Great Bridge

     I'm writing this update from the library in Great Bridge, Chesapeake, VA. We've been to this library before but it's been so long I cannot remember the circumstances. Of course not remembering could mean it's been more than a week.

     This is our third day here at the one-day-free dock. Major violation of local regulations! F'em.

     There has been no one with us although there is another boat on the southern-side-of-the-bascule-bridge dock. Usually there is no hassle, especially if it's not busy.

Great Bridge Dock. 

     We sat out some weather at Osprey marina for three days as mentioned in my previous entry, then went to Wrightsville Beach. We stopped at the anchorage near Little River Inlet that is right on the SC/NC border and then stopped at a marina in Southport. The free dock in Southport is mostly destroyed and the Pipeline anchorage has silted in a lot. We probably could have used it this year due to the tides we were expecting at arrival and departure but it was very cold and we paid, yes PAID, to plug into marina electricity and have heat on the boat. Kept it very toasty but cost $10. Ridiculous. The only other downside was the fancy restaurant we dined at in the fall had a fire a few weeks before our stay and was unavailable.

Bait, maybe.

     We had a surprisingly smooth ride up the Cape Fear River and a swift passage through Snows Cut. My cousin Patty came down to the Cut to wave and take pictures but we did not see her while in Wrightsville Beach. Again.

     It was pretty breezy when we arrived at WB and the weather varied wildly the 2 1/2 weeks or so we were there. Windy-cold. Warm-sunny. Warm-windy. Cold-sunny-windy. And sometimes, just windy. Didn't snow this year, however. We ate out a little more than usual and watched UConn basketball several times at couple of different bars. I watched the last game, the National Semi-Final Game, alone on the boat and we lost. Again! Second loss suffered in two years. Both in the championship semi-final. Fire Geno!

     I think we've lost four games in the last six years. Unacceptable! Way below our standards. Uh, we're spoiled. But we suffer through each loss as rare as they are. But could these losses not be in the NCAA tournament, Geno? Sigh.

     From Wrightsville it was pretty uneventful. We stayed at the Camp LeJeune anchorage and then went to Oriental. Stayed at a free dock there but learned the hard way that we could not fit in the newer free slip next to a huge trawler. A red huge trawler. Red. We gently touched it but got some of its paint on us. Red. Sigh.

     Leaving Oriental was very foggy and the same person that guided us into the RED trawler nearly ran over a sailboat I had met and chatted with several times. We should scare the heck out of people we don't know at all. Less embarrassing.

Dragon nesting area. 

     Other than that the Neuse and Pamlico systems were not too bad when the fog cleared. We also had good current in the non-open areas and went all the way to the Alligator River and anchored in the most southern end of the wide part of the river. Choppy, but not bad because we don't rock and roll much. We also got boarded by the US Coast Guard to be inspected. No problem passing and got the "Golden Ticket" which means we don't have to go through this again if the USCG requests to board within a year. Heading up the Alligator was breezy but the wind and seas (1 1/2 ft.) were behind us and therefore not too bad. Same with the Albemarle Sound crossing.

     We went to Coinjock that night and paid for a slip. Obviously we don't like doing that but our timing and previous anchorages determine when and where we stop. The fact that severe weather was forecast for the afternoon also influenced our decision. The very serious weather missed us but did come fairly close. Close enough to justify our decision. The downside? They raised the rates by 25 cents a foot. We later learned that so did the other nearby marina so the one we stay at is still cheaper. We're usually alone there (the other is more popular) and did laundry and had showers, etc.

     From there we came here to Great Bridge. We could have left in one day but we planned on two to re-supply, go up the mast and put fuel in the boat. Our next stop was a free dock in Portsmouth, VA. Portsmouth is only two hours away so the rainy forecast didn't bother us. When we woke up to get ready to it was decided to stay put one more night in Great Bridge. So, here we are.

     It didn't really rain all that hard and the wind didn't pick up until after we would have arrived at our destination but we wouldn't have done much there so staying here was not an issue. Library, shopping, restaurants are all within walking distance here but Portsmouth has a funky movie theater we enjoyed last fall. No matter. Nothing great playing anyway. Maybe in the fall, southbound.

