(To view Album scroll to end)Departure August 12, 2003. We finally left New Bern and continued cruising. We were about two hours out in the Neuse River when a large thunderstorm approached. The storm was on our starboard side and lucky half of it had passed already. We hoped to miss the other half as well. The cell phone rang; Leslie was calling and was very concerned about us. There was a huge waterspout heading up Adams Creek, biggest one ever seen and she wanted to know if we heard the Coast Guard report on VHF Channel 16. Nope we didn't and not good news at all, we were headed towards Adams Creek. We had just a few more miles to go and we were sure that the storm to starboard was the one with the water spout. We had the radio on Channel 16 but never heard the warning, so Sid investigated it right away. He found the antenna wire wasn't hooked up and so we never received the coast guard weather warning. We kept our eyes out for waterspouts. About five minutes later we saw the waterspout or the rest of it as it died. That was close, too close to be to a waterspout and we did get the second half of the cloud, which luckily was just a lot of rain and no wind.
BROAD CREEK 25 nautical miles
Our first anchorage was Broad Creek about 6 miles East of Oriental, a very remote place. I have to admit that it was a bit nerve wrecking heading into Broad Creek, since the water depth was only 7 feet, we draw 6 and knowing the charts haven’t been upgraded in years. Never know what past hurricanes and storms have done to the depth of this entrance. It stayed at 7 feet and there was no other boat so plenty of anchorage for us. There’s no better anchorage than one with just Paradise anchored. It was so tranquil we staid two days and did nothing but relax. We didn't even put the dinghy in the water. The only not so relaxing thing was a mosquito attack before sunset, but with so much swamp and water around, that was to be expected and we were prepared for it with nets. The second night a pretty good thunderstorm missed our anchorage, which we didn't mind a bit. After sunset navy jets entertained us by shooting tracers, which was a great air show.
OCRACOKE ON THE OUTER BANKS nautical 30 miles
August 14, just about one hour south of Broad Creek we watched target practice by the jets again, this time they were shooting rockets at some islands, just awesome. The water finally turned a bit lighter in color but still was pretty dirty looking. The worst was the water was infested with stinging nettles (medusa jellyfish). The sky behind us turned black and the Coast Guard gave another waterspout warning out, but it was way behind us. We had a pleasant trip, sunny weather, but not one breath of air, so the iron jib was running the whole entire way to Ocracoke.
Ocracoke is at the southern end of Cape Hatteras Nation Seashore and is a very cute tourist town. Ocracoke was the hangout of Black Beard and also the place where he was beheaded. We anchored in Silver Lake, where most of the tourist stuff takes place, took our bicycles ashore and toured most of the island, enjoying the pretty scenery. We found a great little bar with 15-cent happy hour shrimp. Unfortunately they only served wine and beer, so after we ate the shrimp we headed to the next bar to enjoy a Long Island Ice Tea. Ocracoke is a very cute place, but had a few minor problems: mosquitoes, no-see-ums, deer flies and no BOOZE. As so many other counties in North Carolina, this is one of the dry ones, where selling liquor in public places is against the law. So at the next bar we had another beer. This reminded me that playing Lottery in North Carolina is against the law as well and you can get fined for being in possession of a lottery ticket from another state. Don't they realize that they would be in better shape if they had a lottery here, no wonder this is the poorest State in the US.
Since the weather was very hot and muggy, we decided to go for a refreshing swim and drove the dinghy around the island, through the opening of the island into the Atlantic. We were hoping not to find jellyfish out in the Atlantic, wrong there was not one foot without seeing one. There was an inviting little sandy spit in the middle of the channel entrance and so we ventured to explore the island. We weren't there for long before deer flies started to attack us. Ouch, do they hurt.
One evening sitting on deck sipping our cocktail (the only place we could get one!), we wondered what the difference between a captain and skipper was, do you know? Well this is what I came up with:
A Captain has a 6 pack
A Skipper drinks a 6 pack
Don't know if I'm right, sounds good to me. We definitely are skippers.
(For those who don’t know what a six pack is = boat slang for captain’s license.)
The weather was great except for the 3rd night. A horrendous thunderstorm hammered us with lightning bolts left and right, hitting way too close and it rained buckets. It was a very intense and quite scary storm, which lasted two hours. The only other time we've been in a thunderstorm like this was in Bahia Honda in Panama. At least that one only lasted 20 minutes.
By the way, Ocracoke was devastated by Hurricane Isabel the following month.
BELHAVEN nautical 39 miles
August 19, we had the craving for a good Long Island Ice Tea and so we finally left Ocracoke and venture to Belhaven. Again not a breath of air, the motor was humming and we had to dodge hundreds and hundreds of crab pots, they were everywhere and of course a nuisance for us boaters.
Belhaven is in the Pantego Creek adjacent to the ICW. Just in front of the harbor entrance two squalls decided to let loose and pinned us between them. The one behind us was blowing like snot; the one in front of us was pounding us with a lot of rain. At least it didn't last long and the boat had a good wash down.
We found a nice spot to anchor in the big anchorage and started to drop the anchor as I noticed a crab trap behind us, worrying about the depth, since they drop those traps in 5 feet of water. Sid said not to worry that he would bring the chain up 25 feet. When we looked back there again the trap was about 75 feet behind us. Now Sid was the worried one, he thought that we were dragging, but how could we, there was no wind? Then we realized that is was just a trap float freely floating around, really funny. By the way, the water here was the color of root beer.
I guess it’s just impossible for us to find an anchorage without any mosquitoes. In the morning we went on deck and noticed all these little mice turds all over the boat. No way could we have that many mice, especially not with two cats on board. After more investigation we figured out it was the work of bats. You should have seen the boat after two nights getting crapped on by them, not a pretty sight.
