ICW 11-29-10

IntraCoastal Water Way (ICW)

Well when you can’t get south in the Atlantic cuz it gives you strong south winds and storms then you go on the inside.  And when you need repairs you go on the inside. What is the ICW? It is a dredged canal that expands from Norfolk VA all the way around Florida and thru Texas to the Mexican border.  In the old days they would ship cargo and stuff during the wars.  It is still used today by many Snow birds boating to florida on their way to warmer waters i.e. Bahamas, such as we would like to go to this winter also.

The ICW… seems easy and as we left today I felt like… wow motoring is boring… it is not like sailing when you are sailing… thinking of wind, speed, direction, watching and riding the wave etc… Welp I was wrong – darn – I thought I would get a lot of work done today… not a chance… once again a huge learning curve was had.

People tell me… watch for the currents… watch the bridges… why do they tell me this when all that means nothing to me until I experience it. 

I love a good plan. Our previous owner to Cricket was a huge planner and he showed us his planning for going down the St. Lawrence sea way from MN through the great lakes and pop out to the east coast. Now that was amazing.

This morning Ben and I, ignorant as the green ICW travelors, set out to enjoy the day… If someone tells me something I might get their drift… if I have to read about something then it just bounces in and out of my brian with little comprehension but if someone shows me it or if I have to learn it on my own then amazing learning is accomplished… sometimes that curve has hard lessons learned.

Today we thwarted a lesson that might have us taken to a bridge at the wrong time in the night with no where to anchor. Phew! Thank heaven for nudges and redoing my first try at navigation. 

Ben’s job today was driving… seems simple? This canal is small and tight.  We saw a boat stuck in the mud… they must have missed the mark.  Our heading line on the chartplotter is 20 degrees off … grrrr.  And we have reset that once and it stays for about 5 minutes…. Grrr oh well.  So Ben had a good job.

We had dolphins along the way greet us and actually now at anchor they are around the boat we can hear them splash and spurt air out of their blow hole. So cute all worth the days work…

I had looked at the charts briefly and it looked simple (first assumption – wrong). Ben did some previous night calculations and it looked simple to him too.

We set out… as we went. I wrote down all the bridges we would pass.  Some were 65 feet we can get under and some were 12 feet or 20 feet.  They only open on the half hour or the hour.  Ahhh timing them.  We get that… speed up or slow down to time it.  Call the bridge master and ask if they see us and can we make it by the time.  The masters vary in flexibility. The bridge controlled by the Marines said, “we open at 2pm if you are not here by 2:01 you will have to wait a half an hour.” (by the way! He did not open the bridge until 2:03!!!) The next guy was jolly and fun and he would wait up to 5 minutes if we needed.  Now we get the timing issue.

Next I asked Ben where he thought we would anchor since he was the lead navigator the night before. (I would have done the same)  Nope he did not know.  It is deceiving cuz it is a long canal but around you is plenty of room to anchor… nope… try again… it looks good but it is only 3-7 feet of water if you get off track out of the canal. 

I spent all day and I mean all day looking for an anchorage.  When I think I found one I would read in our worthless ICW book and it would say… “don’t anchor here there are shoals and shifting sands underneath”  needless to say we did not anchor there.

As I looked I found a place that was far down we would get there in the dark… i.e. no one we have talked to travels the ICW in the dark it is too narrow. But it seems possible if we just watch our chart plotter… (mistake #2… cuz we saw a person in the mud on the way)… but here we were stuck with no place to anchor…

… so we trudged on down the ICW just like you keep on paddling in the BWCA if you don’t find a campsite, but then I was reading in the ICW book and it said, “this is the last marina to stop at if you think you will not make the Wrightville bridge.”  What ?  where? What bridge? I had it on my list of bridges but I thought our last stop was before that bridge not after.  I’m so glad I read that! It tipped me off to relooking.  Sure enough we would have been there at 8:30 in the dark with no place to anchor and have to go back 30 miles…

then we were talking to our Mentor sailors Darrell and Nancy.  Darrell said call the marinas and ask if you can anchor infront of their marina.  So I combed the marinas on the way down… I called and this nice guy answered and suggested a place only a few miles down.  We could make it in the twilight! AHH this took me all day to find and research!!!

