regular engine room and deck checks, and the like, and I typed most of this blog post into a text file this afternoon. Mostly, we just chatted.
Tomorrow the weather looks good for the next leg, to Charleston, so long as we do not get fogged in in the morning. It's a shorter day, just 57 nautical miles (around eight hours), so we won't have to leave in the dark. Our marina reservation in Charleston does not start until the 8th, so we will be anchoring for a few nights first.
Monday, December 2, 2013
ICW stopover
We are tied up at the Deep Point Marina in Southport, North Carolina (map). We had a nervous but trouble-free run here yesterday afternoon from Wrightsville Beach, along some 20 miles of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). We left Wrightsville at low tide, and thus the pucker factor was quite high as we transited across some notorious ICW trouble spots opposite the various inlets on the route. At one point the depth sounder briefly registered 6', but we never touched bottom.
It was smooth sailing after we exited Snows Cut into the Cape Fear River, where we had some current behind us even on a rising tide. We arrived here at Deep Point around 3:30 or so, and we tied up port-side-to to unload a scooter. We had the scooter deployed well before sunset.
This last item was necessary because Deep Point is well outside of town, close to absolutely nothing except for the Bald Island Ferry, which shares the same basin. The enormous ferry sends a pretty good wake through the whole marina, even though it is maneuvering at dead slow in the basin, and it sounds its horn every time it leaves the dock, which goes until 10pm or so.
For both these reasons, this is the least expensive marina in town, even though it is also the newest. With our MTOA discount, dockage here is $1.14 per foot, plus $7.50 for power, and we asked for two nights when we arrived. That would let us move another four miles to Bald Head tomorrow, to save 40 minutes or so in the good weather window on the Atlantic on Wednesday.
When I went in to pay, though, I learned they were having a "buy two nights, get the third night free" special, and so we decided to stay tomorrow night as well, since it adds $0 to the bill, and even anchoring out is costing us around $25-$30 per day in generator run time.
To make up for this, we'll need to leave even earlier than planned Wednesday, shoving off well before dawn. We'll back out of the slip around "nautical twilight," negotiating the marina entrance in the dark and putting us into the Cape Fear River, where navigation is easy and the channel is deep. It will be past "civil twilight" by the time we are at the river entrance, affording us the ability to see well enough for the purpose.
We went to dinner last night at Atlantic Steak & Seafood, on the outskirts of town, as all the decent downtown joints are closed Sunday and Monday. Tonight we have our mouths all set for Mexican cuisine, and tomorrow we'll head down to the waterfront before loading the scooter back on deck.
Today I threw the saddlebags on the bike and headed to Walmart on a provisioning run. I managed somehow to get a full cart of groceries loaded up, including the large jug of cat litter, a gallon of outboard oil, nine full-size boxes of Kleenex, two rolls of paper towels, 5.75 liters of wine, two bags full of fresh produce and meat, and myriad bags and cans of nuts, coffee, croutons, pharmacy products, and other miscellaneous items. And don't forget the milk.
Louise stayed on board Vector to pound out 6 loads of laundry. Since each washer load dries more efficiently as two dryer loads, there's a lot of sorting and moving of damp items. It was also a good chance to estimate how much water the washer uses, since we filled the tank here at the marina. Six loads used approximately half our capacity, and we'll re-fill the tank before we leave.
We still have a few things left on the list that Walmart does not carry or was out of stock, so we'll stop by a grocery store on our way back from dinner tonight. Tomorrow I might end up at the auto parts store and/or the hardware store to fill out my project supply list. Have I mentioned how much we love having our motor scooters with us on the boat?
I am looking forward to leaving the ICW behind on Wednesday. By Wednesday evening we should be anchored in Winyah Bay, and if the forecast holds for Thursday we might try to make Charleston, or else we will be in Winyah Bay until Saturday. I'm not sure if we will get any cell signal in Winyah Bay, so this may be the last you hear from us until Charleston harbor.
It was smooth sailing after we exited Snows Cut into the Cape Fear River, where we had some current behind us even on a rising tide. We arrived here at Deep Point around 3:30 or so, and we tied up port-side-to to unload a scooter. We had the scooter deployed well before sunset.
This last item was necessary because Deep Point is well outside of town, close to absolutely nothing except for the Bald Island Ferry, which shares the same basin. The enormous ferry sends a pretty good wake through the whole marina, even though it is maneuvering at dead slow in the basin, and it sounds its horn every time it leaves the dock, which goes until 10pm or so.
For both these reasons, this is the least expensive marina in town, even though it is also the newest. With our MTOA discount, dockage here is $1.14 per foot, plus $7.50 for power, and we asked for two nights when we arrived. That would let us move another four miles to Bald Head tomorrow, to save 40 minutes or so in the good weather window on the Atlantic on Wednesday.
When I went in to pay, though, I learned they were having a "buy two nights, get the third night free" special, and so we decided to stay tomorrow night as well, since it adds $0 to the bill, and even anchoring out is costing us around $25-$30 per day in generator run time.
To make up for this, we'll need to leave even earlier than planned Wednesday, shoving off well before dawn. We'll back out of the slip around "nautical twilight," negotiating the marina entrance in the dark and putting us into the Cape Fear River, where navigation is easy and the channel is deep. It will be past "civil twilight" by the time we are at the river entrance, affording us the ability to see well enough for the purpose.
We went to dinner last night at Atlantic Steak & Seafood, on the outskirts of town, as all the decent downtown joints are closed Sunday and Monday. Tonight we have our mouths all set for Mexican cuisine, and tomorrow we'll head down to the waterfront before loading the scooter back on deck.
Today I threw the saddlebags on the bike and headed to Walmart on a provisioning run. I managed somehow to get a full cart of groceries loaded up, including the large jug of cat litter, a gallon of outboard oil, nine full-size boxes of Kleenex, two rolls of paper towels, 5.75 liters of wine, two bags full of fresh produce and meat, and myriad bags and cans of nuts, coffee, croutons, pharmacy products, and other miscellaneous items. And don't forget the milk.
Louise stayed on board Vector to pound out 6 loads of laundry. Since each washer load dries more efficiently as two dryer loads, there's a lot of sorting and moving of damp items. It was also a good chance to estimate how much water the washer uses, since we filled the tank here at the marina. Six loads used approximately half our capacity, and we'll re-fill the tank before we leave.
We still have a few things left on the list that Walmart does not carry or was out of stock, so we'll stop by a grocery store on our way back from dinner tonight. Tomorrow I might end up at the auto parts store and/or the hardware store to fill out my project supply list. Have I mentioned how much we love having our motor scooters with us on the boat?