     Tomorrow we head to a pay marina slip in Hampton, VA but we have a coupon for one free night. May stay two, the forecast has been pretty unreliable the last few days. It's only about five hours to Hampton then it's three days to our Annapolis stay. We had ten days to make four days passages so we have been taking our time.

     We'll see what happens.

Cruising North

 
  As I write this we are at Osprey Marina in Socastee, SC. We left Marathon about a week later than normal because Heather, Mike and new grandchild Cobbe came for about a week. First nights on a boat for Cobbe. First of many more we hope.

     We went overnight direct to Fort Pierce offshore of all the Keys and the east coast of Florida. We made sure we were well into the effects of the Gulf Stream. From the exit of Boot Key Harbor to the entrance of Fort Pierce took us just under 24 hours. 220nm. It was not a bad passage. Not rough at all but just enough rocking to make for poor sleeping for me. Oh, well.

     We only spent two nights visiting the Guays and topping off our supplies before heading north on the ICW. No incidents until we left St Augustine. It was breezy out of the north which meant going outside was out of the question. We had boat damage the last time we tried that. $1000. worth. In the Amelia River south of Fernandina we went aground. Again. In the same place as last year. Grrr. We followed the new directions from the Waterway Guide and Bob423 and still went aground. The Tow BOAT/US operator gave us the correct route... after we got towed off. Sigh.

     We anchored at Cumberland Island as usual but had anchor chain issues because we let too much out in the dark. We got into the rusted, balled-up parts. Needed a hammer to break chain parts free. Turned out we had enough for our regular anchoring depths but if we had to anchor someplace very deep we might have problems. Our timing for our passages through Georgia was pretty good. It was rising tides most of the way. We timed our stops each afternoon so the next day would give us the correct tides. All went well. Even the normal scary spots.

     We stayed a night at Thunderbolt Marina for the first time in a few years so we could go to Tubby's for a UConn basketball game. Went with some trepidation because we lost to Notre Dame the last time we were there. This was the AAC final against South Florida and it was a decent game. We won in a close (for us) game. Twenty-something point lead. Onto the NCAA Tournament.

     From there we continued on the ICW to here in Socastee. We stopped for the forecast weather which got delayed coming east so we will spend a third (unheard of) night at the marina. Never happened before. Going to be cold, nasty weather a few days from now. Since we are no longer in a hurry to get to Wrightsville Beach it's not a problem. We can use up our cushion as we are as few as two days away. We'll take three to do that.

     Summing our winter in Marathon: The damage after Hurricane Irma was extensive on shore. Boot Key Harbor was heavily affected also. A lot of boats were in the mangroves and several had sunk in the harbor. The sunken boats were mostly removed before we got there but the mangroves needed extensive work. It took another month for those boats to be hauled off and we volunteers spent that month cleaning out smaller items. Some of those 'small' items included refrigerators and dock boxes. I was involved in pulling three of those out myself so the total was much larger. Before we left in February we saw more along the shorelines. They were floating out of the canals where the debris was just starting to be cleaned out in February. Just starting. After four and a half months. Route 1 still had roadside debris until well into January so land clean-up efforts were well behind the harbor efforts. Of course the harbor had many more volunteers doing the work. It needed doing, we did it.

                                     Al Van Kirk and I pulling taps at the Celtic Fest, Marathon.

     That's the summation. It needed doing. We did it. The boating community, year-rounders and snowbirds. Together.

     There may have been partying and beer involved with the efforts. Maybe. A little.

2017 Summary

     As I write this it is the day before New Year's Eve. New Years Eve Eve? Whatever. Not going on a New Years Eve Cruise off Key West this year as Heather and Mike are not here this year. More about that later. We went to Key West yesterday with our friends on Gelato, Al and Sue, who joined us in Marathon a few days before Christmas. Key West is a 50 mile bus ride from Marathon that only cost $1 each way. What a bargain!

     So this is a summary of our 2017, more or less. Less because our memory is another year older. And foggier. Also because much was mentioned in previous blog entries. This is also a summary of our time in Marathon since we arrived in November.