Belhaven has a little marina "Forest River Marina" which has golf carts available to go grocery shopping at a Food Lyon 4 miles away, unfortunately we didn’t find out until we got back. They told us it was only one mile away, so we walked, about 5 minutes into the walk we were in the town center and had no idea where to go. The first person we asked gave us a ride to the store. As we came out of the Food Lyon, carrying full back packs and shopping bags in our hands, we were stared at by every car passing, after starring they would smile and then wave. We felt like we were the attraction of the whole town, it was really weird. Better yet after 5 minutes walking a car pulls across the street right in front of us and a big guy in a little Volkswagen with a slice of pizza in his hand, offered us a ride back to the marina.
In the evening we heard sirens go off and when we heard them again in the morning, now knowing how nice theses people here were, the Twilight Zone came to our minds. Seemed a really strange place.
ALLIGATOR RIVER /PONGO RIVER 80 nautical miles
August 21, due to a weather change we decided to do an 80 mile trip to get across the Albemarle Sound, which can get pretty ugly in certain weather conditions, which was forecasted. It was a long but very rewarding day. There was not a ripple on the water, the early morning clouds reflection in the water enhanced the beautiful reddish sunrise, it was a very peaceful atmosphere.
A bit further up the river was the start of the 22 mile Alligator River, a man made canal connecting the Pamlico with the Albemarle Sound. A 22 mile narrow and straight canal; overgrown with trees right into the canal to just swampy looking areas and not one house, just nature. 22 miles doesn't sound like much, but traveling 6 knots per hour it took 4 hours. We watched an osprey catching a huge catfish for his lunch and turtles sunning on broken off tree roots.
As we reached the Albemarle Sound the wind started to blow 10-15knots out of the SE a perfect condition for us and to make it all the way to the other side before the wind really picked up, we motor sailed the 15 miles across. There was one crab pot after another and we constantly had to change course to avoid them.
On the other side we headed 5 miles up the North River to the first protected anchorage Buck Island and anchored behind a the swampy inlet. Amazingly for the swampy area it was, we didn't get one mosquito bite and the breeze was pleasantly cool. There is a place without them after all.
We did have some mosquito like insects buzz around our ears, they look like them, sound like them but don't bite and the tail goes up instead of down like on a mosquito (somebody told me once that they are called mosquito soldiers and actually eat them). Since they didn't bite we didn't mind them until the next morning when Sid went out into the cockpit. The underside of our awning was black; covered with these no biting mosquitoes, that wasn't the bad part. The bad part was, they left little black dots on deck, in the cockpit and on all the cushions and canvas and when water hit those dots they turned turquoise green, what a mess. It was so bad, that we decided to hit the next marina available to wash the boat and canvas and cushion covers.
The next marina was only 7 miles further up the river. On the way I noticed a green tree frog climbing up the wind vane. After marveling over the little frog and taking pictures, we discovered another frog, then another and another. One even started climbing up the wind generator (ever heard of the frog in a blender!).
COINJOCK 7 miles from Buck Island
August 22, it took us a few hours to straighten out the boat and I even found a new home for most of the frogs, two remained with us for a few more days. The Coinjock marina is a quaint little place and a must stop. The marina restaurant offers a 32 ounce Prime Rib, which we couldn't pass up and so we spent one night in this cute marina. The Prime Rib was about 2 inches thick with bone in and by far the best one we've ever had. Oh, we learned the real name of those mosquitoes: "shit-green-and-die-bugs.” No kidding! (That’s what the locals call them).
PUNGO FERRY
August 23, 20 miles further up the river was our next stop. Pungo Ferry Marina and since this was the last marina for us to visit for a while, we decided to enjoy the luxury of shower facility and air-conditioned boat for one last time. The marina wasn't as well presented as in the brochures; the photo didn't even match the marina. The water depths that they advertised was about 4 feet short, so we were just barely sitting on ground. It was still a very pleasant stop.
WILLOUGHBY BAY, NORFOLK, VA 39 statue miles
August 24, we arrived very exhausted in Willoughby Bay, the last anchorage before heading into the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk. Exhausted because on this 39 mile trip there was so much action and so much to see it was a very exciting trip. The action was huge power boats blasting by us left and right without slowing down, leaving us to deal with huge wakes. They just don’t care for us sail boaters. We had a lot of bridges to cross and it still amazed us, that we just call them on the radio and they stop traffic to raise the bridge for us.
The best excitement was to go through a lock, which of course was a lot smaller then the Panama Canal locks, but was just as exciting. The funny thing about this was, the lock dropped us a whopping 6 inches, wow (on our way back we rose 1 ½ feet). After the lock we encountered a lot more traffic and the scenery changed from tranquil to industrial. Through Norfolk it was just industrial and then in the Down Town area just Navy vessels. The highlight of the day was circling around the channel marker which is mile marker 0, the begin of the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway). From there it was another 5 miles to the anchorage leading us by all the warships and another excitement was to sail by the new Ronald Reagan Carrier, Warship #76, wow very impressive.
One more exciting thing was to see 82 feet of water under the keel that is very rare on the East Coast. The average we had so far was 8 - 10 feet.
Then approaching our anchorage the guide said to stay close to channel marker R "2", due to shoaling by the green marker. So we did that and bumpedibump we hit bottom. Author of "Cruising the Chesapeake" William Shellenberger wrote in his guide: Running aground in the Chesapeake is very much a "so-what" affair. In fact, if you don't run aground here a few times a year, you just are not adventurous enough! Guess we're doing it right.