I am looking forward to leaving the ICW behind on Wednesday. By Wednesday evening we should be anchored in Winyah Bay, and if the forecast holds for Thursday we might try to make Charleston, or else we will be in Winyah Bay until Saturday. I'm not sure if we will get any cell signal in Winyah Bay, so this may be the last you hear from us until Charleston harbor.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Holiday flotilla
We are enjoying our last morning at the anchorage here in Banks Channel at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It had been fairly quiet here, at least up until Friday evening, when a half dozen or so more boats arrived to anchor. By flotilla time last night, the number had swelled to nearly three dozen, and from shore it must have looked as if you could walk across the anchorage from one island to the other on the tops of the boats.
As promised, the weather here took a turn for the worse Tuesday night, and persisted that way all through Wednesday and into the early hours Thursday. We were glad we had put out the extra anchor rode, which we have since brought back in to reduce our swing circle. By Thursday afternoon, however, things were fairly calm, and we had a pleasant, but cold, 1.5 mile tender ride to the Bridge Tender restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner.
The restaurant was actually nicer than I had been led to believe, a white-tablecloth affair with nice views of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The prix-fixe holiday dinner was quite good, and we even had some leftovers to take home. It was otherwise a very quiet day for us, calling family and friends and getting a few things done around the boat.
Among those few things was getting into the holiday spirit, in light of the upcoming flotilla, and decorating the boat. We swagged our white LED holiday lights around the aft deck, which is very festive, and put our indoor decorations out as well, but the pièce de résistance was to run our strings of Italian lights (we call them the Olive Garden lights, after their use as bar decor in that chain) from the bow up to and through the flybridge top and then back down to the rail at the stern end of the boat deck, making Vector look like a tiny cruise ship.
Friday I took the tender out to fuel it up and get rid of some trash, and I noticed several boats around town being decorated for the flotilla. We went back out in the evening for dinner at 22 North, not far from the town dinghy dock, and a quick stop at Robert's Market before returning home.
Yesterday we again left the tender at the town dock, and walked the mile to the municipal park where the big holiday festival was happening. We had hot dogs and too much kettle corn, but did not end up buying anything from the myriad craft vendors there. It was nice to get off the boat and get some walking in. We were home in time for the start of the evening entertainment, which, of course, was a metric ton of weekend boaters making their way to the parade route and jockeying for a good spot to anchor for the flotilla and fireworks. This aspect of boating is a lot like RVing, where the afternoon entertainment is often watching newcomers backing their rigs into their sites.
Just after sunset and before the flotilla started, we took the tender out to get some shots of "cruise ship Vector" before loading the tender back on the boat deck in anticipation of today's departure. We were all settled back in with a glass of wine when the flotilla started, led by a Coast Guard patrol boat.
The boats in the flotilla were over the top -- there is no other way to describe it. I will let Louise's video speak for itself. There is a limit of 30 boats, and they are vying for cash prizes and a first prize of a 17' Carolina Skiff with motor and trailer, nicely outfitted (we saw it at the park). We voted for our favorite, "Great White Christmas," by text message. That entered us into a drawing for a prize, too, and our boat choice did ultimately win. In addition to the text voting, there are also judges on the docks at the Blockade Runner, just across the parade route from us.
We had a blast watching the flotilla. Some of the boats were only decorated on their port side (the side where the main audience an also the judges are located), and our starboard-side view was rather limited, but we got most of it. We sounded our giant Kahlenberg air horns for the ones that really tickled us.
After the last boat went by we sat down to dinner, but the fireworks started a bit early, and we ended up watching them through the windows from our dining table. We had a great view, and the fireworks display went on for a good half hour. After that I sat in the pilothouse with the radar on, as hordes of overloaded boats weighed anchor to leave, not knowing just how much egg nog the skippers had during the evening.
All in all it was a fun time and we are very glad we spent the extra few days here to take it in. I must also admit that Wrightsville Beach has been a great stop, even though I wrote on our first visit here that I thought it was "cruiser-unfriendly." There seems to be quite a different vibe here at the anchorage than there is a mile and a half away at the ICW.
Today we will head down to Southport on the ICW, including a stretch of the Cape Fear River. We are once again in the land of five foot tidal swing, though, and we need to time our travels with the tides. Today's low is around noon, and we will weigh anchor and get under way around then in order to have a rising tide the whole way. Its three hours or so to Southport so I expect we will still arrive with plenty of daylight.
I expect to spend a couple of days in the Southport area. We booked a marina for a week in Charleston, our next major stop, but they could not fit us until the 8th, so we have a week to kill on the way. Southport has a Walmart and at least one decent restaurant, and we also need to take on water and top up the batteries, so we will take a slip for a night or two.
As of this writing, weather looks good for our next outside passage, to Winyah Bay, on Wednesday. We'll spend Tuesday night either at the marina on Bald Head Island, or at the anchorage nearby, for a speedy departure in the pre-dawn hours.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Settled in for the holiday
We arrived safely through Masonboro Inlet yesterday afternoon and are anchored in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, in the short stretch of Banks Channel north of Motts Channel and south of the eight foot fixed bridge (map). We had a great passage, with perfect conditions, and had no trouble with the well-marked inlet here protected by jetties.
This must be our week for shrimp-boat neighbors, as one pulled in to the Fort Macon anchorage Sunday night shortly after I posted here. He left his trolling/stabilization poles out and deck lights on the whole night, anchored just a few hundred feet from us. He was still settled in when we weighed anchor in the pre-dawn hours, even though we saw several other shrimpers heading to sea ahead of us. A shrimper had even passed us close aboard when we were anchored in Cedar Creek.
Shrimp boat anchored nearby. I snapped this photo as we were weighing anchor.
Leaving the shrimper and the anchorage behind, we were in the ship channel and passing the barrier islands at sunrise, and we made our right turn in the deep water just past Green 13, which oddly showed on our charts as Green 11. (Inlet channel markers are repositioned fairly frequently, so this is not all that surprising.) From there it was a straight 64nm run to Masonboro Inlet, with one large caveat, which is that this line crossed the Camp LeJeune firing range, which extends 15 miles to sea.
Shortly after making the turn, we called Range Control at Camp LeJeune to find out if we'd need to stay clear of the range -- our Notice to Mariners (NOTAM) indicated the range would be in use daily. The Marine who answered the phone told me that it was our lucky day -- live fire exercises had been canceled, and we could come as close in as we'd like "without running aground." That saved us nearly five miles, about 45 minutes. As we crossed into the range I noticed a sailboat very deliberately going around -- I tried to raise him on the radio to pass along the news, to no avail.
That sailboat was the only other vessel we saw all day once we were a few miles outside the inlets. He was three miles behind us when I spotted him, and nearly eight miles by the time we emerged from the firing range. It can be lonely out on the ocean. That said, we never really left sight of shore, being perhaps a dozen or so miles from it at the furthest point, and I even had 3G coverage on my phone for a good two hours after the turn at Beaufort Inlet, so I caught up on email, news, and social media.
Our track across Onslow Bay from Beaufort to Masonboro. Click to open full-size and eliminate the "moiré pattern" effect from photographing a pixelated display.
