Category: 2017-18 Voyage to The Bahamas

It was a noisy and bumpy night at dock as the winds picked up and the rain began. Needless to say, we are not leaving today. I saw several fishing/crab boats leave around 7am, a tough job.

Bob got some jobs done around the boat with minimal swearing, that is always a good sign. In the afternoon, Chris, Bob and I walked over to the next marina for Chris to have a second look at a trawler he and Cindy had looked at on Saturday. It had a very good layout but being 15 years old it had some unfortunate boat smells, a major culprit being the hoses leading out from the two heads. They would have to be replaced at about a $  7,000 cost.

The skies started clearing in the late afternoon and there was a beautiful sunset but the winds have not died down. If the forecast is correct, the winds start reducing around 11am tomorrow – fingers crossed.

 

Another bumpy noisy night, the winds have not abated at all but the sun is out. After breakfast we hung out in the marina lounge with Chris &  Cindy and had a round of Trivial Pursuit – the 80s. We didn’t bother with the board 🙂  There were still white caps in the harbour around 11am so we decided to stay one more night and do a longer day tomorrow, there is not supposed to much wind at all. Cindy is flying home to St. Petersburg on Thursday from Norfolk so they will 40+ miles trip tomorrow. We’re not planning to go as far tomorrow.

We decided to have lunch at the place the marina staff said not to go to, as Chris said “they can’t do much to ruin lunch”. There was also the fact that it was the only other place open. The food was ok, the surroundings and staff left a bit to be desired but we survived.

There was a beautiful sunset but as soon as the sun was lower on the horizon the temperatures dipped. We put the propane heater on for a while to take the chill out of the salon.

 

 

 

There was a flotilla of fishing/crab boats in the outer harbour when we left this morning. I counted 40 but there may have been more. I was on crab pot watch until we got into deeper water, I’m totally paranoid about them now.

There was very little wind so we motor sailed on and off. The current was not with us either but it wasn’t against us big time. It’s quite a long trek to the marina once we turned from the Bay towards Yorkton so we didn’t get there until a bit after 2pm. We had an almost oops moment when we came got  close to the slips. We were about to go on the wrong side of a caution buoy but luckily a guy on boat nearby called to warn us. Our keel did touch but we managed to quickly reverse and avoid a call to Boat US to tow us off 🙂

I went to pick up a rental car while Bob made plans with the Marina manager to work on a solution to our non-emptying head tank and our noisy water pump. We drove down to the  historic waterfront to have dinner at the Yorktown Pub – a cool spot.

Yorktown was an important place in both the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War. We hope to tour the battlefields and the historic town tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

The boat got moved to the pump out dock at 8:30. Ryan the Marina manager said their pump can be set to blow out so he thought that might blow out the “the plug” that is preventing the tank from emptying. After about 40 minutes, we gave up and the only thing left was to haul the boat so Ryan could get at the area where the  stuff is supposed to come out.

He was afraid the problem might have been the valve which he first thought was the case once the boat was out but that turned out not to be the case. Ryan worked for 35 minutes, first with two different types of augers and “stuff” did start to come out. Then he used the hose to try water pressure to break up the plug, finally wrapping the head of the hose with a rag so there was no air around the opening and the hose. That finally did it, yucky picture here.

Meanwhile, I was creating minor havoc. It’s too long a story to put here in detail but basically I thought my purse had been stolen from the front seat of the rental car. The marina owner spent  lot of time viewing security tapes, I got as far as cancelling three of my four credit cards before Ryan figured out I had actually put my purse in the wrong car, which happened to be the same colour as the rental car and was unlocked. Talk about feeling stupid !!!

We hadn’t had breakfast and by the time all this got sorted out it was 1:30. We were very hungry and left Ryan to put the boat back in the water while we went to grab lunch and get some groceries. We had hoped to spend some time in the village/historic battlefields  but by the time we got the boat fuelled up and back to the slip it was late afternoon.

We still drove to the village and spent about an hour walking around so we at least have a general feel of the area. We’re staying here for one more night so hope to spend several hours there tomorrow afternoon before we go to dinner. We have reservations at a riverside restaurant.

 

 

The plan for today was to run a few errands and then spend  several hours in the National  Battlefields Park. Bob ordered a new water pump as ours is now very noisy and even when the water is turned off the motor chugs on. We’re not sure if that’s a sign it’s on its last legs but don’t really want to take a chance on it giving up in the middle of nowhere.