FISHING COVE IN DELTAVILLE 42 miles
August 25, Deltaville-Fishing Cove is a neat cove to anchor. We took our bicycles and had fun discovering this little place. There really isn't much too it. We did find the Boat US Store and West Marine, next door was the only grocery store for miles. Actually the grocery store is very accommodating to cruisers, they will pick you up at the marina and drop you off again. The catch is you have to spend 25 dollars in the store, which is easy to do. Even some of the restaurants are providing that service.
The heat was unbearable and the second evening in the anchorage we noticed this copper haze, which we just read about in the Chesapeake guide when that happens we would get very strong gusting winds. In Mexico such a storm is called Chubasco and knowing how bad a Chubasco can be, we rolled our sunshade up and wow not much later the wind kicked up and gusted violently. No kidding they have Chubascos here too, just don't have a name for it. It actually is the black cloud that is in front of a thunderstorm that will bring all the heavy wind. They usually don't last long, but can be very strong and damaging. This one included an incredible lightning show as well.
TANGIER ISLAND/CRISFIELD 31 nautical miles
August 27, our plan was to head all the way up the Potomac River to Washington DC. Sid was charting our next trip and when he checked out anchorages further up the river, he noticed that there were a very few places suitable for 6 foot draft. In a case of a storm we would have had no place to take cover and so we decided to head to Baltimore instead and take public transportation to Washington. Tangier Island was on our plan next, since everybody was raving about it. On our way to Tangier Island, sailing vessel Paradise turned into warship Paradise and became a huge battleground. Instead of enjoying a leisurely sail, we both had a loaded 50-magnum fly swatter in our hands, killing black flies left and right. Those suckers looked like a regular house fly but are ankles biters and hurt like hell. They would come in hoards, we kill them all, rest for 10 seconds and the next hoard came flying in. Well, at least we stayed busy until we reached the island. The island sure looks very cute and inviting, but since the channel to the main harbor showed a depth of 7 feet only, we decided to anchor out. The only problem was, the anchorage was blocked with fishing nets and it was open to the south and the east and didn't seem very protected, so we sailed another 15 miles to Crisfield, still battling biting flies. Coming into Crisfield Harbor we were greeted by deer flies as well. Sid and I looked quite funny with our black fly suits and socks on, but it worked they couldn't bite us anymore. (Black fly suit is like sweats made out of no-see-um netting with a hood and a zipper around the hood, so that you still can enjoy a cocktail). We were really glad that we made the decision to head into Crisfield, then the same evening we had another one of those freak Chubascos, the worst one yet. It was kind of weird too, we saw the cloud approaching and about 5 minutes before it hit the sirens in Crisfield when on, so we figured that they have a warning system for bad storm. Later we found out that they use them for the voluntary fire fighters.
It was eerie watching the storm approach. The cloud was huge and looked like a giant mammoth foot, which would crush us at any second; I don't think I would like to see a cloud formation like that ever again. It still took quite some time before we received the first wind bursts and then all hell went loose. The little sport fisher in front of us broke his anchor and he started drifting off rather fast. They started the motor and re-anchored and of course right in front of us, we could almost shake hands. Then the 40 some foot power boat next to us started taking off like a rocket, they powered into the wind and eventually re-anchored as well. At the same time one of those Mega Yachts (100 some feet), also anchored in the marina broke loose and headed in high speed towards the marina slips. He had a hard time to get the boat back under control and had to fight with his anchor chain as well. The sail boat next to us and we didn't move an inch.
We used to debate whether to leave or take the sunshade down during approaching thunder storms, here we learned to take it down no matter what, better safe then sorry.
Crisfield is the world’s capital of crabbing and we happened to arrive just on time for the famous annual crab festival, good planning on our part, for not knowing about the festival. There is really not much to Crisfield except many hardware stores and a few restaurant. Of course it was a dry county too and so no Long Island Ice Teas for us. Being the crab capital I was hoping to be able to buy some nice live crab for a wonderful dinner. What a shocker to find out that they wanted $48 for a dozen of soft-shell, $38 for dozen large, $26 a dozen mediums and they were steamed already, can't by live crab anywhere. In New Bern I used to pay $8 to 12 per dozen still live. There is no way I would ever pay these prices and so Sid and I are now official "Chickenneckers"! (tying a chicken neck to a string, letting it sink to the bottom, waiting until it moves, pulling it very slowly up to the surface, having a net ready and net the crab.) We had some other help too, we bought two small crab cages with chicken necks tied inside and with a neck tied to a string lured the crabs into the cages. We caught 8 crabs in two hours and had a lot of fun. Every time I caught one I would say: "we just made another 3 bucks".
The festival was fun, we watched crab races and also crab picking contest. You wouldn't believe how fast these ladies picked the crabs; the record is 4 pounds in 15 minutes.
The marina has a dinghy dock available for $10 a day. First I thought how ridiculous the price was, but then we found out that showers, laundry facility and the POOL were included. After not being able to swim in the jelly fish infested water, the pool sounded just wonderful. We did use it every day too and didn't even mind sharing it with all the little kids, knowing what they do in the water.
There was a weather change in the forecast so we left with still favorable weather to Solomon across the bay, which was a good move.