     Our January 2017 was interesting because we volunteered at the Celtic Fest for the first time. Manned a beer tent and learned how to pull draft beer properly. We are volunteering there again in about a week. Our trip north was fraught with peril as a bridge tender tried to kill us (he failed, BTW) in Sisters Creek off the St. Johns River. We also spent more than three hours aground nearby that same day. Then, in March, we had extreme cold and snow in Wrightsville Beach, NC. After that our trip home to Mystic was without major issues 

     In July we lost our portside propeller assembly on a otherwise great sail to Montauk and had to replace it at great cost during our first haul out ever in Essex, CT in August.

     In September we had another first, a baby shower for Heather and Mike. It was also the first I ever attended for anyone, including the one preceding Heather's birth thirty-something years earlier. September also saw the landfall of a major hurricane near our winter home of Marathon, FL. It tried to ruin our fall cruise south. It didn't, but it tried. Hurricane Jose also tried to wreck (bad choice of words) our cruise also but we beat it to the Cape May, NJ area by less than a day. After that our passages south were not too bad. We even went out to sea out of a new-to-us exit from the ICW, Winyah Bay, SC.

     After we arrived in Marathon and saw all the damage to the mangroves, all the damage ashore and all the wrecked boats, we got to work. Approximately every five days there was a work party cleaning junk out of the mangroves or even cleaning the Route 1 roadside in front of and north of our marina and the park that fronts it. I was involved in pulling out three fridges and dock boxes along with tons of plastics and other debris from the harbor. Not fun. But fulfilling. Having a communal lunch after each work session with the other volunteers also pulled our community together.

     Last year I started an on-the-VHF auction that raised about $500 for the Christmas Bike Fund. About $4000 was raised from various sources and 36 bikes were distributed to needy kids in Marathon. This year when I started talking about another VHF auction it was suggested by a professional auctioneer that he was willing to help in a live auction ashore at the marina. We started working on that idea and started collecting contributions to be auctioned off in addition to the Cruising Guides the Waterway Guide gives to me. We raised more than $1300 this time and the marina was able to purchase 44 bikes! What an improvement!. The need was greater due to Irma and the harbor came through! And we had fun doing it.

     As this was going on we had a new arrival. He was a bit late in coming and caused some problems but Cobbe (pronounced Kobie) Michael Caramanico was born 1 December 2017. He is sure to cause more problems in the future. I visited him for about a week in NYC and grandma stayed a bit longer. He plans to visit us (with his parents) some time in February 2018.

     We participated in our harbor Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners this season as we didn't have family guests due to the waiting for Cobbe time. A nice chance to socialize with old friends and make new ones. Marathon is getting closer to normal and our harbor community has been much more successful getting back to normal than Marathon and the rest of the Keys at large. A lot to be thankful for.

     It's been a lot of work for all but well worth it when seeing the results of that labor.

   

Marathon post Irma

     We arrived in Marathon a few days ago after an overnight offshore passage direct from Fort Pierce. It wasn't the worst passage ever but it wasn't all that great. Seas were about a foot but not from an ideal direction so we rocked and rolled a little bit. Okay, just rocked. It was warm, however, so we can't complain too much. We do complain, but we shouldn't.

     We left Wrightsville Beach anticipating some nasty weather and only went to Southport. We paid for a slip because our usual anchorage is shoaling in, it was forecast to be very windy and it was going to be low tide when we wanted to depart in the morning. The storm pretty much formed off the coast near us and then ripped up towards New York and New England. They got hammered badly with 60+ MPH winds while we only got an hour or two of 35 knots at a dock. When we left in the morning it was still rainy and foggy but it cleared up as we headed west. As it cleared up the temperature dropped like a rock. Long underwear time. TMI? Sorry.

     We went to another marina the next night. Two paid slips in a row! Unprecedented! The Bucksport Marina was 75 cents per foot so the piggy bank wasn't broken, just scratched. The Southport marina was $1.25/ft. Still not too awful.

