Some Long Days

Leaving Myrtle Beach, the water was flat calm. Most mornings when we set off it has been like this since Florida. We travelled up the ICW towards an inlet, where the channel widened out before splitting off. As we approached the split, a large express cruiser, bigger than our boat, came by really close and at fast speed. He left behind a pretty good wake, and we got nailed. Stulie was in front of us so I got on the radio to warn him "fast-moving D-bag on your six". Needless to say, Stulie also got waked.

Continuing on the ICW, we passed a coyote swimming across the channel. Initially, its ears made it look like a pig, then as we got closer, Louise thought it might be a bear. But, as we passed, it was clearly a coyote.

As you travel on the ICW, you approach various inlets to the ocean. As the tides rise and fall, the water either streams in, or out of, these inlets. This means that the currents are always changing. Sometimes you get a push, sometimes the current pulls you back. This day we experienced both pull and push, but the effect was a lot stronger than what we had seen before. 

On our way to Southport NC, a Bayliner asked to pass us - they were named No Worries. I got on the radio and said No Worries Be Happy. Ciaran, the owner of No Worries laughed. We arrived in Southport around noon and got set in our slip. Louise and I both then grabbed a nap. Just before supper, we were invited to "porch time". One of the AGLCA harbour hosts lives here. C-Life  (Robert and Kay Creech) is a gold looper who completed his loop almost 20 years ago. He hosts "porch time" for loopers on the front porch of his house. We got to meet several other loopers here, including the crews of No Worries, Do Da II, and True Grit. Robert gave us a briefing of the ICW from Southport to Norfolk, as well as a hand-out list of all of the marinas between the two towns.

Porch Time. This guys porch was big and set up for entertaining. He came down to the marina each afternoon to greet the arriving loopers and invite them to his porch.

On the porch with the crews of No Worries, Do Da II, C Life, iFloat and True Grit.

This house had an interesting downspout on the gutters. A series of cups on a chain that create a waterfall when it rains.

This tree is 800 years old. It is the oldest tree in Southport, NC. It is an indian trail tree, an gnarly oak bent as a marker the path to the fishing grounds.

Nice display down at the local fish market. They built this from old crab pot floats, although these ones are brightly painted. Normally the floats have worn out paint so the float is almost the same colour as the muddy water.

License plate for math nerds.

The next morning we went into town for a local car show. They had a LOT of vintage and custom cars on display, from restored model-T's, hot rods, and even some modern customized ones. We spent a couple of hours going through the show, then visited a couple of small local museums before heading back to the boat. We had planned to get lunch at a local restaurant, but with the car show here there were big lineups everywhere, so we just went back to the boat for lunch. In the afternoon Louise did laundry while I washed down the boat.

Neat colour on this hot rod. Some of the vintage cars had vintage engines, but many featured modern high-horsepower engines. 

Dashboard on a 60's Mustang.

This Corvette was equipped with an ejection seat!

T-top corvette.

I remember stuff like this from when I was a little kid.

This car looked like Christine, even had the right license plate.

Live music at the show. They played car-related songs. Lots of Beach Boys and people were dancing to the music in the blazing sun.

If you were not in the mood for live music, you could play some tunes on the 8-track.

Convertible Caddy. This this was enormous! I see why they used to call them land yachts.

One-Adam-12, car show in progress.

Talked to the owners of this one for a bit. It is their daily driver, and they even took it on a cross country trip to Seattle.

Same model as the ZZ-Top car, and it even had suicide doors.

The owner of this one invited me to sit inside. Ahhhhh! Corinthian Leather!

Each car had to have a fire extinguisher handy. Some of the owners found creative ways to set things up.

This was a really nice restoration of an old-time gangster car.

The gangster car had digital gauges and a modern engine.

I want a set of these for the boat.

This looked like a Hot Wheels car.

Who let this guy in here?

Lots of Hot Rods, this one had a vintage engine in it.

Really eye-catching paint on this one.

T-bucket. Stretched frame and old V-6 engine.

Another Hot Wheels car. 

They had a couple of rat rods. Check out the air scoop on this guy. The paint was done to look like rust patina.