Other than having to dodge a buoy marking a fish haven, which my plot line just happened to cross at just the right place, I did not touch a control all day. Such is the nature of ocean travel. We passed the time chatting, looking at the distant shore through glasses, doing routine engine room and instrument checks, and planning our next few moves. I even did some troubleshooting when a random test revealed the horn was not working. (Who knows how long it's been broken. The colregs say I am supposed to sound one whistle blast every time we leave a berth -- although no pleasure boats do this -- and perhaps we need to start just to be sure the horn works as it should.)
As we approached Masonboro Inlet and were perhaps ten minutes out, I radioed for Coast Guard Station Wrightsville Beach, to get conditions at the inlet and any last-minute navigational information. After perhaps half a minute with no response, Coast Guard Sector North Carolina answered, and when I told them I was looking for local information on the inlet, they asked me to stand by. After maybe another minute, Station Wrightsville Beach came on the radio, and I repeated my request. The watchstander either was not authorized or else simply did not know the answer, and I waited another half minute or so for a different coastie to come to the radio with the needed information, to wit, that there were no issues, and depths were as charted and no less than sixteen feet.
I had opted to run the boat faster than we normally would on an ocean crossing, to ensure we would arrive at the destination with enough daylight to find an anchorage and get settled in -- days are short this time of year. We dialed in 1800rpm which gave us 7.8 knots at a burn of 6gph. That put us here at the anchorage around 3:45 and we were all settled in place by 4. Plenty of daylight left to splash the tender and even clean up the decks a bit.
Wrightsville Beach has the nicest free dinghy dock I have ever seen, and we made the short trip there last night to have dinner at Tower 7 Baja Mexican Grill just a block from the dock. The food was excellent, and we learned that Mondays they have $3 XX Ambar drafts and half-price fajitas, which is what we always order anyway. The two of us had trouble finishing a single order of the fajitas, although we did, as usual, ask for extra tortillas. Robert's Grocery was just a few doors down, and we picked up milk, eggs, bananas, and ice cream to restock before heading back.
This morning I took another quick tender ride to empty our trash at the large receptacles provided there by the city, and again walked over to Tower 7 in its slightly altered incarnation as Cafe del Mar, which serves coffee and breakfast items. I picked up a pair of breakfast burritos to bring back, which were also excellent.
We knew the weather today would be miserable and decided to just stay put. The Nordhavn 50 Grey Goose, which had anchored right behind us, opted to move along, but I was happy to have a chance to see the two boats side-by-side, as the N50 is my all-time favorite Nordy, and is also closest in many respects to Vector, even down to the same powerplant.
We "slept in" this morning, which after yesterday's start meant sometime after 6:30am. At least I got the trash off the boat before the rain started this way. After a quick check of news and email, I then settled in to planning mode, as we are just three days away from Thanksgiving with no dinner reservations, or really any idea where we'd be.
I started with Bald Head Island, some 26 miles south of here, as the marina there is the natural jumping-off point for our next outside run, even longer than the last one, to Winyah Bay. I've always wanted to visit Bald Head, and there are two restaurants there, both attached to private clubs, that are serving the holiday meal. Renting a slip at the marina enables you to buy a one- or two-day guest pass to the clubs.
I'll spare you the long version and just say that we'd have to have "dinner" at 1pm at the Shoals Club, buy a two-day pass for $50, and rent a golf cart from yet another vendor to even get there, on top of the marina stay which would be north of $100 per night. All for the privilege of spending $32pp for a buffet, plus tip and any drinks. I'm sure it's lovely, but the logistics and cost diminish that somewhat, and, to top it all off, that would mean having a schedule on the boat -- never good.
Next I called possibly every restaurant in Southport within walking distance of the docks. I ended up making 4:30 reservations at The Pharmacy, likely the nicest joint in town. We'd dock maybe in the yacht basin or else at the Southport Marina and walk several blocks, and 4:30 meant we'd be able to have a fairly leisurely run on Thursday morning, when the weather is supposed to be favorable. That said, their holiday menu did not really call to either of us -- in the south, turkey is apparently served with collard greens.
Somewhere in the course of the search I learned that there are several places right here in Wrightsville Beach serving Thanksgiving dinner, and I started calling around. We ended up booking at The Bridge Tender, a restaurant attached to a marina and right next to the lift bridge, across the channel from where we stayed on our way north. We can dinghy over there and tie up for dinner, so we don't even need to leave the anchorage.
In the course of calling around, I talked to a resort nearby, the Blockade Runner, which we can see from where I sit right now. They serve an enormous buffet, and they have a dock. We declined the buffet option, but when I asked about tying up at the dock, I learned that, while we could dock our dinghy there for dinner, the dock was unavailable the rest of the weekend due to "the flotilla." Hmm.
As it happens, every year at Thanksgiving, Wrightsville Beach hosts the North Carolina Holiday Flotilla, which in most places would be called the holiday boat parade. I looked at the route and the parade is planned to completely encircle the anchorage where we now lie, on Saturday evening. Beforehand there will be fireworks, and the NOTAMs say we need to be at least 300 yards from a specific location, which I take to be the launch point. We currently lie 450 yards from those coordinates.
Faced with the prospect of having one of the largest holiday boat parades in the southeast (it apparently attracts 50,000+ visitors) happen just a few hundred feet from us, on top of having front-row seats for the fireworks, we've decided not only to have Thanksgiving dinner here in town, but also to stay through the weekend and take in the whole event. As our good friends over at Technomadia would say, it's serendipity.
I did call the Coast Guard station (the same one that took so long to get us inlet information) to verify that we'd be OK right here for the entire event. Ironically, not half an hour later we were visited, along with every other boat in the anchorage, by a Coast Guard patrol boat making sure everyone was aware of the incoming severe weather. We're nice and secure, but the patrol boat visit prompted us to pay out another 20' of scope, increasing to 9:1.
Depending on weather, we will likely get under way Sunday for Bald Head, or the nearby anchorage, to wait for a good window for the outside run to Winyah Bay. I still want to see the island, and we need to be right next to the inlet when the weather window opens. It's too early to predict when that will be -- coastal forecasts have a short lifespan.
This must be our week for shrimp-boat neighbors, as one pulled in to the Fort Macon anchorage Sunday night shortly after I posted here. He left his trolling/stabilization poles out and deck lights on the whole night, anchored just a few hundred feet from us. He was still settled in when we weighed anchor in the pre-dawn hours, even though we saw several other shrimpers heading to sea ahead of us. A shrimper had even passed us close aboard when we were anchored in Cedar Creek.
Shrimp boat anchored nearby. I snapped this photo as we were weighing anchor.
Leaving the shrimper and the anchorage behind, we were in the ship channel and passing the barrier islands at sunrise, and we made our right turn in the deep water just past Green 13, which oddly showed on our charts as Green 11. (Inlet channel markers are repositioned fairly frequently, so this is not all that surprising.) From there it was a straight 64nm run to Masonboro Inlet, with one large caveat, which is that this line crossed the Camp LeJeune firing range, which extends 15 miles to sea.