     We then went down the Waccamaw River to the mouth of Winyah Bay to time our departure out into the ocean and to let the weather finish its trip up the coast to Connecticut. We'd been in communication with our friends on Gelato and suggested they meet us out near the Charleston Channel in the afternoon and we could buddy-boat them on their first deep-water offshore passage. They departed Charleston a little early and were about ten miles in front of us. We had some VHF communication but lost touch with them. We were well out of cell phone range with the shore so they were on their own even though we were likely within 10-15 miles of them. Their boat is a little faster than us when they want to be so we were shocked when morning came and found them less than a mile BEHIND US! It's a big ocean and their finding us was very, very surprising. They had a interesting tale to tell but, once again, I'll let them tell their tale when we're all back at Waterbury Squadron get-togethers in 2018.

     We went into the St. Johns River in Florida and tied up at a free dock near a former anchorage of ours in Sisters Creek. The next day found us in Saint Augustine and here we started seeing a lot of damage from Hurricane Irma. We also had dinner and caught up with old, I mean, long time friends Bob and Jane.

     From St. Auggie it was New Smyrna Beach, Dragon Point and then Fort Pierce. We spent four nights in Faber Cove, restocking food and fuel and visiting with Mike and Carol Guay. We would have liked to stay longer but a weather window was threatening to close and if we wanted to get to Marathon in time to fly out we had to get moving.

      As I said, the passage wasn't great but after our arrival the wind and rain started blowing 25-30kts for four days. The weather is easier to take when it is 80 degrees out. Of course, someone on our boat complains about the temp. and humidity. Any sympathy from our northern friends and family? No. I didn't think so.

     The damage along the western shores of our ICW passages was extensive but arriving in Marathon showed us real destruction. Many, many boats in the mangroves. Major damage to the City Marina where we stay. And several dozen boats have just vanished. No one knows where they are. The main channel has been cleared of sunken boats but there is debris everywhere. The streets are lined with junk, the mangroves are damaged and a lot of housing is unlivable.

     We debated whether we should come down here and add to the stress on the infrastructure but we felt we have made Marathon our second home and wanted to contribute in any way we could. The businesses need us snowbirds (the land and sea varieties) to survive but there are very few workers for the businesses because there is no place for them to live. It's a tough situation.

     The boating community we are part of is busy trying to get their lives in order and also help others out. People are rebuilding the marina garden, pulling junk out of the harbor waters as well as the surrounding mangroves. There is a lot of work to do. It will take years to get back to normal and at least several more months to even come close to the life we all had here. We are torn between advising friends to come and help or to stay away until next year.

     It seems to me that people are in a kind of shock. I think they would deny it even as they try to overcome it but to me, coming from the outside after being away for eight months, it shows.

     There are fewer boats left, fewer people, it's quieter but in that quietness there is a determination to rebuild and get their lives back and make this area paradise again. 

Still on her mooring

Outer dinghy docks from the City Marina

          The terrible thing is all this damage is relatively minor when compared to the horror in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We simply cannot imagine it.

Wrightsville Beach

     We're in Wrightsville Beach, NC. We'll be here about a week and a half as Carol goes off to work again.

     Getting here was not a big deal this year. We ran out of Annapolis the day Carol arrived because we were a bit tired of the wakes we get in Weems Creek on busy weekends. We just went to the Rhode River off of West River Bay not too far south of Annapolis. A two hour trip that only cut an hour off of the next day's trip to the Solomons.

     We stayed two nights in the Solomons because of forecast wind and rain. Wasn't bad at all at our anchorage in Mill Creek but we heard it was rougher out on Chesapeake Bay. Sue and Al on Gelato came to the Solomons also but we didn't see them as they took a mooring in a different part of the harbor.

     After that it was Jackson Creek near Deltaville, VA. An easy pleasant day to here and Gelato was able to get in despite the relatively shallow water. They came by after dinner for dessert.