Another rat rod, this one also with a patina finish.

This was my favourite. Adding the off-road tires and flat-black-primer finish made this look like a really cool Jeep. The put a modern engine in it, a four-cylinder, I guess because of limited room.

Another interesting display for a hot rod. This was a pickup truck with an incredible burgundy paint job.

My neighbour restored one of these when I was in high school.

Beep. Beep.

Pickup truck with a patina finish.

Burgundy pickup.

Hot rod pickup.

Finally, for all you Vette fans.

This one had a little extra under the hood.

In the morning we made  an early start, as we had a long day planned. Between Southport and Beaufort there were not a lot of places to stop, and we also had to go through a couple of lift bridges, so we were expecting an eight-hour travel day.

It started out with some pretty rough water. Coming out of Southport we had to cross a large sound with a long fetch. The waves built as we went, but luckily did not become too nasty before we made it to a more protected channel. We got waked several times by large boats. Usually on the ICW if you are a large boat and you want to pass another boat, you get on the radio to arrange passing details. The channel is narrow, so you want to make sure there is no drama. One of the things you do is ask the boat if they want a "slow pass". This requires the vessel in front to slow to idle so the passing boat can come by at no-wake. Well, we got nailed by several really BIG boats that came past without bothering to get on the radio. Jerks.

The ICW is LOADED with crab pots, you see them pretty much constantly. Every once in a while we see the crab fishermen checking the pots. They haul up the pot, dump out the crabs, re-bait the trap and relaunch each one in about 30 seconds.

The ends of many docks have small patio areas built into them. These guys got creative with an old boat stern on the end of their dock.

We also had to pass through two drawbridges. Luckily for us we arrived at low tide, so had enough space to sneak underneath. One of the boats that had passed us got stuck at the bridge as it only opened once an hour. This guy was a "don't", as in "don't know what you are doing". First he called the bridge on the wrong radio channel, then asked for the wrong bridge, then couldn't figure out how the air-clearance board worked (they post the air clearance on the bridge approaches). And of course he blew past us again once he got through the bridge.

We arrived at Mile Hammock bay in the early afternoon and got anchored. This bay is in Camp Lejeune, which is a large Marine base. It is a perfect anchorage, really large and gives 360 degree protection. More boats arrived during the day, and eventually there were 8 boats overnighting here.

We got up at first light and got underway, and lucky for us that we did. There is a lift bridge just beyond the anchorage that was under construction, and was closed between 8am and 4pm. We were a little slow hauling the anchor, and so arrived at the bridge just a few minutes after opening. However, Chris got on the radio and told them we were coming, and the bridge operator could see us so he kept the bridge open for a few extra minutes to let us pass. Lucky again.

After passing the bridge, we went through one of the live-fire zones of Camp Lejeune. When they are shooting here, they close the ICW. As we went along, we saw some shot-up APCs on the shore (forgot to take photos though). There were lots of warning signs on the shore about unexploded ordinance, warning people to stay off the shore.

We arrived in Beaufort N.C. (pronounced like BOW) just after lunch and got tied up. There was a heavy tidal current running here, but fortunately the docks are arranged parallel to the current. Initially I thought I would dock bow-in so I could "fly" the current into our space (an easy way to dock in heavy current), but as we entered the harbour the current died out so we went to plan-B and docked stern-in.

Coming into Beaufort we passed the island protected zone. There are about 400 wild horses living on this island.

There was an island here with wild horses living on it, so we booked what we thought was a boat-tour of the island. Turns out that all they do is ferry you over to the island and leave you there.  We walked around for a bit and Louise went swimming on the beach. We saw four horses in one of the open areas near the beach. Apparently there are almost 400 horses that live wild on the island here.

Mummified animal on the island. I think it was a opossum.

Weez decided to go for a swim. The tide was making a very heavy current here, but the water was warm.

Wild horses on the island. We were basically on the other side of the river from Beaufort. The island is a protected area with wild horses. We could have used the dingy to go over but we didn't know how close Bird Shoal Island was.

Another shot of some of the horses. These were right beside the pick-up area for the water taxi.

The beach on the horse island was immense and pretty much empty. The only way to get here is by boat.