Shortly after making the turn, we called Range Control at Camp LeJeune to find out if we'd need to stay clear of the range -- our Notice to Mariners (NOTAM) indicated the range would be in use daily. The Marine who answered the phone told me that it was our lucky day -- live fire exercises had been canceled, and we could come as close in as we'd like "without running aground." That saved us nearly five miles, about 45 minutes. As we crossed into the range I noticed a sailboat very deliberately going around -- I tried to raise him on the radio to pass along the news, to no avail.
That sailboat was the only other vessel we saw all day once we were a few miles outside the inlets. He was three miles behind us when I spotted him, and nearly eight miles by the time we emerged from the firing range. It can be lonely out on the ocean. That said, we never really left sight of shore, being perhaps a dozen or so miles from it at the furthest point, and I even had 3G coverage on my phone for a good two hours after the turn at Beaufort Inlet, so I caught up on email, news, and social media.
Our track across Onslow Bay from Beaufort to Masonboro. Click to open full-size and eliminate the "moiré pattern" effect from photographing a pixelated display.
Other than having to dodge a buoy marking a fish haven, which my plot line just happened to cross at just the right place, I did not touch a control all day. Such is the nature of ocean travel. We passed the time chatting, looking at the distant shore through glasses, doing routine engine room and instrument checks, and planning our next few moves. I even did some troubleshooting when a random test revealed the horn was not working. (Who knows how long it's been broken. The colregs say I am supposed to sound one whistle blast every time we leave a berth -- although no pleasure boats do this -- and perhaps we need to start just to be sure the horn works as it should.)
As we approached Masonboro Inlet and were perhaps ten minutes out, I radioed for Coast Guard Station Wrightsville Beach, to get conditions at the inlet and any last-minute navigational information. After perhaps half a minute with no response, Coast Guard Sector North Carolina answered, and when I told them I was looking for local information on the inlet, they asked me to stand by. After maybe another minute, Station Wrightsville Beach came on the radio, and I repeated my request. The watchstander either was not authorized or else simply did not know the answer, and I waited another half minute or so for a different coastie to come to the radio with the needed information, to wit, that there were no issues, and depths were as charted and no less than sixteen feet.
I had opted to run the boat faster than we normally would on an ocean crossing, to ensure we would arrive at the destination with enough daylight to find an anchorage and get settled in -- days are short this time of year. We dialed in 1800rpm which gave us 7.8 knots at a burn of 6gph. That put us here at the anchorage around 3:45 and we were all settled in place by 4. Plenty of daylight left to splash the tender and even clean up the decks a bit.
Wrightsville Beach has the nicest free dinghy dock I have ever seen, and we made the short trip there last night to have dinner at Tower 7 Baja Mexican Grill just a block from the dock. The food was excellent, and we learned that Mondays they have $3 XX Ambar drafts and half-price fajitas, which is what we always order anyway. The two of us had trouble finishing a single order of the fajitas, although we did, as usual, ask for extra tortillas. Robert's Grocery was just a few doors down, and we picked up milk, eggs, bananas, and ice cream to restock before heading back.
This morning I took another quick tender ride to empty our trash at the large receptacles provided there by the city, and again walked over to Tower 7 in its slightly altered incarnation as Cafe del Mar, which serves coffee and breakfast items. I picked up a pair of breakfast burritos to bring back, which were also excellent.
We knew the weather today would be miserable and decided to just stay put. The Nordhavn 50 Grey Goose, which had anchored right behind us, opted to move along, but I was happy to have a chance to see the two boats side-by-side, as the N50 is my all-time favorite Nordy, and is also closest in many respects to Vector, even down to the same powerplant.
We "slept in" this morning, which after yesterday's start meant sometime after 6:30am. At least I got the trash off the boat before the rain started this way. After a quick check of news and email, I then settled in to planning mode, as we are just three days away from Thanksgiving with no dinner reservations, or really any idea where we'd be.
I started with Bald Head Island, some 26 miles south of here, as the marina there is the natural jumping-off point for our next outside run, even longer than the last one, to Winyah Bay. I've always wanted to visit Bald Head, and there are two restaurants there, both attached to private clubs, that are serving the holiday meal. Renting a slip at the marina enables you to buy a one- or two-day guest pass to the clubs.
I'll spare you the long version and just say that we'd have to have "dinner" at 1pm at the Shoals Club, buy a two-day pass for $50, and rent a golf cart from yet another vendor to even get there, on top of the marina stay which would be north of $100 per night. All for the privilege of spending $32pp for a buffet, plus tip and any drinks. I'm sure it's lovely, but the logistics and cost diminish that somewhat, and, to top it all off, that would mean having a schedule on the boat -- never good.
Next I called possibly every restaurant in Southport within walking distance of the docks. I ended up making 4:30 reservations at The Pharmacy, likely the nicest joint in town. We'd dock maybe in the yacht basin or else at the Southport Marina and walk several blocks, and 4:30 meant we'd be able to have a fairly leisurely run on Thursday morning, when the weather is supposed to be favorable. That said, their holiday menu did not really call to either of us -- in the south, turkey is apparently served with collard greens.
Somewhere in the course of the search I learned that there are several places right here in Wrightsville Beach serving Thanksgiving dinner, and I started calling around. We ended up booking at The Bridge Tender, a restaurant attached to a marina and right next to the lift bridge, across the channel from where we stayed on our way north. We can dinghy over there and tie up for dinner, so we don't even need to leave the anchorage.
In the course of calling around, I talked to a resort nearby, the Blockade Runner, which we can see from where I sit right now. They serve an enormous buffet, and they have a dock. We declined the buffet option, but when I asked about tying up at the dock, I learned that, while we could dock our dinghy there for dinner, the dock was unavailable the rest of the weekend due to "the flotilla." Hmm.
As it happens, every year at Thanksgiving, Wrightsville Beach hosts the North Carolina Holiday Flotilla, which in most places would be called the holiday boat parade. I looked at the route and the parade is planned to completely encircle the anchorage where we now lie, on Saturday evening. Beforehand there will be fireworks, and the NOTAMs say we need to be at least 300 yards from a specific location, which I take to be the launch point. We currently lie 450 yards from those coordinates.
Faced with the prospect of having one of the largest holiday boat parades in the southeast (it apparently attracts 50,000+ visitors) happen just a few hundred feet from us, on top of having front-row seats for the fireworks, we've decided not only to have Thanksgiving dinner here in town, but also to stay through the weekend and take in the whole event. As our good friends over at Technomadia would say, it's serendipity.