SOLOMON 36 miles
August 31, the weather was dreary, but nice and cool and not too many biting flies molested us on the 36-mile trip to Solomon. We actually sailed the whole way and even managed to have the Spinnaker up for the last hour, although we ran out of wind. We anchored in front of the Museum amongst a few other sailboats (three of them rafted together) and hooked with no problem. Early the next morning we took the dinghy across to the Carlvert Marina to let our friends Cissy and Roger on Friend Ship know that we had arrived. We were there for just a few minutes when we noticed white smoke coming out of one of the boats two docks further down. Our though was bad engine, but the smoke grew bigger and bigger and also darker. Then people were running around like head less chickens, that's when we realized that it was a fire. Then fire shot through the side windows and within just minutes the whole boat was engulfed in flames. By the time the fire department arrived the boat was burned to a crisp. The next door neighbor got his boat out just on time before the flames blew out the windows. A couple hours later listening to the VHF radio we heard that a 50 year old woman fell over board, they were searching for her, found her but couldn’t revive her. After that we went into town shopping when the phone rang, receiving very sad news that our friend Lou Medina was found dead in his apartment.
In the afternoon Roger and Cissy came over for cocktail. They weren’t even on the boat for 5 minutes when a dark cloud came by and dumped a whole bunch of rain on us. This one didn’t seem to have wind involved, so we just closed all the hatches. We didn’t think we needed to take the wind scoop down and just closed the hatch on top of that, which we’ve done numerous times before. It rained really hard and we relaxed in the cockpit, sipping on our cocktails and munching on goodies, when Cissy suddenly screamed and pointed inside the boat: “my gosh, you have a waterfall in your boat”. My gosh, she was right, the wind scoop funneled all the water onto the salon table, it was funneling buckets inside. I’ve never seen so much water gushing anywhere. It must have been two full buckets of water in just a few seconds and what a mess, but luckily it was just rain water and not salt water.
Around 9Pm, Sid relaxing in the cockpit and just starting to fall asleep, hearing a frantic woman's voice scream: "Oh my gosh, we're going to hit this boat", immediately knowing what this meant Sid jumped up to watch. I heard Sid say: "oh shit!" now that made me run on deck and what we saw was the three boats rafted together headed dead for us. All we could do was hold on so that we wouldn’t get knocked on our butts, while they rammed us on the beam. Our hearts were pounding only a few more feet to go until the impact and swoop they caught up with the anchor and sharply turned and moved now in a circle, missing us just by inches. That was close! What happened was, one of them started to run the engine to either run the fridge or to load the batteries and had the boat in gear.
The following night another one of those black walls headed our direction. Immediately we took the sunshade down, tied everything down and got ready for another blow. It started blowing hard and immediately we started to move sideways, we knew we were on the move and dragging. What happened was that we circled the anchorage a couple of times in the last two days, the anchor chain got wrapped around the anchor and with the first wind gust, it pulled the anchor right out of the mud. We were moving fast had the engine started just on time to keep from ramming into the boat which was behind us. Ironically, as we prepared for the storm I had to open my mouth: "I'm sure glad we don't have any boats in front of us", and Sid saying: "unless we take off!" Well, we came close to the other boat, but not as close as the three boats the night before. But we did come to the conclusion that it had to be the place Solomon to be responsible for all the happenings.
SELBY BAY 39 miles
September 4, a calm but drizzling day and so we motored 39 miles to Selby Bay, which is a very nice protected anchorage next to a marsh. The sunset was beautiful but not as spectacular as the sunrise. While sipping our coffee and letting the engine warm up, we watched locals getting crabs in their little boats. They had a very interesting way of catching crab and so much faster than the Chickenneckers way. We just learned something new and so of course on our trip south we stopped here again and tried the new way of catching crab. Unfortunately it was already late in season and the crabs headed into deeper water to burry themselves for winter. We did have some rare visitors though; two Bald Eagles were soaring the skies above Paradise.
BALTIMORE 36 miles
September 5, we headed 36 miles to weather towards Baltimore. It wasn't too uncomfortable, had to alter course a bit to be able to sail but sailed all the way. Getting closer to Baltimore more traffic took our attention, as well as some shoals, but we made it safe into the harbor. Baltimore is about 11 miles up the Patapsco River, which is a commercial harbor, so not much to see until you approach the big city. After seeing all the ugly commercial stuff we were absolutely impressed to find Baltimore to be a beautiful and modern looking city. It's definitely one of the prettiest cities I've ever seen. We were very impressed. For two nights we anchored off the Anchorage Marina, then we moved into a slip. We were anchored just a few hours when a water taxi scooted by with horn blasting and loud shouting: “Ahoy Paradise!” It was Mary and Dick on "The Dorcas Hardy", they spent all summer here and were working as captain and mate for the water taxi (The Dorcas was mentioned in previous letters, we met in Mexico and they visited us in New Bern). It was great to see them and had a wonderful brunch the following Sunday, then a ride around the harbor on the water taxi. Since they worked for them, we were invited to ride the Duck Tour. The Ducks are WWII 36-passenger open-air amphibious vehicle, which take you on a historical drive around town and then into the water and around the Inner Harbor. They also give you a Wacky Quacker; looks like a ducks bill, blow into it and it quacks like a duck too, can you imagine full grown adults with a duck bill in their mouth, making funny noises!!!
The 3rd Southbound Cruisers Reunion was held from 8th to 11th of September and of course the marina was full. We had a little inside help to get a slip. Jacob, the dock master used to be the dock master in New Bern and was the one who hired Sid; he found us a slip, thanks Jacob. The Anchorage Marina is huge with 541 slips. Our slip was P-60 and was almost on the end of a T-shaped pier. We had to walk an almost ½ mile to get to our slip, no need to mention that we got plenty of exercise while in Baltimore. As a matter of fact, the first few days I walked so much, I had sore muscles all over.
It is so nice to be in the land of plenty again. Plenty wonderful restaurant, pubs and taverns, as New Bern had really nothing to offer on that subject. So we treated ourselves to a very nice anniversary dinner on September 8th (wow 13 years already). For an after dinner drink we found the coolest Irish bar "Claddaugh" and ended up spending every Monday night for Football there. The special was a pitcher of beer and 30 Buffalo wings for $ 10.95, what a deal, besides the bartender was fun.