Louise found a live mollusc on the beach. Don't know what species it was.

Back on the boat, Louise and I went for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. This one was the first one we have gone to on the trip that we did not like. Actually, it was not that bad, just OK. We have become spoiled on this trip by the high quality of the Mexican places we have eaten in. After dinner we made some travel plans with Chris and Julie, as there was weather approaching in a few days. We wanted to make sure we did not get hammered.

In the morning we set off on a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and light winds. As we were coming into a narrow section of the ICW a large, fast boat came up behind Stulie. First he looked like he was going to pass on Stulie's Starboard side, then he did a sudden turn and went by on the port. He did this without slowing down, and without warning Chris that he was going to pass. A total dick move. After this jerk passed Stulie, Chris got on the radio "there must be something wrong with my radio, I didn't hear you call me". The jerk replied "yes, I called you on the radio". What an A-hole! The guy behaves like a complete jerk then lies about not calling. We were in front of Stulie, so I expected we would get the same treatment so I pulled over and slowed to idle to minimize his impact on us. He went by plowing a huge wake and kept on going. What a total jackass! I got on the radio to Chris "by the way, there is nothing wrong with your radio, the jackass never called you". For some reason, the rudeness and stupidity of boaters seems to be increasing as we move northward.

We crossed a large channel north of Beaufort and eventually anchored in Campbell creek. This area is large and shallow, and the anchorage was full of crab pots. I anchored in a spot that I thought was far enough away from the crab pots, and then Stulie approached us to raft-up. As they were making their approach, they ran over a crab pot. Luckily Louise saw the crab pot and shouted to Julie just before they hit it, she communicated to Chris and at the last second and put the engines into neutral, but they picked up the pot. As their boat coasted past the spot where the marker was, the marker did no re-appear. Uh-oh. Chris shut down his engines, then put out his anchor and dived under the boat to check. He found that the rope had only gone once around the prop shaft, so he was able to quickly remove it and did not sustain any damage. Turns out there were three crabs in the pot, which he re-set back into the water.

Once he got his anchor set, Chris went into the water to check the props. They had run right over a crab pot, but luckily saw it in time to shift into neutral so there was only one turn of rope around the prop. He cleared the rope off quickly and re-set the pot, leaving the crabs inside for the fisherman.

Lot of these bad boys in the anchorage. Luckily Chris did not get stung when he went swimming to clear his prop. We didn't tell him about the big snake that swam by just before he hit the crab pot.

The winds continued to get stronger though the afternoon, and we were swinging pretty good by supper time. Fortunately, the winds died down a bit around sundown, but they did not completely die out. We had wave slap on the hull all night long. You could hear the "bloop bloop" of the waves as they hit the chine on the bow.

The first few hours the next morning were a little rough. When the conditions are not ideal, the autopilot does not work well, especially if there are following waves. The waves tend to swing the stern around and Otto can't keep up. Makes rough water tiring as you have to drive manually while getting thrown around. Luckily these conditions only lasted an hour or so and then we had smooth sailing through a straight canal.

We arrived at alligator point anchorage just after lunch and got set up. The area was really large so I put out lots of chain to keep us secure. While we were anchoring, Stulie went off exploring the area. When we had sent the anchor, I got on the radio to tell Chris it was all clear to raft up to us. He replied "stand by, I'm hung up on something". Turns out he hit some kind of stump or piling under the water. He managed to get free and rafted onto us, then he dove into the water to check his props. Bad news, he had prop damage. One prop had a noticeable whammy.

Sunrise on the Alligator river. The conditions were windy, but the water was calm here. Little did we know.....

After a quiet night we set off north along the Alligator river. This is a large body of water that can get rough. Lucky for us it was really smooth and we had a pleasant morning cruise. All this changed when we entered Albemarle sound. The wind picked up a bit, and there were roller waves. Initially they were not too large, about one foot, but they were directly on our beam and so we started rolling. As we continued, the waves got larger and the ride became pretty uncomfortable. I started zig-zagging to try to cut down the rolling. Wave size built-up and eventually we were in two-to-three footers. To add to the misery, the sound is fairly shallow, and was loaded with crab pots. These were hard to see in the rolling waves. At one point as I turned in a zig-zag we rolled really badly and Louise was thrown out of her chair. She crawled over to the other chair and got slammed into the seat with the next roll. Louise would get seasick if she tried to read so for the full 2 h she stared out the back of the boat. This helped a lot and calmed her stomach.

