ICW - New Bern, North Carolina

We took a slight detour off the ICW and traveled 27 miles to New Bern, NC for the Southbound Cruisers Rendezvous.  We stayed here for 3 nights for seminars, get-togethers, and parties.  We took this time to stock up on provisions, do laundry, and perform more maintenance on our boats.  We also get together once a week as a group for a briefing on the next week with routes, stops, charting and areas of caution.  Again, those that know us – we have never encountered, tides and currents before this adventure.  There are areas that we need to wait until high tide before we are able to continue.  Timing is everything!  We may have gone aground in Lake St. Clair, but we are trying hard not to go aground here.  We are now starting to encounter bridges that either have a schedule or open after contacting the bridge tender.

New Bern, NC, is a great small town.  Chuck had lived here for a short time when he was in the Marines and he says it looks very different today.  We were able to find a cute ice cream store decorated in a cow theme.

   

ICW - Oriental, North Carolina

Docking at Oriental was a bit challenging for all of us with winds up to 30 mph!  It was a long day on the water and the town held a great evening of entertainment for our Sail Rally.  Entertainment included Drumming Dragons, Ukulele Group and a Guitar Band!  Some of the restaurants even offered us specials for the evening with special dishes and half-price wine!  Oriental is a quaint, harbor town with shrimp boats, lots of sailboats, shops, and galleries.  Oriental is located on The Neuse River, the widest mouthed river in the U.S. and five miles across.  In this town, boats outnumber the citizens three to one!

ICW - Dowry Creek, North Carolina

After leaving Elizabeth City, we traveled just over 50 miles and settled in an anchorage called Logging Camp.  The next morning just before dawn we continued on to Dowry Creek, NC.  We had 16 boats from the Sail Rally that met here for the night.  The marina held a dinner for us with homemade smoked pork and ham and all the fixings including homemade desserts! The next morning (again before dawn!) we set out for Oriental, NC for a 50 mile trip.  We were able to sail in Bear Creek and then encountered Maw Point where the waves and wind really picked up!  By the time we docked that day in Oriental, NC, the winds were somewhere between 20-25 mph!

ICW – Elizabeth City, North Carolina

There are two locks in the Dismal Swamp before arriving at Elizabeth City, North Carolina.  There is also a bridge that needs to be opened either before or after the lock which results in about a two hour lock through.  Elizabeth City is a wonderful, friendly city that has free docks to all transient boaters of the Dismal Swamp.  The town has a Rose Buddies party for the transient boaters and provide free drinks and snacks and a rose for all the women.  Leaving Elizabeth City we passed by the factory that makes blimps – this is quite secretive but we did get a picture of the factory and one of the blimps being made.  Every blimp operator in the US except for Goodyear is made and serviced in Elizabeth City.  

We sailed across the Albemarle Sound after leaving at dawn – what a beautiful sail!

    

   

    

ICW - Dismal Swamp

The weather forecast for today, Saturday, November 1st, is not good – winds 15-20 with gusts up to 45 mph and waves 2-4 feet.  This means we need to get across the river and into the ICW and down to the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center for the night.   The ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) is actually 4,000 miles long and starts in Boston, Massachusetts and ends at Brownsville, Texas and is the most extensive protected coastline in the world.  The most common reference to ICW is from Norfolk, Virginia to Miami, Florida which is 1,098 miles.  This is the route we are taking on the Sail Rally and hope to arrive by December 20th.  We passed the Norfolk Military Shipyard before passing the red buoy 36 which marks Mile 0 of the ICW.  We had to wait for several bridges to open and some are restricted and only open on certain hours of the day.  There are two routes you can take for the first 65 miles of the ICW 1) Dismal Swamp or 2) Virginia Cut.  The majority of our Rally chose the Dismal Swamp, but if your draft is 6 feet or more you cannot take this route.  Today we encountered the first lock of two on the Dismal Swamp and from start to finish it took 2 and 1/2 hours!  The water in the Dismal Swamp is brown due to the amount of tannins in the water – we will have to clean the mustache off from Silent Dream when we leave the swamp.  The Dismal Swamp was dug out by hand by slaves in the 1760’s and it is very narrow – not sure how two boats would pass each other in opposite directions?  We arrived at the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center after almost 10 hours and 42 statute miles.  There is only room for three boats on the dock so all of eight of us had to raft off the three boats already there – good thing boaters are friendly!

We stayed a second night at the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center – the dock is free, but there are no services such as electric, water or showers.  The temperature was 32 degrees on the morning we left.  We had to scrape the ice off the dodger windows, not to mention we froze trying to sleep. Thank goodness we are headed south!