By the time the pump was installed it was too late to visit the battlefields as we had dinner reservations for 6pm so we were glad we spent a bit of time walking around the historic village yesterday.

Dinner at the Riverwalk was probably the fanciest place we’ve been to on the trip – great food.

 

 

We go to bed ridiculously early, usually around 9pm which means we’re also up early, usually awake before sunrise which these days is close to 7am. It was a nice calm, bright morning but by the time I was getting ready to take the rental car back a thick fog had rolled in and was still there when I got back. Considering it’s a narrow channel we were not going to take chances until it cleared up a bit.

Around 10am we saw a sailboat head out so figured it was ok as it had cleared a fair bit. We made out way out very slowly, it was still foggy on the river outside the channel to the marina but there was enough visibility to proceed safely. As we looked back it seemed the fog was hanging just over the marina.

It was a beautiful sunny day but not much wind so we again motor sailed – no crab pots anywhere today! Once we got closer to Hampton and Norfolk the scenery got less lovely with the huge docks for large cargo ships and of course all the naval ships at the Norfolk Naval Base. We saw/we’re passed by several very large ships, two were naval supply ships.

We knew Joan and John from R Thyme II were at a free dock in Portsmouth,  just at the start of the ICW so that’s where we went too. They had scouted out a restaurant for dinner, The Bier Garden, that was a short walk away – good German food !

 

Today, our first full day on the ICW, was a day of bridges. Twelve bridges, two you had to request a swing/opening. There was one lock, we had to wait an hour to get into the lock, which was only a one foot drop. There is a bridge just past the lock that opens in time with the lock opening but there was some kind of problem with timing so when we got out of the lock, all the boats that were in the lock group just ahead of us were bobbing around waiting for the bridge to open. So there was quite a group of us heading down once that bridge opened.

This part of the ICW is not particularly picturesque. The first bit was very industrial and once we got past that, the riverside was kind of swampy looking.

We’re now anchored in Blackwater Creek. There is a warning in the guidebooks that there is a 5 foot shoal at the entrance, we draw 4.5 so we risked it. We touched the shoal although the depth sounder said 5.4 but we didn’t get stuck. The depth is fine once you get into the creek. Fingers crossed that we get out ok!

 

 

It was a very peaceful night at the anchorage, I wish I had taken a picture of the beautiful sunrise. Huge flocks of small birds were flying nearby as we left, shortly after 7am.  We think this is a wetlands area.

There were no bumps at the entrance when we left, that was a relief. We had a plan A & B for the day. Plan A was to travel about 48 nm to a marina on the other side of Albemarle Sound, which meant crossing the sound, a large shallow body of water on which waves build up easily in windy conditions. The weather is supposed to be pretty nasty tomorrow but when we checked the winds for the time we’d get to start the crossing, which would take around two hours, the winds/gusts would already have started to pick up.

Plan B was to hole up at Coinjock Marina, only about 17 nm from our anchorage, if they had space. Luckily they were willing to accommodate us. We may have to raft tomorrow as more boats with reservations are coming in, but we’re fine with rafting.

It was a fairly quiet trip here but a few motor cruisers passed us and we also met a big northbound barge that was right in the middle of the channel and he wasn’t moving over an inch !

Since we got here quite early we had showers, did laundry and cleaned salt water stains from half the stainless on the boat, will do the other half tomorrow if it doesn’t rain all day. The restaurant here – we are very glad they have one – is well known for their roast beef. We split one dinner, a serving is 16 oz !!! and it was a thick cut, it was very good.

And here is your weird boat for the day. I’ll take a picture in better light tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is going to be a three day blog to catch up due to iffy or no data access for several days.

Oct 24 – Tuesday at Coinjock Marina was a windy but mostly sunny which made for a pleasant day. We were told when we arrived on Monday we’d probably have to raft or be rafted to on Tuesday as there were a lot of boats coming in on Tuesday. First we were told that Jeff & Trish’s 42 foot Catalina, Full Circle, would raft onto us but then they decided to move us to a smaller dock further down from the main dock, which was just fine with us.