     Then it was down the Bay to Hampton Roads and Portsmouth, VA. We took a free dock for the first time in North Landing. Gelato squeezed in behind us and we found we should have tied up at the southern free docking spot. Much prettier. A chat with a fellow snowbird led us to a nearby movie theater where we all saw a Tom Cruise flic. The theater was very nice. It was the first in the country to provide full restaurant meals with the movie. Very fancy and the food was good, too. After the film we talked a while with the folks on Delta Blues (and Gelato, too, of course).

     Then it was our usual Great Bridge stop. We did laundry and got a few items from the grocery store. We met up with Pru and Burt from Exuberant. We saw them on the city dock in Annapolis and then caught up up with them here.

     Our next stop was Broad Creek just north of Albemarle Sound. Gelato anchored near similarly drafted Exuberant instead of coming to Broad Creek with us. Might have been better protection nearer to us but there was no way of knowing until we got there.

     The next day Albemarle Sound wasn't bad, the Alligator River Bridge was working properly and the Alligator itself was pretty benign.

      We ended up at Belhaven but Gelato had a bit of an adventure getting here. I'll let them tell their own story. The interesting thing was the fireworks display we were anchored almost under. They were celebrating the ICW which the town claims they are the home of. The last segment was completed in 1928 near here.

     The passage through the Pamlico and Nuese River system was near calm this year, just how we like it. We stayed two nights at Cedar Creek off Adams Creek because of the rain and wind forecast. The weather started much later than forecast and didn't last long, either. We got the chance to explore by dinghy for the first time here and buy extremely fresh shrimp at a good price at a nearby processor. The shrimp we ate was swimming in the ocean the day before. 

     We had the chance to phone the range officer for Camp Lejeune to find the ICW would not be restricted by the marines the next day. Good news. We then spent our last night before here at Mile Hammock.

     Since we arrived at Wrightsville we went out to dinner at our favorite spot, King Neptune, with Al and Sue. Plus they treated us. Made the two-for-one special cost even less. Zero (for us). Thanks Gelato!

    Before she goes off to work in L.A. Carol wants to try a much more expensive restaurant we've never been to. We'll see.

     The weather has been good here and the forecast is for just one nasty day during the upcoming week. If I survive there will be another blog entry in the future.

      Navy LCUs (landing craft utility) pass us in Currituck Sound. Gelato is in the background.

Annapolis Fall 2017

     As I noted in my previous posting, we are in Annapolis. Again. We stop here both north and south bound. Carol flies out of BWI and we (or I) go to the boat shows.

     This year was/is a little different. Instead of doing our annual maintenance a little north of here in Pasadena we did it in August in Essex, CT. This meant we had more free time before Carol had to fly out to work.

     We left Mystic a week after Heather's baby shower hoping to beat Hurricane Jose to the corner of Cape May, NJ and Delaware Bay. We went to Port Jefferson with mostly adverse current and calm conditions. We could not find our usual mooring to borrow so it took us a bit to find another suitable one. After getting secure we saw the one we really wanted not too far away. Oh well. Didn't move. We then went to Port Washington to pick up another free mooring because the timing wasn't right to go through Hell Gate in NYC. At sunrise we were underway with a small trawler accompanying us and planning to go offshore NJ overnight, too. We missed seeing Mike and Heather at the Gate because we got there a little sooner than planned and "someone" did not get up early enough.

     We had a pretty calm passage overnight offshore NJ. There were some swell from distant Jose but it did not get bad at all. The forecast was for huge swells by the time we got to Cape May and Delaware Bay but we beat them to the corner. It was still dark by the time we got to the Bay so we went the long way and used all of the main shipping channel. Added a little more time but not much. It was mostly nice and calm, too. Nice. Had good current up the Bay and through the C&D Canal, too. We anchored in the Sassafras River fairly early in the afternoon.

     After that we had a lot of time before we wanted to get to Annapolis so we just wandered around to different anchorages. We spent two nights in Worton Creek as Jose made its closest approach to us. A few hours of a little extra wind but not too bad. It's protected in Worton. That's why we were there. Then we went to Bodkin Creek to get fuel and a shower at Pleasure Cove Marina. Chatted with friends there and had lunch at the Crab before anchoring in our usual spot down the creek.