I did call the Coast Guard station (the same one that took so long to get us inlet information) to verify that we'd be OK right here for the entire event. Ironically, not half an hour later we were visited, along with every other boat in the anchorage, by a Coast Guard patrol boat making sure everyone was aware of the incoming severe weather. We're nice and secure, but the patrol boat visit prompted us to pay out another 20' of scope, increasing to 9:1.
Depending on weather, we will likely get under way Sunday for Bald Head, or the nearby anchorage, to wait for a good window for the outside run to Winyah Bay. I still want to see the island, and we need to be right next to the inlet when the weather window opens. It's too early to predict when that will be -- coastal forecasts have a short lifespan.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Poised
We are anchored just off the Coast Guard Station at Fort Macon, on the barrier island near Beaufort and Morehead City, North Carolina (map). This is just about as close as we can get to Beaufort Inlet, which leaves us poised for a possible outside run to Masonboro Inlet at first light tomorrow morning. We will check the forecast first thing, and if weather at Masonboro looks good in the late afternoon for our arrival, we will weigh anchor and get under way.
This morning we had a spirited discussion about the plan. We had high winds most of the night and all of this morning at our cozy little anchorage in Cedar Creek -- and that was in fairly protected waters with trees all around. The temptation was to remain there for another night until the high winds and roiled seas abated before proceeding the roughly three hours here to the Beaufort area. If we did that, we would definitely miss the one decent weather window for an outside run, tomorrow. After that, the outside forecast is too dicey to chance it until after the Thanksgiving holiday.
We heard the winds here near the inlet would settled down close to 5pm today, and so we opted to get a late start out of Cedar Creek to time our arrival here with calmer winds, but still enough daylight to get fully settled. On our way back into the ICW we had to arrange a passing with towboat Pamlico, pushing a good sized tow northbound, and we asked him how things looked. He reported rough conditions in the Newport River, but by the time we arrived there two hours later it was fairly settled and we had no trouble crossing.
Getting the anchor dropped on station here was a bit of a challenge in 15-20 knots, with nearly a knot of ebb current, but now that we are on the hook all is well. For that matter, getting the anchor up in Cedar Creek in even more of a blow was also challenging, and Louise had to concede defeat on getting all the mud off the chain as it came in. We'll need to rinse out the chain and locker the next time we have dockside water.
Tomorrow's run, should we undertake it, is a full 68 nautical miles, our longest ever. Once we are outside we are fully committed -- there are no stops in between. At our normal cruise speed of around seven knots, the trip will take nearly ten hours end to end. That will put us in the anchorage there just at dusk, around 5pm. With a little luck I will be able to bump it up to around eight knots, which will shave an hour and a half off the transit. In reality, I am hoping to make it through the inlet by 4pm as a best case.
If, for any reason, we can not make the Masonboro Inlet, or arrive in the daylight, we will instead divert to the ship channel at the Cape Fear River, which means going around Frying Pan Shoals on an overnight run and arriving at the inlet at dawn Tuesday. An overnight passage like this is inevitably in our future, but I would just as soon it not be concurrent with our very first outside passage.
Before we leave in the morning we will email our float plan to our Coast Guard designated emergency contacts. I expect we will be in cell coverage for the first and last couple of hours on each end, VHF radio coverage most of the way, and SSB coverage full-time. We do not have a real-time tracker yet to which I can point you, but I will do my best to update the blog when we arrive safely in Wrightsville Beach at the end of our passage.
Assuming we do, in fact, go out tomorrow, we will then continue inside along the ICW on Tuesday towards the Cape Fear River entrance. I expect then that we will be spending Thanksgiving somewhere in or around Southport, and we will be researching decent restaurants in the area offering the holiday meal.
This morning we had a spirited discussion about the plan. We had high winds most of the night and all of this morning at our cozy little anchorage in Cedar Creek -- and that was in fairly protected waters with trees all around. The temptation was to remain there for another night until the high winds and roiled seas abated before proceeding the roughly three hours here to the Beaufort area. If we did that, we would definitely miss the one decent weather window for an outside run, tomorrow. After that, the outside forecast is too dicey to chance it until after the Thanksgiving holiday.
We heard the winds here near the inlet would settled down close to 5pm today, and so we opted to get a late start out of Cedar Creek to time our arrival here with calmer winds, but still enough daylight to get fully settled. On our way back into the ICW we had to arrange a passing with towboat Pamlico, pushing a good sized tow northbound, and we asked him how things looked. He reported rough conditions in the Newport River, but by the time we arrived there two hours later it was fairly settled and we had no trouble crossing.
Getting the anchor dropped on station here was a bit of a challenge in 15-20 knots, with nearly a knot of ebb current, but now that we are on the hook all is well. For that matter, getting the anchor up in Cedar Creek in even more of a blow was also challenging, and Louise had to concede defeat on getting all the mud off the chain as it came in. We'll need to rinse out the chain and locker the next time we have dockside water.
Tomorrow's run, should we undertake it, is a full 68 nautical miles, our longest ever. Once we are outside we are fully committed -- there are no stops in between. At our normal cruise speed of around seven knots, the trip will take nearly ten hours end to end. That will put us in the anchorage there just at dusk, around 5pm. With a little luck I will be able to bump it up to around eight knots, which will shave an hour and a half off the transit. In reality, I am hoping to make it through the inlet by 4pm as a best case.
If, for any reason, we can not make the Masonboro Inlet, or arrive in the daylight, we will instead divert to the ship channel at the Cape Fear River, which means going around Frying Pan Shoals on an overnight run and arriving at the inlet at dawn Tuesday. An overnight passage like this is inevitably in our future, but I would just as soon it not be concurrent with our very first outside passage.
Before we leave in the morning we will email our float plan to our Coast Guard designated emergency contacts. I expect we will be in cell coverage for the first and last couple of hours on each end, VHF radio coverage most of the way, and SSB coverage full-time. We do not have a real-time tracker yet to which I can point you, but I will do my best to update the blog when we arrive safely in Wrightsville Beach at the end of our passage.
Assuming we do, in fact, go out tomorrow, we will then continue inside along the ICW on Tuesday towards the Cape Fear River entrance. I expect then that we will be spending Thanksgiving somewhere in or around Southport, and we will be researching decent restaurants in the area offering the holiday meal.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Sound advice
We are anchored tonight in Cedar Creek, off the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) between Oriental, NC and Morehead City (map). We've had two long but very nice days of running across Albemarle, Croatan, and Pamlico Sounds, the later of which is the largest lagoon along the east coast of the U.S.. At several points we could not see land in any direction. In our entire crossing we saw only two other pleasure boats, both high-speed vessels clipping along on plane.
Yesterday was particularly pleasant. We got underway around 8:30, which, in hindsight, was perhaps an hour later than we should have, considering how perfect the weather was. It took us an hour to reach the Albemarle from our spot in the North River, and on our way we found one of the ICW markers over on its side, barely visible -- no doubt the victim of a towboat pushing some heavy barges around the turn which it marked. I spent several minutes on the radio with the Coast Guard reporting it, as it did not appear in the latest Notice to Mariners.
