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