Last Christmas we bought a desk top computer thinking that they were stronger then laptops, as both of our laptops were constantly broken. After six months the hard drive on the new computer crashed. Luckily this one had a CD Burner, so I didn't loose all too much. For repairs we had to send it back to Illinois and two week later it arrived in a punctured box, with broken computer handle and the darn thing wouldn't run and when it finally did it sounded like the drive was full of gravel. Yup, UPS had to buy us a new computer, what a drag, especially when traveling.
We had a great time with the southbound reunion; it's kind of like Cruisers Week in Catalina. The seminars were very interesting and we learned a lot more about electrolysis, weather and other useful thing for boating. We lucked out with the weather too, the very next day after the reunion it rained buckets and then of course Isabel started to sneak up on us. Now that was probably one of the longest storms in history, it took for ever to hit land. She was monstrous too, with 350 miles across, two to three times bigger then a hurricane usually gets.
HURRICANE ISABEL:
You don’t want to be in the Northeast quadrant of any storm, be it a squall or hurricane; because the weather in that quadrant cannot be predicted. Only that it’s going to be the worst part. Isabel did a good job on missing the Chesapeake Bay and going right for the area we left for the same reason (New Bern). But the storm went straight up the southwest coast of the Chesapeake Bay. Although it was downgraded to a tropical storm after it hit land, we experienced plenty of hurricane force. Baltimore itself got caught with their pants down, as they were only predicting tropical storm winds and a four to five foot surge. In reality we ended up with very high almost hurricane force winds plus gusts and a nine-foot surge. A 3-foot wind wave with occasional 4-foot breakers rolled through the marina. Surprisingly the marina did very well and only few of the boats suffered damage. The surge came within two feet of pushing the docks off the pilings; some other marinas weren’t so lucky. Of course power was out for almost one week, because the transformers ended up under salt water. Unfortunately for us when the wind turned south we caught the waves on the beam on our slip, which made things very uncomfortable for about 6 to 7 hours. The site of the boat being pitched four feet out of the water and at the same time the finger dock pulled one foot up in the air was very frightening. Thanks to Sid’s skills we were very fortunate in not having any damage, since we probably had the worst slip in the marina for a southerly swell and of course 75 knots of wind. The only thing we lost was some nerves and a good night’s sleep. Instead we walked the dock and retied several boats which had snapped dock lines; tried to push bumpers back in-between the boats and docks. One of them was a 45 foot sport fisher, he bounced so high out of the water that we actually could see the propellers. The one we really couldn’t help at all was a house boat, which was almost bouncing onto the dock. It banged against the dock so hard it didn’t just damage the dock but separated the deck from the hull. Amazing how many boat owners didn’t even come down to the marina and prepare the boat for the storm; most of them were poorly secured to the dock, like this one.
Leaving New Bern was a good decision, but we got caught in a hurricane after all. Baltimore hasn’t seen a storm like this since 1933. Because of her size, 350 miles across, she made it all the way up to here and even further. It’s been another adventure for us and something we can put in our resume (as if we’re going back to work again)!
The morning after (and it’s always the morning after, bad storm only hit at night), a lot of debris was still floating all around the boats. Lots of debris was also washed onto the dock, it looked like a war zone. The water was still high, as a matter of fact when we walked over to our friend’s boat for coffee, it was almost crotch high along the walk way around the marina and you had to walk up to get on the dock. You could see the dazed look in people’s eyes that had stayed up through the storm and also the relieved look of those that had no damage to their boats. Most of the boats that were damaged were boats that the owners did not tend. Everybody was swapping stories about how the night went.
Walking through town you could see many cars afloat that weren’t designed to float. Our friends on the Dorcas lost their car as well. The most outstanding thing that you could see was the look of disbelieve of most of the people that came to see the carnage.
Been there done that, but just can’t seem to find the hat? Now we have experience and you all know what experience is: experience is something you don’t have until just after you need it!
I think we were pretty lucky that the storm hit at low tide, otherwise we would have had another 2 feet of surge and the docks would have gone over the pilings.
Jacob gave us his car and Sam’s club card, so that we could do some provisioning. After we loaded the cart full with goodies, we tried to pay for it. Since Jacob’s card was a business card, they requested a business check and refused cash. What is this world coming too; we can not pay with CASH anymore, that is scary. What a bummer, we wasted a whole hour at Sam’s Club and had to leave all the goodies behind.
Baltimore takes Christmas serious, they start decorating the streets in middle of September already and stores have all the Christmas stuff out too. I’m sure nobody forgets Christmas here.
Isabel screwed up some of our plans, we wanted to go to the Smithsonian in Washington, but they had major flooding and damage due to Isabel. Amtrak wasn’t even running. When everything finally was opened and back to normal, rain hit the area and flooded everything again and so we never had a chance to visit Washington DC.
We did rent a car for one week and drove to New York, to see some friends. Bob and Marty took super care of us and gave us the royal tour through lower, middle and upper Manhattan and took a stroll in China Town. I’ve never been to New York and was overwhelmed in how huge this city is, just incredible. The sad part was to see ground zero where the two towers once stood. What amazed us too was in how huge this city was and yet it was surrounded by forests, parks and nature and all the rural areas are little towns. Most incredible sight though was seeing Manhattan at night from across the Hudson River. Bob and Marty live in Pomona, just outside of Nyack and about 30 minutes away from down town Manhattan. You would never know that they live so close to this giant city. Thanks Bob and Marty we had a wonderful time and sorry you caught Sid’s cold.
