Before we left on this trip, a few well intentioned people said to me "Enjoy your vacation" and I didn't really know what to say. From my experience, spending months on a boat cruising is NOT a vacation. That doesn't mean that it isn't an adventure, an experience, and a wonderful opportunity to see and do things that many people never get to - it just isn't a vacation. To me, a vacation is a short trip to get away from your regular daily routines, often traveling somewhere else, but where you don't have to worry about things like doing laundry, getting groceries, taking care of finances, getting water, getting rid of waste and garbage and other basic necessities. We are doing all of that while traveling thousands of miles at about 6 mph. And most of it is more difficult and time consuming than it is when we are at home.
So instead of a vacation, let's just call this a trip. And it is a trip of considerable duration so there are bound to be good days and bad days. For some reason, this week the down sides of cruising were just getting to me. I was cold and tired, feeling a bit 'boat bound', needed some exercise and was very frustrated at how much time I was spending just taking care of things. It didn't help that we were traveling the ICW and that can be pretty hard work constantly negotiating narrow channels, shoals at inlets and other boat traffic.
Having said all that, things are looking up. The weather has warmed up, we're planning to go offshore to Charleston to get a break from the ICW and then we're going to spend a few days there, which I am really looking forward to. Charleston is one of my favourite cities and I am happy to be visiting again.
We are still travelling with our buddy boats Slow Waltz and Leeloo. After spending a day and a half in Beaufort NC (which is pronounced Bowfort, dinstinguishing itself from Beaufort SC, which is pronounced Byufort) where we took care of some of the necessities (groceries, fuel, water, pumpout) we set off again down the intracoastal waterway because the weather still didn't look good to go outside. When I called the bridge in Beaufort to ask for an opening, the bridge tender called me 'Mrs. Captain' in a thick southern drawl. They usually call the men who call them on the radio 'Captain' so I guess he thought that was the correct title. Dave and I thought it was hilarious and I just might keep that title, along with Admiral and Crew.
Our days have been dictated to a certain extent by bridge openings. Some bridges only open between certain hours in the day and on a regular schedule every hour or half hour instead of on demand. what this means is that from time to time you end up slowing down to wait for a bridge, or going around in circles just before it to wait until the next opening. This also means that boats tend to 'pile up' before the bridge as they catch up to the boats ahead of them who are waiting.
On Sunday, after travelling through the masses of sport fishing boats lining the ICW and motoring through the Camp Lejeune Firing Range (they weren't firing anything at us luckily although we did see a tank on the banks of the canal) we went through the last bridge of the day with 9 other boats. And then we all peeled off into the same anchorage, at Mile Hammock Bay in Camp Lejeune (a military area) and dropped anchors just after 4 p.m. The two boats that were in the anchorage when we got there probably thought they were going to have the place all to themselves. We were enjoying happy hour as the sun went down and a few more boats actually came in after dark and anchored (poor them).
The days are pretty short right now and it is pretty well dark just after 5:30 so there is a significant planning element involved in terms of where anchorages are available and what the weather forecast is and how many bridges there are and what their opening schedule is. Just to make it more interesting there are very significant currents on this stretch of the waterway so sometimes it is difficult to estimate what your average speed will be. It is great when the current is with you and you arrive somewhere earlier than expected, but not so great when the current is against you and it is getting late in the day and the sun is getting low in the sky.
Monday we travelled to Wrightsville Beach with 3 bridge openings. There was some wind behind us so most of the boats were motor sailing with the jib out. We got to one bridge with a grumpy bridge tender who threatened to not open the bridge if everyone didn't take their sails in. Luckily all the boats complied and we got through okay. We got anchored early enough to go for a big walk on shore. So what do six sailors do when they get to shore? They walk over to the beach to have a look at the ocean! We are on the water all day long and we can't wait to... go and see the water.
Tuesday we set off early to travel before the strong winds started, with big plans to stop in a snug anchorage at Pipeline Creek, just west of Southport, NC. We had a very fast trip out the Cape Fear River and arrived at 10:30 a.m. only to find that we couldn't get into the anchorage because of shoaling at the entrance. After Slow Waltz and Romana both tried and went aground in the mud we decided to try plan B. Luckily there was a marina right next to the creek, so we ended up tying up at the dock there.
We figured we were going to be at the marina for two nights because of the bad weather, so we decided to be 'tourists' the first day and do 'chores' the second day. We took a dinghy ride down to nearby Southport Harbour and went to explore the town of Southport. Apparently this is where they have filmed a number of movies, including, most recently, Safe Haven (based on the Nicholas Sparks novel). We saw signs all around town indicating that scenes from the movie were shot there. We went into a few nice shops, an auto and marine store (of course) and a liquor store (rum supplies were getting low from all the Happy Hours) and then we walked back to the waterfront where we saw both the oldest and the newest lighthouses in North Carolina.