Sail Magazine is also keeping a blog of this rally – check it out at http://icw.sailmagazine.com/blog/10/the-icw-snowbird-rally/

    

   

Hampton, Virginia - Sail Rally

For four days we have all been doing many tasks and chores to prepare for the start of the Sail Rally down the ICW – cleaning, fueling, shopping, installing, repairing, maintaining, pumping, and on and on.  West Marine has a courtesy shuttle that will take us to their store and grocery shopping or any other store we need.  They only do this during the week of the Salty Dog Rally and the Caribbean 1500 which is this week – how lucky!  We stayed at a wonderful marina at the Hampton Maritime Center.  There are 19 boats in the Sail Rally and all but 3 boats are here at this marina.  Salt water is so very different on a boat than fresh water.  Since we spent almost a month sitting in Annapolis, we hired a diver to clean the bottom of Silent Dream this week.  Our boat speed wheel had stopped recently due to something on it – could have been barnacles!  The Sail Rally had cocktail parties several nights and meetings for us in preparation for the trip which starts on Saturday, November 1 st.

   

Hampton, Virginia

We left the anchorage in Reedville before sunrise on Monday, October 27 th.  This provided me with the most beautiful picture of another sailboat in the anchorage.  The seas were calm with winds about 5 knots and 1 foot waves.  Thank goodness Chuck fixed the engine as we were not able to sail today.  The Chesapeake Bay is a very busy shipping channel and we were often passed by many freighters.  There is a lighthouse to the entrance for Hampton Roads.  We arrived in Hampton after motoring 10  1/2 hours and travelling over 57 nautical miles, the tides and currents drastically affect boat speed.  We will be staying here in Hampton, VA in Hampton City Docks Marina where the rest of the Sail Rally participants will be gathering as we prepare to leave together down the ICW on Saturday, November 1 st.

Reedville, Virginia

We tried to leave Solomons Island, but our engine wasn’t going to cooperate.  We went back to the anchorage and Chuck worked on a few things.  We tried a second time and the engine seemed better until we were out about two hours, then it started to get worse.  Winds were calm, but we put up the sails so Chuck could work on the engine again.  This didn’t help much, but there was no place to go for protection except Reedville, VA which was 42 miles from Solomons Island.  Since we left so late and with the engine problems, our trip took almost 8 hours and we arrived at 7:30 pm.  We are glad that twilight lasts as long as it does as we arrived at the anchorage in the dark in 3-4 foot waves with 10-15 knot winds.  Thank goodness for electronic charts and the I-Pad.  

We stayed anchored another day in Reedville until Chuck resolved the engine problem – a bad fuel pump!  It was good that we stayed because the winds today are 10-15 knots with gusts up to 30 knots with 3 foot waves.  The anchorage here is beautiful and Yes, the leaves are turning colors!  We put our time to good use and worked on some Boat To Do’s.

  

Solomons Island, Virginia

We sailed out into the Chesapeake in winds 15-25 mph and 3 foot waves with the current behind us.  Our destination is Solomons Island, VA, 45 miles south. We sailed the entire way and this is a first!  It’s a good thing because we are having engine problems, the RPMS’s keep fluctuating and the engine dies.  We tucked in on Friday in a very protected anchorage in Solomons Island.  This is the first time we are using our new Mantus anchor we purchased at the Annapolis Sailboat Show and we love it.

  

Leaving Annapolis

We left Annapolis on Friday, October 24^th after spending almost a month at the Horn Point Harbor Marina.  This is a small marina with about 40 slips located on Back Creek with a view of the Chesapeake Bay, about a 7 block walk to downtown Annapolis.  We saw many sunrises over the Chesapeake right from inside our boat.  Our boat neighbor and Catalina owner, Skip, became a good friend to us and helped us get around town.  We love Annapolis and the people.

Annapolis Weekend

Our sailing friends from Michigan, Steve and Becky, were able to spend a day with us during a visit with their family in the Annapolis area.  Our first stop was Davis’s Pub for their famous Crab Pretzel and Crab Cake Sandwich – oh so good!  Next on the agenda included walking in downtown Annapolis with many stores, shops, and old architecture and of course a Painkiller at Pusser’s Caribbean Grille.  This was the weekend of the Annapolis Powerboat Show and there were several places with free drinks!  We did Grand Marnier shots on a water ski – all four of us at the same time!  Our stay in Annapolis would not be complete without Maryland Blue Crabs at Jimmy Cantler’s.  We had more than we could eat!  A fun day with good friends.