While we were in Baltimore Sid got a terrible cold twice, including fever for five days, poor guy.
ANNAPOLIS 39 miles
October 3, Sid still had a fever, but with bad weather in the forecast we decided to head out of Baltimore anyway. We didn’t want to get stuck here for another week or so. The Annapolis boat show was coming up and in order to find an anchor spot we had to leave before everyone else did. Good thing we left, the weather stayed unfavorable for almost a week. We had no wind and had to motor all the way to Annapolis. But since Sid wasn’t feeling so good we didn’t mind. We found one of the last spots in the anchorage at Spar Creek. Sid’s fever finally broke, but he had a hacking cough for weeks to come. I was fine until after the boat show and followed Sid’s foot steps.
The boat show was absolutely fabulous; I’ve never seen a better boat show. We spent three days walking around and went into every boat there was. If we ever win the lottery we’ll get a J 46, what a nice, fast and comfy boat. We were so amazed to find Glacier Bay (our refrigerator unit) with the new model, which is less than half the size and weight of our unit, wow. That’s on our future list.
Sid’s main interest was to find an air-compressor, which we found, but then we stumbled onto Sailrite sewing machines and ended up buying one. We do all our canvas work ourselves and needed a better machine.
One company rented a huge hall and organized a swap meet. They took all kinds of junk on consignment and sold it for everybody. It was a bit of a rip-off though, we had to spend 10 bucks to get items in and the commission was 35%. The rip-off was when we wanted to shop through the place; they wanted to charge us an extra 5 bucks per person. We were mad as hell after all we are the reason they make money in the first place, but then to rip us off on top of that was really poor.
The best part of the show was on the last day at closing time. A horn blasted the end of the show, then all you could see was one big scramble and within 1 ½ hours all the docks were dismantled and moved out of the way and all the show boats headed out to sea or anchorage. Thousands of people gathered for this event. We were up on the second floor balcony at the Marriott watching the whole spectacle. That was worth the ticket itself. Next day by noon, most of the power boats were in already for the power boat show one week later, amazing.
The day after the boat show my computer finally arrived, they replaced it with a new one. Now we could leave Annapolis, but bad weather was in the forecast again. 50 plus knots and damaging winds were predicted, even some possible flooding, trees down and power outage. Sid didn’t trust our anchor spot, since everybody was practically anchored on top of each other; he decided we should move out to the bridge and take a mooring. Glad we did, I think we were the only boat having a restful night, while all the boats were on anchor watch or even dragging. The new owner of a brand new Moody anchored out, had a catamaran drag right into him, what a shame. Due to the weather and us both still being sick we were stuck in Annapolis for a few more days, so what the heck, lets just stay for the power boat show as well, which we did. I have to say though the sailboat show was much more exciting.
The day after the stormy night we still had 40 knots all day long. We monitored the VHF Radio which was very busy all day long too. Lots of boaters had problems. The harbor master was called for help numerous times and we still can’t believe the responds he gave. “There is nothing we can do. If a boat is dragging it is considered a vessel underway.” A vessel underway with no one on board, give me a break; that is called a hazard of navigation and should be taken care off. Another call was one of the harbormasters calling in, telling that he is watching a boat braking loose and heading for other boats. A female voice answered him: “Don’t touch the boat, leave it alone!” What kind of place is this, leave the boat alone and let it drag into as many boat as possible. Another call we heard, was that they actually said that they couldn’t do anything about it because they didn’t know who was going to pay them. A Harbormaster worrying about being paid before saving boats in HIS harbor, how bad is that. Another thing we found out was boats staying more then 60 days in Maryland are being taxed!
Annapolis is absolutely charming, lots of history, beautiful alleys, and gorgeous houses and of course is famous for the boat show. Annapolis is the capitol of sailboats, must be then we’ve never seen more sailboats anywhere else.
Ed and his wife Wendy (Sid worked with Ed at West Marine), sailed their boat up to the show as well. We had a great time and shared a wonderful dinner at the Melting Pot, a fondue place. My favorite was finding a Trader Joe’s store, where I loaded up on cheeses and other goodies. Whenever somebody asks me if I miss California, my answer is: “nope, but I miss Trader Joe’s!”
While we were hooked to the mooring and practically across from the Annapolis Yacht Club, we took advantage of our Yacht Club reciprocal and were able to use the showers at the Club; which included towels, soap, deodorant, hairspray, etc. I think the only thing missing was perfume. After the showers we would enjoy a cocktail at the bar and we had the most incredible buffet for Sid’s Birthday. They had the best crab cakes ever. The Club also has a cool daily ritual; a canon shot announces sunrise or sunset and the Flag is either lowered or hoisted accompanied by patriotic music, very touching.
Right after the boat show, just as we were headed for the club we saw a familiar boat coming through the bridge. Nicky and Joe on Island Time which we met in Mexico and then in Pedro Miguel, Panama arrived just in time to spend one evening catching up on our adventures.
October 18, we had an incredible Spinnaker run to Selby Bay, where we anchored for two nights. Next stop was Salomons again, tried to catch up with Friendship, but missed them by one day. This time Salomons wasn’t as exciting and there were no mishaps. Although since it was a thirty minute walk to Food Lyon, I decided to stick my thumb out (since this was a dead end road that only boaters use, thought it would be safe), and sure enough a friendly couple picked me up and gave me a ride to the grocery store. Not just that, they had a whole hour to kill before they could get back to their flea-bombed home, so they followed me around the store and then drove me back to the dinghy. That was so nice of them; I just had to invite Bill and Barb for cocktail the following day. Barb remembered that I was looking for candles, but couldn’t find any, so she brought 8 candles to the boat, how nice. We did use them too to keep us warm at night; we already had had several frost warnings and another cold front was approaching. Bill and Barb had such a good time on board and found out that I liked blue crab, so invited us to their house for crab dinner. You should have seen the pile of crab in the middle of the table and the left over was wrapped to take with us.