The Albemarle was glass calm, and about halfway across I remarked that we had yet to even turn the stabilizers on -- we had also managed to run the whole day Thursday without them, a first for us. By the time we were in the Croatan, between the highway bridges, we could at least see waves on the surface, but we were well into the Pamlico before the very slight roll prompted us to turn them on.
The charts for the Croatan are confusing, showing a marked "channel" with a reported depth no greater than the surrounding bathymetry. We followed our instincts along with some advice we got from our good friends captains Chris and Alyse of Captain Chris Yacht Services, including a number of waypoints for the route they use when on delivery runs through this section. Professional skippers like this route because it shaves 18 miles off the ICW route, requires less steering input, and allows greater speeds for boats capable of such.
Shortly after crossing into the Pamlico Sound we took stock of the time, our speed, and the early sunset, and started planning our stop for the night. We ended up anchoring in Middletown Anchorage (map), an area just off Middletown Creek with protection of land to the north and west, and the enormous Gibbs Shoal to the east. Increasing winds from the south made it a bit rolly in the evening, but, as we expected, the winds clocked around to the north in the night and we slept soundly. We had the anchorage to ourselves, and the stars were quite spectacular.
Today's forecast, which was not bad yesterday morning, had deteriorated by the time we anchored to winds 15-20 gusting to 30 with seas 2-3'. Mindful of how bad 3' seas felt on the Chesapeake, we were somewhat apprehensive, but things looked fine at dawn this morning and we opted to weigh anchor and get under way. We had a very pleasant ride until lunch time, when the seas finally picked up to the predicted 2-3', and then we had a bit of motion, but nothing unpleasant or uncomfortable. Even Angel managed to keep her breakfast down.
Once we were in the Neuse River things calmed back down again, and we discussed docking at Oriental at great length. Ultimately we decided to press on, as the free town docks were full up, and we could not think of a good reason to pay $60-$80 to spend the night, or possibly two. That second night would be on account of tomorrows forecast, which includes gusts to 50mph, so we may very well be staying right here for a second night.
We have just a dozen miles or so to the twin cities of Beaufort and Morehead City, NC. We stayed in Morehead on our way north. Our plan is to go outside at Beaufort Inlet, so we will be in this general area until the weather outside is conducive to a full day's run down to Masonboro Inlet some 60 miles or so south. At this writing, that looks to be after Thanksgiving, so it looks like we will be spending the holiday in Beaufort or Morehead City. I hope someplace decent is serving a nice holiday meal.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Once more, with feeling
We are anchored in the North River, between the North Carolina (Coinjock) cut and the Albemarle Sound (map). We are not far from the spot where we anchored on our way north, but with less wind to contend with today, we stayed closer to the channel rather than heading for the eastern shore. A sailboat that had been a few miles behind us decided this spot looked good, too, and so we have neighbors a few hundred yards away.
We awoke this morning to find a shrimper sharing the dock with us, which suggests that the Corps managed to get the lock open at the 4am low tide. He had a Belhaven hailing port, and we thought it odd for him to be on the ICW in Great Bridge. We shoved off right at 8am, to make the 8:30 opening at Centerville, which is closed from 6:30 to 8:30 for rush hour.
Vector at the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterway Park. That's a commercial shrimper behind us.
That put us there with four other boats; three sailboats under power, and the sportfisher Diversified, who had fueled with us at Top Rack. They had spent the intervening time at Atlantic Yacht Basin, and we chatted with them briefly waiting for the bridge. They are taking the same route as us, via Pamlico Sound, but, being much faster, expected to be through it today.
It was an odd feeling retracing our steps from yesterday morning, and I could not help but look over at George as we passed the same spot where she had her seizure yesterday. She was content and oblivious to it all, and seems to be just fine after our big scare.
We cleared the bridge right behind Diversified and then set a slow pace to make the North Landing bridge, just four and a half miles away, an hour later, with the three sailboats behind us. I had to station-keep for ten minutes at the bridge, and we left the sailboats behind shortly after the opening. One of those boats is the one now anchored nearby, and we saw another continue on south. I am guessing the third boat, shortest (and therefore slowest) of the lot, is at a marina in Coinjock tonight.
We had a good run today with no issues, although the water level in the canal, the North Landing River, and Currituck Sound was quite low, down I would guess nearly two feet, due to the wind direction. We saw some depths near 7.5' mid-channel; we passed this along to the enormous towboat we passed at Coinjock. He draws 8.5', but these tugs just power through the low spots with gobs of horsepower.
Having need neither of marina amenities nor a prime rib dinner, we continued past Coinjock another ten miles to anchor here, with good 3G coverage and a beautiful view. We dropped the hook by 3pm, making a fairly long day for us but positioning us well for our crossing of the sounds tomorrow. We are glad to finally have Virginia behind us, and we are looking forward to some open water tomorrow where less focused attention is required on the helm.
We awoke this morning to find a shrimper sharing the dock with us, which suggests that the Corps managed to get the lock open at the 4am low tide. He had a Belhaven hailing port, and we thought it odd for him to be on the ICW in Great Bridge. We shoved off right at 8am, to make the 8:30 opening at Centerville, which is closed from 6:30 to 8:30 for rush hour.
Vector at the Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterway Park. That's a commercial shrimper behind us.
That put us there with four other boats; three sailboats under power, and the sportfisher Diversified, who had fueled with us at Top Rack. They had spent the intervening time at Atlantic Yacht Basin, and we chatted with them briefly waiting for the bridge. They are taking the same route as us, via Pamlico Sound, but, being much faster, expected to be through it today.
It was an odd feeling retracing our steps from yesterday morning, and I could not help but look over at George as we passed the same spot where she had her seizure yesterday. She was content and oblivious to it all, and seems to be just fine after our big scare.
We cleared the bridge right behind Diversified and then set a slow pace to make the North Landing bridge, just four and a half miles away, an hour later, with the three sailboats behind us. I had to station-keep for ten minutes at the bridge, and we left the sailboats behind shortly after the opening. One of those boats is the one now anchored nearby, and we saw another continue on south. I am guessing the third boat, shortest (and therefore slowest) of the lot, is at a marina in Coinjock tonight.
We had a good run today with no issues, although the water level in the canal, the North Landing River, and Currituck Sound was quite low, down I would guess nearly two feet, due to the wind direction. We saw some depths near 7.5' mid-channel; we passed this along to the enormous towboat we passed at Coinjock. He draws 8.5', but these tugs just power through the low spots with gobs of horsepower.
Having need neither of marina amenities nor a prime rib dinner, we continued past Coinjock another ten miles to anchor here, with good 3G coverage and a beautiful view. We dropped the hook by 3pm, making a fairly long day for us but positioning us well for our crossing of the sounds tomorrow. We are glad to finally have Virginia behind us, and we are looking forward to some open water tomorrow where less focused attention is required on the helm.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
George Report
Just a quick update here, as many folks have written in (or called) directly or in the comments to express their concerns and sympathy about George. She is back home and is her old self after a few hours on IV fluids. The doctor described her as "feisty." She seems no worse for wear, although her sister, who dreams of being an only-cat, is not happy.