As we were enjoying Happy Hour at the restaurant next to the marina the wind came up as forecast and soon it was blowing a gale and the temperature dropped about 10 deg C. When we had tied up at the marina the guy working there asked me if we needed to plug in. I said no and he said "it's going to get cold tonight" to which I replied "well power isn't going to help us much with that because we don't have a heater". As it turned out, one of our buddy boats had a spare heater which they loaned us, so we did plug in. Unfortunately we neglected to do this before Happy Hour, so we ended up doing it in the bitter cold howling wind. That night the temperature dropped below freezing and Southport had the first snow they have seen in five years. We didn't see evidence of this when we got up, but the crew of Slow Waltz reported they saw a bit of snow on the dock first thing in the morning.
So what do cruisers do on a bitterly cold and windy day in port? They bike to Walmart of course! Although it is nice to visit the quaint little shops we find close to the waterfront, our list of Walmartian items had grown to the point where we decided to brave the 3.5 mile trip. We borrowed a couple of bikes from the marina and put our folding bikes together and along with the Slow Waltz crew we biked to Walmart fully attired in toques, gloves and scarves. As Guillaume from Slow Waltz pointed out, the ride along the highway with no shoulder most of the way was probably riskier than sailing offshore! But we made it to Walmart and back with no casualties and most of the list crossed off.
Thursday morning was an early start as we wanted to get past a bunch of shoaled inlets and through a long land cut to the Waccamaw River. It was quite a day. When we woke up, the cabin was at 5.5 deg C, which is the coldest it has ever been on this trip. We were bundled up in full rain gear, fleece, toques and gloves again - I had even more clothes on than I did on the south shore of Nova Scotia in September.
At the first inlet Romana made it through okay, but Slow Waltz went aground in a shallow spot. Dave and Mario (skipper of Leeloo) got the dinghies down and went to help Slow Waltz get off while Francine (of Leeloo) and I kept the boats in the channel and waited and watched. An hour later Slow Waltz was on the move again after a successful kedge off the shoal and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We approached the next two inlets with trepidation but we all made it through them okay with some hints over the radio from a boat ahead of us.When we got to the first of three bridges we had to get through that day the bridge tender was grumpy and made us wait. Meanwhile the current had been aginast us all day and we were worried that we wouldn't make the last bridge and get anchored before dark. Our next obstacle came when a tug and barge was coming north through 'the Rock Pile', a notoriously narrow part of the land cut just south of Myrtle Beach, SC where there is no room to pass and the bottom is littered with rocks. As we went over near the shore just north of the Rock Pile to wait for the tug and barge to get through, we hit a rock. Luckily we weren't traveling very fast so the impact wasn't terrible, but it was still a bit nerve wracking.
We reached the last bridge just before 5 p.m. and luckily that bridge tender was very accomodating and opened the bridge right away. We got into the Waccamaw River and anchored just a few minutes before dark, dodging plants all over the place because we weren't sure if we were going to get tangled up in them or not. Slow Waltz and Leeloo rafted up to us and we all had a drink to celebrate the end of a very long day. Everyone slept well that night!
The next morning we woke up and it looked like we had a garden between the boats. The plants that we had been avoiding the night before were floating and as the current pushed them along they had become lodged in between the boats. When Slow Waltz and Leeloo cast off the plants floated off to continue their journey to wherever the current took them next.
Our next adventure came as we were motoring past Georgetown and the coast guard came along side to do a safety check of Romana. They had just boarded the boat ahead of us and the guy driving the inflatable came and told us we were next so we should get our boat registration and personal IDs ready. Two coast guard and two homeland security people boarded us and one coast guard went below with Dave to check out fire extinguishers, life jackets, our fog horn, our head discharges etc. while the other one called in our personal IDs and boat registration. The two homeland security guys just stood around on the deck so I guess we didn't strike them as a very serious threat. The coast guard were very pleasant and gave us a copy of the 'boarding report' and a sticker about not discharging oil into US waters which we must display and then they told us to have a good trip and left, leaving only big muddy footprints from their black soled boots all over our deck. Even though we knew everything was okay on Romana the experience got the adrenalin pumping a little bit!
Although we had originally planned to stop in Georgetown for the night and then push on to Charleston via the ICW, the weather looks okay to go outside tomorrow, so we are presently anchored in Winyah Bay which is near an inlet where we can get out to the ocean and take an offshore passage to Charleston instead. We had current with us today, so we arrived at the anchorage just after noon which meant we were able to spend the first part of the afternoon taking everything out of the cockpit locker to try to find the source of a 'poop smell' we have had since we got to Southport. It appears that the aft holding tank is leaking, so we have stopped using that head and started using the forward head. This means that hooking up the macerator pump for the forward holding tank has moved up the priority list, so we spent the second half of the afternoon running the wires for the new macerator pump. More proof that this is NOT a vacation!
I should be able to post this blog from Charleston in a few days, as we are booked into a marina there and should be able to get wifi.