On our first day anchored in Baltimore a boat Hash-Papi with a Swiss-, German- and French flag anchored next to us. I couldn’t help but go over to ask which one they really were. Finding out that Helga was German, Hans Swiss, but they lived in France. After a nice dinner with them, they flew back to France and Switzerland for a few weeks. Hash-Papi caught up with us again and decided to join us in the next anchorage as well.
SANDY POINT AND REEDVILLE 39 miles
October 25, the sandy point at the entrance of the anchorage is long gone, but the sandy beach remained in front of the very beautiful houses along the shore. This was by far the most scenic anchorage we’ve seen in the Chesapeake Bay, very quite and peaceful. Hash-Papi invited us for dinner and shared all the good cheeses, French wine and chocolate, they had brought back from Switzerland. I even managed to talk Hans into staying one more day and enjoyed a wonderful Brunch on Paradise. We spoiled them with omelet and Blue Crab they never had, you should have seen Helga dive into the crabs. Hans is always in a hurry and didn’t give Helga time to provision and so they ran low on food. Helga and I took the dinghy to Reedville, which was about 2 miles from the anchorage, up the river. All we could find in Reedville were private docks, but a man waved us to his dock, introduced himself as John and told us that we were welcome to leave the dinghy there. We asked John where we could leave trash and also if there was a hardware store in this town. He was just on his way to the dumpster and a hardware store was on the way, so he told us to meet him back at his house in 1 ½ hours. While we went to the museum and after enjoyed a bottle of wine and fried oysters at the restaurant, John dumped our trash, went shopping at the hardware store and even brought bread back for Helga. On our way back to his house, several locals decorating their houses for Halloween stopped to talk and even invited us to join the kids Halloween party that evening. Back at the house, John took as for a ride in his car and showed us the whole peninsula. We stopped at the local Seafood market (bought some “Sweet Toads”, never heard of it, but it sure is a yummy little fish), then to the country store for the best breakfast sausage. The country store wouldn’t take plastic, so we both didn’t have enough cash, John insisted on paying. At the same time they also got busted by the ABC for selling cigarettes to a minor. As we arrived back at his house, John disappeared for a moment and came back handing each one of us a glass of wine and invited us to the porch to meet his wife and watch the kids Halloween Parade. If that wasn’t enough, he then filled up a big ice chest full with ice and placed it into the dinghy. What a nice guy! The next day Hash-Papi left and we moved to Reedville to return the ice chest and the cash. There was a small sailboat from Canada in the anchorage with 2 children aboard. The mother wanted to know if there was a place to buy pumpkins; the kids would be devastated if they didn’t have a pumpkin for Halloween. Later as Sid and I walked to the country store I asked about the pumpkin. They didn’t sell any, but the son of the owner just happened to have one in the car and gave it to us. As we walked back, only abut two minutes into the walk a friendly guy stopped and offered us a ride back to the boat. The kid’s family wasn’t on the boat so we left the pumping on deck. We never told them that it was from us, we just told them that the great Pumpkin spirit left it. It was the cutest thing to see them squeal and jump up and down when they saw the pumpkin. The next day a fisherman stopped by and offered a dozen crabs for 10 bucks. I couldn’t resist and handed him a bucket, which he filled. The dozen turned out to be 20, Sid ate 5 and I ate the rest. Sid couldn’t believe I ate that much.
Can you actually believe it, Sid was wearing long Jeans and had been since Annapolis and his hair hasn’t even frozen yet. It’s been pretty darn cold and the eight or so candles burning every night barely helped to keep us warm.
URBANA, VIRGINIA 34 miles
October 29. Of course we had to motor the whole trip to Urbana. Luckily better weather was in the forecast and for the whole weekend we had wonderful sunny weather, even in the 80s. A while back in New Bern we met Bill and Nell (Sid met them at the marina office, I was their waitress) and somehow stayed in email contact with them. They talked us into meeting in Urbana for the famous Oyster Fest, so we did. The day before Halloween as we all sat in our cockpit, chatting away, I noticed these silver strings flying through the air. Silver strings as in spider webs. Before we knew it the whole boat was wrapped in thousands of silk strings, some of them were at least 20 feet long and flying off the mast, some even had spiders attached. Don’t care much for them, but how appropriate for Halloween. We weren’t the only boat, all of them were full with webs; even the ones just sailing into the harbor. This must be spider flying season. Had dinner in town and were a bit taken by the restaurant jacking up the prices, due to Oyster Fest. The usually $6 burger was 10 bucks; a 3 ounce glass of wine was 5. The highlight of the day: on our way back from dinner, I noticed this burgundy red sky in the north. The light was moving and changed into different colors from blue to turquoise. We actually were watching the northern lights, wow, ever since I was a little kid I always wished to see it, I guess my wish was granted. I was so excited I wanted to wake up the whole harbor; luckily Sid stopped me from doing so.
Wouldn’t you think on oyster fest you’d eat oysters? Nope not us, they had the most wonderful smoked turkey legs. The Oyster Fest was a success, over 80 000 visitors walking through town, we’re crowded out for a long time to come. Unfortunately the Coast Guard and Marine Police were harassing all the boaters and wrote tickets left and right.