In other news, the forecast on the sounds is actually improving, so it looks as if we will shove off as planned first thing tomorrow morning. It will probably be a lonely run -- the lock was unable to open at all today, and we are the only boat on either of the free docks here in Chesapeake. Even Atlantic Yacht Basin seems devoid of southbound cruisers at the moment.
In other news, the forecast on the sounds is actually improving, so it looks as if we will shove off as planned first thing tomorrow morning. It will probably be a lonely run -- the lock was unable to open at all today, and we are the only boat on either of the free docks here in Chesapeake. Even Atlantic Yacht Basin seems devoid of southbound cruisers at the moment.
Declaring an emergency
We are back in Chesapeake, Virginia, at a different free dock (map), adjacent to the Great Bridge Battlefield, on the other side of the canal and the bascule bridge from where we've spent the last few days. We're stuck here until at least tomorrow, on account of a missing crewmember, and possibly longer.
We shoved off this morning in time to make the 9am opening of the Great Bridge Bridge. As the lock itself was closed, we were the only boat waiting on the bridge; Concrete Idea had gone through on the 7am lift to fuel up at Atlantic Yacht Basin before resuming their own southbound trek.
Three statute miles south of Great Bridge is the Centerville Turnpike swing bridge, which opens on a half hour schedule. That's a comfortable speed for us and we arrived at the bridge just in time for a 9:30 opening. As we were approaching the bridge, just as I was about to hail them on the radio, a loud "thunk" alerted me to the fact that George had managed to push a chart book off the settee. Cats knocking things over is a pretty routine occurrence around here, and I even cracked a joke about it.
When Louise looked over at her, though, she realized that George was having a seizure. Her legs were stiff and claws latched in to the settee cushion, eyes rolled back, one side unresponsive. We were in a narrow stretch, and I could not leave the helm. It was all over in only a minute, but it gave us a good scare. I had throttled back to idle, and after a quick discussion we decided to immediately divert to the closest vet.
A quick call to the Centerville Bridge tender confirmed what I already knew -- the closest veterinary care would be back here in Chesapeake. Thankfully, we had not yet passed the bridge, so I did not need to request an emergency opening. I moved up to a wider spot in the canal just before the bridge and turned the boat around, and we motored as fast as we dared directly back here. Louise used the twenty minutes of transit time to call some vets and line up a taxi to take us from the landing to the closest one that could see her right away, at 10:30.
With today being a good weather window for the trip south, the four sailboats that were on this dock last night had all left just ahead of us this morning, and so we had no issues at all coming straight in and tying up alongside. It is at times like these that we are thankful we trained extensively to dock the boat unassisted in all kinds of conditions; this dock was a piece of cake and we were tied up in a matter of just a couple of minutes.
Long time readers might remember that George has chronic kidney disease, and it turns out that seizures can be a symptom of a build-up of toxins in the bloodstream as a result of the reduced kidney function. A blood count revealed that her BUN and creatinine levels have risen a good bit since her last bloodwork, although most of the other numbers looked pretty good and she is nowhere near being in crisis. While we can give her subcutaneous fluids here on Vector to try to flush things out, we opted to have the vet do a course of IV fluids instead, for more immediate effect.
So George is at the vet for the rest of today, and we have an appointment with the taxi to take us back over there before they close at 5pm to pick her up. This will give the vet the rest of the afternoon to observe her as well, to make sure there are no additional signs or symptoms. He has also recommended we step up the administration of sub-cu fluids moving forward, as the disease is clearly progressing.
While we were waiting for our return taxi, a woman came in with a beautiful young American Eskimo dog, which brought back a flood of memories of Opal. It has been a rough morning. I am hoping that the fluids will perk George back up and we will have a better evening once she is home -- she was still pretty out of it when we left her at the vet.
Of course, this delay means we will miss our window for good weather on Pamlico Sound. We'll be sitting down with the charts and the forecasts this afternoon to see if it still makes sense to shove off in the morning, perhaps getting an early start and running another twenty miles past Coinjock, or if we should stay put a while longer and wait for another three-day weather window.
Opal in 2005 at White Sands National Monument. We still miss our little globe trotter.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Weather hold
Notwithstanding my last post, wherein I said we would leave here Sunday morning, we are still in Chesapeake, Virginia, tied to the free wall at South Battlefield Park, between the lock and the bridge. We made the decision to stay at our morning weather conference on Sunday. The weather here, of course, was just fine -- the delay was due to forecast weather further south on the route.
The many boaters who now follow us here well know this drill, but a few words of explanation may be in order for our even larger readership of RVers and other landlubbers. That explanation starts by saying we have a very slow boat -- in open water we cruise at around seven knots (about 8 mph), and that might go up to 8 knots in excellent conditions, but often goes down to six knots or less (less than 7mph) when we are restricted to narrow channels.
To put that in perspective, that's only about twice as fast as an average walking speed, and less than half as fast as a comfortable bicycle ride. We absolutely love seeing the scenery go by at this speed, but it does mean that it can be a long day between safe places to stop, and it mandates careful planning. Complicating matters somewhat is our six foot draft, which precludes us from accessing many anchorages, harbors, and marinas accessible to boats with shallower draft.
So, for example, once we leave here, there is no place at all for us to stop for the day until we reach Coinjock, North Carolina, where there are exactly two marinas across the canal from one another. Coinjock is 38 statute miles from here. Including the time it takes to shove off and tie up, we have to budget at least six hours of running time to get there, and we need to add at least a half hour to that figure due to the timing of the three bridge lifts we need en route.
If anything goes awry on the way, our only real options are to press on or to return here. Our charts and notes do show an abandoned dock about a third of the way, with reports of eight foot depths, but a small abandoned dock with unverifiable depth reports can not be relied upon -- it could be full (two boats), the dock's owners could now be enforcing "no trespassing", or the area in front of the dock may have shoaled to less than six feet since the last report.
So before we begin such a leg, we need to be sure that the weather will be favorable for the entire run, including both endpoints, and that the boat is ready for it as well. In this particular case, the run includes a transit of Currituck Sound, an extremely shallow body of water with a narrow channel to which we must keep. I remember crossing the sound on our way north in decent winds, crabbing the whole way. While it is somewhat arbitrary, we've set a limit for ourselves of 15-20 knot winds and two foot waves in Currituck for the crossing, just to be comfortable and to keep from being worn out from hand steering by the end of the day.
The weather on Currituck Sound was fine on Sunday and even acceptable yesterday, although today would be dicey. But this sort of planning happens not just for the immediate next leg, but rather for the next several legs as forecasts permit. So while we would have had a nice ride to Coinjock on Sunday, it was the next leg that caused us to reconsider.