I mean all day.  I fretted and worried about not having a place to stay … then thinking about anchoring in the dark somewhere if there was a place etc… what a worry-some day for me.  But not Ben… he felt fully confident that I would find a place to anchor… “it will all work out” he just had to drive today and it was a beautiful drive and he was not seasick once! That is a good day for him! He was happy not being seasick! Ha ha

Now tomorrow Ben has a plan! While he was planning the next day I was working and catching up on work and emails. Thanks Ben! It took him 2 hours to plan our next day which took me 6 hours. It took Ben 2 hours cuz he has already experienced the ICW today and knew what to look for on the charts. We hope we can anchor in the river he found.? We’ll see!!!

That was my day.  Uffda! I thought it was going to be easy.  Well here’s to tomorrow being boring and for me to enjoy the scenery. 

peace

Pam

11/27/10 2 days at sea and a visit from a dragon

BAMM!  Zing!

Winds were 20-25knots, Waves 3-5 feets, 48 degrees and sailing happily then like I said, BAMM, Zing and we have a wild metal headed dragon flinging wildly blowing in the wind and trying to crash anything in its sight.  Well maybe not a dragon but it might as well have been.  Our jib (the big sail in the front of the boat that is about 60 feet tall and 20 feet or more at the foot)let loose and was attached at the mast top and a few lines but the bottom was flapping furiously with a whipping action. Ben went forward at which point I started the engine and put her on auto pilot so I could “help” Ben muscle through.  It looked bad from my view and there was no way I’d get in there like Ben.  so I was trying to think how to tame the dragon with out getting stitches in my head (which I did not get any stitches no one got hurt luckily, or should I say Praise the Lord)

All Ben could do was subdue the beast by hanging on tight with his big muscles, oh and that was after he had to try and catch a fast flying cable with a metal connector. There, Ben was sitting down with this big long cable that attached to our Harken furling.  Luckily again or blessed again we were happy to have a second forestay (two front cables that attach to the mast and to the boat so the mast is held up tight) anyway it was good that our mast did not fall down… well we have 4 of those cables in the middle of the deck that attach to the mast so things would be likely the mast would not fall down.  What a scary thought if it did.

Now that Ben had the dragon in his hands… now what?  The sail is so big and ridged. It is bulky and hard to move.  The sail started falling into the water as we continued on auto pilot.  We knew we did not want the sail in the water it would be impossible to get back out! So I started pulling in whatever I could muscle up.

We looked at each other and we could feel each others wheels turning in our heads as to what to do next…  then it came to both of us… let’s tie this cable down with a line to the  bowsprit. I ran and got whatever we needed… I walked the plank there matie… ok I crawled on the plank to run the line from the dragon to the end of the plank or bowsprit.  All while the boat was a bucking bronco. Success.

Ben lashed down the angry creature.  Phew! That took a very long time.  It’s like you hear about or see in the movies… boat blows cotter pin and unleashes fury.  The dragon did crash out one of our running lights, but all in all amazing no injuries and we got to get going again but this time under motor. Oh one more detail to tie up… what did we do with 60 feet of sail? Ben started lashing it to the deck and I yelled in the strong winds, “you start motoring back and I’ll lash.” Why you might ask? I know that Ben has only a short amount of time on the bowspirt without loosing his lunch and he had that look on his face.  He was happy to go and motor but the sea sickness still got a hold of him.  Poor guy. I let him take as long a rest and shut eye as needed to feel a little back to normal.

Now it is getting dark… we were so happy that broke in the day.  If that was at night??? What would we have done?  The question is did we have too much sail out for the winds?  The boat seemed to sail perfect with just jib alone.  Although for those of you that know about slow big fat boats such as Cricket – our hull speed is 8 knots but one time during the night I hit 11.1 knots!!! Yes on the gps speed.  It was a funny story too cuz it was my first night shift this time back and the seas were about 6 feet maybe more? Anyway… I had a hoot watching a big wave coming nearer and I sat on the helm and stared striaight into the waves curls – face to face- and then tried to get the boat to ride down the wave.  I hit a few perfect. I was a kid on a rollercoaster or a kid in the BWCA paddling a canoe with wind behind.  Yahooooooo! I wanted to yell but Ben was sleeping and I did not want to wake him thinking that I was hanging half in and half out of the boat.  So I was quiet.  During my watch Ben could not sleep cuz he was worried that I was having a tough time sailing and that the waves might be too much to handle… etc… He told me that and I laughed – I wanted to yell but I thought that might scare you.  He laughed I think a yahoo would have made me less worried.  Here you have Ben worrying again.  Wow he is becoming a captain after all.  His boys trip has definitely changed his thinking for the better..