Bob had to pull in in front of small sailboat and also avoid an even smaller dock sticking out in front of where we had to go. There was quite a lot of wind but the dockhands were just great and provided direction on exactly when to turn & how much to avoid any catastrophes, major or minor. Trish & Jeff from the Catalina came over for drinks & munchies in the afternoon. They are from NY state, near NYC, Jeff is a college prof who is on a one year sabbatical. They are planning to spend the year sailing, including the Bahamas. I’m sure our paths will cross over the next few months.

I went for a walk along the long dock around 6pm and was amazed at how full the marina was and how closely the boats were packed in. I counted five boats that were rafted. There were a lot of motor yachts, one was at least a 100’ long. We were happy at our little dock and had a calm night. We had heard some kind of disparaging comments about Coinjock but we enjoyed our stay there and we won’t have to have a roast beef dinner for a long time 🙂

Oct 25 – We left around 8:30am on Wednesday and figured it would take about five hours to get to Alligator River Marina. There were three sailboats ahead of us but we eventually passed them and once we reached the Albemarle Sound we didn’t see them behind us at all so we figured they weren’t crossing. We didn’t have to pass or avoid any barges today.

Once we got to the sound, which had just small waves, we saw a plane that appeared to be doing circuits at our end of the sound. We then saw it dropping something on the water and then saw a boat heading towards the smoke that started as soon as the objects hit the water. We’re pretty sure this was a Coast Guard plane and it was doing training exercises with the boat. It was entertaining watching the goings on, it often looked like the plane was buzzing us as it flew right over us.

We got to the marina, which is a combination of a marina and regular gas station, around 1:30. Within the next couple of hours three more sailboats had arrived, including Full Circle and a little later a catamaran we last saw at the public dock in Portsmouth, also pulled in. I’m sure we’ll keep running into familiar boats as we all head south.

Oct 26 – We had a greasy breakfast at the gas station grill – not a particularly good one and we’re off the dock at 7:30. As I was taking off all the lines and fenders we had a fender overboard incident – me repeating “shit-shit-shit” didn’t seems to solve the problem. The fender had a cover which made it easier to grab with boat hook so it was rescued.

Today was a long day, we did 50 nm, got to our anchorage just before 4pm. It was quite a bit windier than forecast but some of that and a bit of current helped us along. Our anchorage is at a Slade Creek off the Pungo River. BBQd sausages, pasta and pesto for dinner tonight – yum. Oh, and a beautiful sunset.

Another long day today as not so great weather is forecast for Saturday/Sunday. We’ll spend a few days in the small town of Oriental to avoid the weather and check out the town. It was highly recommended by Ursula & Jeb who were here last year on their trek south.

We had planned to leave at sunrise as it was a 38 nm day but the weather had other ideas. It was dead calm last night   and we woke up to heavy fog. Luckily it was to be another clear sunny day so as the sun got  bit higher it burned off the fog and we were on our way shortly after 8:30.

Bob had been warned to wear gloves, the same ones we used on the slimy lock walls, when pulling up the anchor anywhere in the Chesapeake. He hadn’t needed them so far but yuk, he sure needed them this morning.

There was hardly any wind today but we had the main up for a little while. For Bob,  alas, just motor sailing. One really has to pay attention to the charts on the ICW. Today we were both on fairly wide rivers and a canal but always made sure to stay in ICW channel showing on the chart plotter and kept track of all the warning notes on the Garmin GPS on the iPad, as we were moving along

A larger sailboat flying a Canadian flag passed us on the canal. Within an hour we saw it slow down ahead of us but a bit off to the left and then stop. Bob radioed over to ask if they were ok and got a quick reply “don’t come over here, we’re stuck”. They had veered off the channel and in this area it was immediately very very shallow . That did show on the chart so I guess they just weren’t paying atttention. We heard them on the radio ask  a passing motor yacht to give them a lot of wake but it was so shallow there it didn’t help.

There are  lot of fairly big commercial fishing boats in this area. We saw a couple on the Neuse River with huge flocks of birds following  them but the birds really only visible with the binoculars – I left my real camera with a good zoom at home  – not intentionally – so no pictures!

We got to the Oriental Inn & Marina around three and are now on the overflow long dock. We’re moving to the very protected Inn dock tomorrow morning – rotten weather coming in, not as much tomorrow but definitely on Sunday. There are a lot of the large fishing boats docked here among the sailboats and motor yachts/trawlers – will take pictures.