We want to skip the Alligator River and the Alligator-Pungo canal, and, instead, take the route across Croatan and Pamlico Sounds before rejoining the ICW at the Neuse River. We'd rather not push through those bodies of water in high winds and chop -- we'd prefer to enjoy the ride and the scenery. As the forecast called for rough conditions on Pamlico Sound today, we opted to hold off. We chose to stay here for an extra three days, where dockage is free and we have access to myriad shops and restaurants, rather than push on to Coinjock, only to have to hold there for an extra two nights at over $90 a night, and where the restaurant charges a captive-audience rate as well.
We've been planning to shove off first thing tomorrow, but the forecast for Currituck Sound has been deteriorating. At this writing we are still "go," but when we read the weather report over morning coffee tomorrow, that may well change again. With the lock operating at an extremely reduced capacity, the wall here has never filled up since we arrived, so we don't have to feel bad about acing anyone out of a spot.
Speaking of the lock, it was closed all day yesterday, while divers carried out parts of the repair on the valve. They finally opened it briefly around 1am, and by then boats had stacked up all the way to the Steel Bridge, including two giant tows, with many pleasure boats anchored in the channel. Our entertainment was listening to all this on the radio, with some sailboats having to scramble to raise anchor to get out of the way of the towboats, and at least one boater who was still asleep below decks, anchored in the channel, as the lock opened. It's been closed all of today, too, with a plan to let some traffic through around 4pm, and we can see the boats stacked up on the north side.
Vector behind the Hatteras 48 LRC Concrete Idea, with a Corps of Engineers crane sitting in the lock chamber in the background.
The extra few days here gave me some time to tackle a few projects, and it's handy to have some stores in walking distance. I just came back from Auto Zone with new wiper blades -- the old ones gave out completely on our way here. I also did some grocery shopping, and Louise got her hair cut. Yesterday we walked across the road to Atlantic Yacht Basin, the marina and boatyard on the other side of the Great Bridge bridge, where most of the southbound traffic has been tying up en route. We went to check out their covered storage for our friends, who are thinking of storing their trawler there in the off season.
I have my fingers crossed the forecast holds and we can get under way in the morning. As pleasant as it has been here, I'd like to get south of Cape Hatteras before winter truly sets in. With any luck my next post will be from Coinjock or even further south.
The many boaters who now follow us here well know this drill, but a few words of explanation may be in order for our even larger readership of RVers and other landlubbers. That explanation starts by saying we have a very slow boat -- in open water we cruise at around seven knots (about 8 mph), and that might go up to 8 knots in excellent conditions, but often goes down to six knots or less (less than 7mph) when we are restricted to narrow channels.
To put that in perspective, that's only about twice as fast as an average walking speed, and less than half as fast as a comfortable bicycle ride. We absolutely love seeing the scenery go by at this speed, but it does mean that it can be a long day between safe places to stop, and it mandates careful planning. Complicating matters somewhat is our six foot draft, which precludes us from accessing many anchorages, harbors, and marinas accessible to boats with shallower draft.
So, for example, once we leave here, there is no place at all for us to stop for the day until we reach Coinjock, North Carolina, where there are exactly two marinas across the canal from one another. Coinjock is 38 statute miles from here. Including the time it takes to shove off and tie up, we have to budget at least six hours of running time to get there, and we need to add at least a half hour to that figure due to the timing of the three bridge lifts we need en route.
If anything goes awry on the way, our only real options are to press on or to return here. Our charts and notes do show an abandoned dock about a third of the way, with reports of eight foot depths, but a small abandoned dock with unverifiable depth reports can not be relied upon -- it could be full (two boats), the dock's owners could now be enforcing "no trespassing", or the area in front of the dock may have shoaled to less than six feet since the last report.
So before we begin such a leg, we need to be sure that the weather will be favorable for the entire run, including both endpoints, and that the boat is ready for it as well. In this particular case, the run includes a transit of Currituck Sound, an extremely shallow body of water with a narrow channel to which we must keep. I remember crossing the sound on our way north in decent winds, crabbing the whole way. While it is somewhat arbitrary, we've set a limit for ourselves of 15-20 knot winds and two foot waves in Currituck for the crossing, just to be comfortable and to keep from being worn out from hand steering by the end of the day.
The weather on Currituck Sound was fine on Sunday and even acceptable yesterday, although today would be dicey. But this sort of planning happens not just for the immediate next leg, but rather for the next several legs as forecasts permit. So while we would have had a nice ride to Coinjock on Sunday, it was the next leg that caused us to reconsider.
We want to skip the Alligator River and the Alligator-Pungo canal, and, instead, take the route across Croatan and Pamlico Sounds before rejoining the ICW at the Neuse River. We'd rather not push through those bodies of water in high winds and chop -- we'd prefer to enjoy the ride and the scenery. As the forecast called for rough conditions on Pamlico Sound today, we opted to hold off. We chose to stay here for an extra three days, where dockage is free and we have access to myriad shops and restaurants, rather than push on to Coinjock, only to have to hold there for an extra two nights at over $90 a night, and where the restaurant charges a captive-audience rate as well.
We've been planning to shove off first thing tomorrow, but the forecast for Currituck Sound has been deteriorating. At this writing we are still "go," but when we read the weather report over morning coffee tomorrow, that may well change again. With the lock operating at an extremely reduced capacity, the wall here has never filled up since we arrived, so we don't have to feel bad about acing anyone out of a spot.
Speaking of the lock, it was closed all day yesterday, while divers carried out parts of the repair on the valve. They finally opened it briefly around 1am, and by then boats had stacked up all the way to the Steel Bridge, including two giant tows, with many pleasure boats anchored in the channel. Our entertainment was listening to all this on the radio, with some sailboats having to scramble to raise anchor to get out of the way of the towboats, and at least one boater who was still asleep below decks, anchored in the channel, as the lock opened. It's been closed all of today, too, with a plan to let some traffic through around 4pm, and we can see the boats stacked up on the north side.
Vector behind the Hatteras 48 LRC Concrete Idea, with a Corps of Engineers crane sitting in the lock chamber in the background.
The extra few days here gave me some time to tackle a few projects, and it's handy to have some stores in walking distance. I just came back from Auto Zone with new wiper blades -- the old ones gave out completely on our way here. I also did some grocery shopping, and Louise got her hair cut. Yesterday we walked across the road to Atlantic Yacht Basin, the marina and boatyard on the other side of the Great Bridge bridge, where most of the southbound traffic has been tying up en route. We went to check out their covered storage for our friends, who are thinking of storing their trawler there in the off season.
I have my fingers crossed the forecast holds and we can get under way in the morning. As pleasant as it has been here, I'd like to get south of Cape Hatteras before winter truly sets in. With any luck my next post will be from Coinjock or even further south.
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