Driving the boat required full concentration. Our dingy was also loose as we were crossing. We normally tie it down when we are cruising, but today one of the ropes was loose. No damage luckily.

After 2 hours of this we came into the lee of a peninsula, and the rolling stopped, and we could relax a bit. Continuing along, we eventually came to Coinjock marina. This place is one huge linear dock, about 1100 feet long. They told us they had lots of boats coming in and asked us to raft together. We wanted to raft with Stulie since we do this every time we anchor and the marina was happy to do this for us.

Boats arrived at the marina all day long, and as the docks filled up they rafted boats off of other boats. Really nice facility here, and really well run.

Stulie got tied up to the dock and we rafted onto them. As soon as we were secure, we went to the marina restaurant for lunch. After what we had been through we needed a break. I normally drink non-alcohol beer, but today I needed a real beer. Our server in the restaurant looked just like Ruth from the TV series Ozark.

Louise got a ducky in her drink. 

That evening, Louise and I visited with Ciaran and Patty of No Worries. We have seen their boat off and on for the last few stops and briefly visited with them in Southport after Porch Time. We got along well with them, and were sad to hear that they were parking their boat and returning home for a year. They will continue their loop next year. We hope to see them when they make it to Georgian Bay when they finish their loop in 2026.

They really pack them in in this marina. The anchor was overhanging Stulie's dingy. Made for a tricky departure, but they made it out without incident.

Stulie had made arrangements with a diver at our next marina to take off their props to have them fixed over the weekend, so wanted to leave early the next morning. We were all up at 5 for a 5:45 departure. There was a problem however, their boat was tied REALLY close to the boats in back and in front of them, and there was a strong tide current running. I helped them to rig a removable spring line to get off the dock, but this took time and by the time we left the dock it was a bit after 6. We untied and drifted in the current waiting for Stulie. It took them about 10 minutes to get started, but eventually they made it safely off the dock and we were both underway. I was a bit nervous coming out of the canal, as it was pretty windy, but it turned out that there was very little fetch in the area we were traversing so the waves were no issue.

We made good time until we came to the first barrier of the day, a bridge that opened only on the hour and half hour. We missed the opening on the hour, but made the half-hour opening and on we went. The next bridge was a half-hour away at 15 kmph, and only opened on the hour and half hour, so we put the hammer down to make sure we made it. On the way we passed a tow going the other way, and had to swing wide. Bit of a pucker moment when the depth suddenly went to nothing, but we made it. 
At the next bridge we had to wait for another tow coming through. I had trouble controlling the boat in the windy conditions, but we cleared the tow and the bridge on the hour, and on to the next bridge. This one only opened on the hour, and was only a couple of km away, so we throttled back and cruised along slowly. Despite this, we arrived with 25 minutes to spare. There was a free dock here, so we took advantage and parked the boat to wait.

The lock had big rubber fenders along the side. Each fender was covered with boat stickers, people put them on the fenders when they are waiting in the locks. Nicest lock we've ever been in - clean!

The bridge opened and on we went, this time into a lock. The water level does not change much here, the lift was less than a foot, so I suspect the lock was put in place to limit tidal currents through the ICW. We got through the bridge pretty easily, and now only had 13 km to go to the marina, less than an hour travel. Unfortunately, we hit lots of no-wake zones and had to slow down, then as we approached a railway bridge we had to stop as the bridge, which was normally open, was closing for a passing train.

Norfolk is a big Navy port. This bad boy was undergoing a refit at the Navy repair facility.

After all these delays, we got to our destination, Tidewater marina and got set for the evening. Both Louise and I were exhausted. The last few days had been long and stressful. Weather was coming in, so we will be pinned in Norfolk for the weekend, so we get a chance to recharge.

Boat name of the day: Tops Optional