I am pooped! We made it to Portside Marina in NC.  This marina is like going home.  This kind man named Denard met us in the morning. He smiled and laughed when he told us he saw our Furling all bent up.  He told us we were not the only ones these past few days with all the high seas and wind that others too have past this dock with needing repairs.

To way back up…

We left Yorktown after having a great thanksgiving! We surprised Becca and Jason with our presences.  Jason had coast guard duty so could not be with us. So it was great we went to visit him at work. Becca was going to be alone with the kids… So we went to the grocery store and bought turkey pot pies and made pumpkin pie! We played games and had a great time!

Friday we waited for the weather to turn from south to west and we made our escape out of Yorktown out the Chesapeake and to the atlantic! Just like old times except there are way way way fewer boats!!  I love that when sailing at night.  The winds piped up and away we went.  I even slept pretty good the first time… well as good as one can when you only have 4 hours to prepare food, eat, and get in and out of all my layers and layers of clothing. I slept about 2 or 3 hours each of my 2 shifts off.  Then next night as we had to motor I could not sleep, the winds were relentless and now we had to buck a head wind to get to port.  We went slower than a slow walk about 1 to 2 miles per hour a normal walk is about 3mi/hr.

It was painful and it was a test of patience! But no sleep could I get in those waves and loud engine and toss in a little worry – we made it to port about 10 am we had just spent from 4pm to 10 am motoring in winds and waves.  We were happy to get a port.

We got hooked up with a guy names Paul he is a sail maker, rigger, racer, and boat maker.  He was happy to come out and help us.  He taught us all we know about Harken Furling! We actually got it back together and working!!

And now it is finally time to sleeeeeeeeep!

11-24-10 deltaville to yorktown

11-24-10

Hi All,

Today we left Deltaville and sailed to Yorktown.  What a wonderful day! Stiff winds behind us made for a fast sail.  Let me back up our day…

We have been stalking noaa weather to make sure it would be a good day to sail. 

We got up late about 8am… did chores… put everything in its place in the boat since we knew we would be rockin and rollin with the waves… I heard the boat in the slip next to us making weird noises and their lines had gotten fowled so I hopped on their boat as I would hope if ours was bad someone would hop on our boat and we fixed their stressed lines and bow pulpit… as we were ready to depart a boat sailed to the dock and I asked if they would like us to assist them in docking… it was windy and they gladly accepted the help… then we got to talking like we always do… I said we got to get going as captains always do…

Here is the funny part… while I was gone home and Ben sailed from Maine to VA… Ben turned into a captain… our roles were reversed… funny very funny… as we were leaving Deltaville… well it is a tough hair pin turn and easy to run aground… I was driving and Ben was a pleasant back seat driver (just how I am to him)… yup normally when he drives I say things like… you can make your screen closer so you see more detail.. but this time he said that to me – not only that but he made the screen bigger… then as I was going through the channel I was looking at this and that cuz I have been there before… normally he would be doing that and I would be nervous saying watch… but now he was asking me to watch and I happily replied with what he would have told me… I got it… yup I see it… etc… I was now laughing cuz our roles have switched…

It felt good to hear him worry – or be aware of – the things that I usually am aware of but not sure if he is aware of them… now he wondered if I was aware of them… well that makes two of us totally aware… nice.. co-captians is great for us… but we all know when it comes to decisions… a happy wife is a happy life so I might get the last word in depending on the situation…

the temp today was 45 degrees. I was in my super duper windproof foul weather gear bibs and jacket. I can say I was never chilly or cold, my toes got a little cool. Ben on the other hand had a reversed role again... he was ca ca ca cold and shivering a bit although like a guy he did not admit he was cold.  silly guy. he also might have had to get ride of some ballast in his stomach as he got his sea legs... poor guy... always in good spirits though.

It has been  nice to see Ben advocate for the ICW intracoastal waterway (that means taking the inside route instead of going on the atlantic side… in the old days they made many canals on the inside of the land so the cargo vessels and such could make it to florida during the war.) so hear I have Ben all excited about telling me about the winds and the waves that could be on the outside when normally he would say… welp we have to experience it sometimes why not now… experience is a wonderful thing.

We plan to be at Becca and jason’s for thanksgiving! How fun is that!!! Then Friday seems to be a rough day in NOAA land so we might wait a day and leave Saturday and we still don’t know if it will be on the inside or the outside.

Happy thanksgiving all!