     From there we decided to try some new to us anchorages. We went into the Magothy River and went up into Sillery Bay. We anchored in Eagle Cove for two nights. A nice place. Decent protection. Then we went to Ridout Creek off of Whitehouse Bay. This is just a couple of miles north of Annapolis. We were close but had no need to get there yet. We also spent a night in Mill Creek which also is off Whitehouse Bay. A very pretty spot but not quite a hurricane hole that Ridout seems to be.

     Finally we got to Weems Creek, West Annapolis. Our number three home. Right away we went to Great Harvest Bakery for one of their terrific breads and ordered Pizza Bread for later in the week.

     The other unusual thing this year is some friends from the Waterbury Power Squadron are starting their first snowbird southbound trip. Al and Sue joined us in Weems Creek and we've showed them around a little, dined out together and visited each others boat. My blog entry yesterday was written while sitting next to Sue in a coffee shop. Really unusual. Not Sue, the circumstances. Okay, maybe Sue is a little unusual, too.

     After the boat show next week we'll restart our trip south. We are not sure of our winter destination due to the uncertainty of the situation in Marathon and when we need to fly home to meet our new grandchild. He or she has not arrived yet.

Summer 2017

     I always make blog entry at the end of our summer in Mystic but... I forgot. We've started south and we're in Annapolis already but I'm going to pretend that hasn't happened and we are still in Mystic.

     Our summer season started off very cold and windy. We got home in good time and just before the poorer weather started at the beginning of May. By the time Memorial Day weekend came around things had gotten better. We went to Hamburg Cove with the squadron and found very few moorings were in for transients like us to 'borrow'. We got there early so we got one and shared with Afternoon Delight. Heather and Mike did not join us this year due to a wedding they had to attend.

     We then started our usual round of medical appointments as well as getting Perfectly Normal ready for summer sitting and hoping to be sold time. New this season was building or rebuilding two dinghies. Our RIB had seen better days. We bought it 2003 and the fabric was so thin you could see the air inside the inflatable tubes. W-e-l-l, almost. It needed constant patching so I decided to rip the tubes off and rebuild it out of wood. Yes, turning a inflatable dinghy into a hard dinghy. But first... I had to finish a dinghy kit we had in storage (and before that our garage) for more than 15 years. Had to have a dinghy to use while I was building the old dinghy. The kit took less than two weeks but the inflatable-to-wood project took more than a month. And about $300 of materials. And a little blood.

     I was reasonably happy with the results of the project but with everything else that was going on I was very busy. Writing work had to get done. Pearson work and two dinghies to be built all kept me extremely busy. Where did I ever squeeze in the time to have a full-time job?

     Things mostly quieted down by the 4th of July. We has a great sail over to Montauk for a holiday rendezvous but lost our port-side propeller assembly en route when we had a lull in the wind and started the engines. At times we were travelling at more than 8 knots over the ground with several knots of current against us. For non-sailors, that is fast. Very fast.

     We had a week long cruise with Heather later in July that weather messed up a bit but still wasn't bad. Spent more time in Block than we planned or had done in many, many years.

     In August we had the boat hauled to do our annual maintenance. We usually do this in Pasadena, MD after we've started south but decided to try a local (Essex, CT) business this year. It was a bit cheaper and we could do most of the work ourselves. We got our new propellers installed just before our two week window was up so it all worked out right. Except for the expense.

     About this time a dinghy I was looking at at Defenders was reduced in price by $300. I looked at it at $900 before deciding to take on the dinghy rebuild project but now at $600 (after spending $300 on the project), it was too much of a bargain to pass up. It's a cheap PVC Zodiac that will probably not last very long with year round use but at $600 for a 11 1/2 foot dinghy we could not pass it up. We'll still use the wood dinghy when we are in Conn. and take inflatable south with us.

      Just before we headed south we had a baby shower for Heather. She is due around Thanksgiving and we'll be trying to arrange our cruising destination with having to fly back for birth time. All this is complicated by the devastation in Marathon for Hurricane Irma. We're not sure we'll be able to get there.

     As I said, as I write this we are in Annapolis but my report on our passage here will be in my

next blog entry.