POQUOSON RIVER 38 miles
November 3, we promised Bill and Nell to visit them at their home, but before that we sailed 6 miles across to Irvington, VA for one night. Irvington is full of little coves with the most expensive homes we’ve seen in the Bay, very pretty area.
38 miles later we headed into the Poquoson River and knew that we only could get to marker #16 due to very shallow water. We didn’t even make it that far when we stuck in mud. It took us a good 10 minutes to bring Paradise to float again, headed a few yards back and anchored in the middle of nowhere. From there it was a 1 ½ mile dinghy ride up the river to their home. Thanks to the Ferrari (dinghy) it was a short trip.
Bill and Nell are the most incredible hosts, not just did they let us use the shower and laundry machine, Nell cooked us the most incredible seafood dinner. We left the house around 10 PM and I tell you it was foggy out there. We are still amazed that we found Paradise without any problem in that soup, amazing. The next day they gave us the truck, so that we could go shopping while they were at work.
Crab season is pretty much over, but Bill baited his traps anyway and caught us some crab for dinner. I cooked them up like we learned in Mexico with a hot sauce, oh they loved it. Thanks Bill and Nell, we had a wonderful time.
While at Bill and Nell’s Sid played the lottery, but since we left Virginia we had to call in for the winning number and this is what I heard: “Thank you for calling the Virginia Lottery Line, if you’re calling about the winning numbers this is not the number to dial; you will have to call 804 6…... If you’re calling about someone having a gambling problem, please dial number 1 now to speak to a consultant!” Can you actually believe this?
November 6, due to bad weather approaching we decided to head out the Chesapeake and made a run past the canal and tide up on the side of the river to trees at Great Bridge Look. Now that was something new for us, tying up to trees. Had an early start the following morning to reach Coinjock Marina where we once more indulged in the wonderful 32 ounce Prime Rib. We were so glad we did stop here for the steak, the next day the wind was blowing 25 to 30, not even counting the gusts. Sid decided that it was best to stay put and wait it out, which we did for three days. Good thing we did, a 50 foot catamaran got dismasted and ended up on the hard at the Alligator River entrance. Not just that, the Alligator Bridge will not open the bridge if it blows over 25 knots and they did close. We would have been stuck in the biggest mess. Also the Coast Guard warned about that the entrance of the Alligator River being shallow 5 to 8 feet. We did the right thing, after all Coinjock is not a bad place to get stuck. We made new friends, played Mexican Train and watched the lunar eclipse. The fourth morning Sid noticed the tide coming back into the river, which meant the wind wasn’t blowing hard anymore in the Albemarle Sound. We all took that as a sign to leave and hurried down the river and across the Albemarle Sound. The wind was still bowing 20 knots but at least we were going with it and surfed all the way across the sound. We surfed up to 8.5 knots, now that’s fast for our slow boat. We pushed it really hard to get past the Alligator Canal, which was 70 miles or 10 hours. We had only one good day which was the next day and then another cold front was predicted with over 25 knots of wind. We arrived at our goal two hours after sunset, minding you at this time of the year the sun sets already at 5.04.
At Bill and Nell’s we of course went shopping at West Marine. The alternator wasn’t working right and we bought a new one just in case. Another lucky thing Sid did, that case came the alternator gave up the ghost. As soon as we anchored Sid replaced that thing. We set the alarm clock at 5:30 to get an early start to put the last 70 miles to New Bern behind us, before the next predicted cold front arrived. Surprise, when we came on deck after that horrible alarm clock sound we started laughing. Figures we finally get an early start and what happens?! We couldn’t see our hands if front of our faces, we were in the thickest fog you can imagine. Great we have just one day of good weather and now this. We waited a couple of hours for it to lift, but that wasn’t happening so we took off anyway, by then the visibility was barley ¼-mile. Thanks goodness for GPs and radar, we motored like blind Bats from marker to marker. Remember when I wrote about Belhaven being a strange place, I tell you it is, as we passed Belhaven the fog lifted just over the town and then it was fogy again. At 11:30 the fog lifted and the rest of the day was just absolutely beautiful sunny, warm and the water was super calm. At 7PM we arrived happily at the Sheraton and Bob the Dock master even kept our old slip open for us. We’re really lucky we got back when we did the following day the wind was blowing 40 plus. Buffalo, NY had major storms and parts in LA received 9 inches of rain, including hail.
One funny story I forgot to mention in our last newsletter: As Sid was working at the Sheraton Marina a 300 000 Dollar Sea Ray came in and Sid went to help them tie up. As they approached the dock, Sid asked the lady to toss him the line, which she did. There was one slight problem with that; the line was still packed in the box they bought it in!
Anyway, we’re back in New Bern for about one month. We’ll be renting a car for two weeks and drive south to Islamorada, FL to spend Thanksgiving with Sid’s cousin Nancy and girlfriends again. We also will visit Breathless and Mike and Carey Cummins on the way down and on our way back the Dominos and Laughing Buddha. After returning we’ll sail south to Jacksonville, FL for the winter. Sid’s back is giving him a whole bunch of grief and needs to get it fixed. We heard the doctors there are great, besides the winters are not as cold as in North Carolina.
This leg wasn’t as tropical as we like it and we were rather disappointed in the Chesapeake Bay, but as always we still had a lot of fun. The ICW is not too exciting but many people use it every year going north or south. It’s safe and easy to use, but it’s like being on a freeway, not much to do or see. That’s why there’s not much to say. We are looking forward to going south into the Caribbean and even going north to Maine. We miss Mexico. Still haven’t found a better place, but we will still keep looking.
Imagine, we managed to travel 871 Miles in 25 travel days, which we could have accomplished in one long day in a car. That’s an average of 34 miles a day, not quite a freeway.
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