Today was to be our first full day on the ICW, starting at MM "1.0" We rolled out about 6:15AM, grabbed a quick bowl of cereal, and took some time to stow all of the stuff that two guys can scatter around!
As I went topside, it was almost sunrise. I snapped this shot of the imminent sunrise looking east across the Elizabeth River. The sun was just lighting the sky behind this Aegis guided missile destroyer sitting in dry dock at the BAE Shipbuilding facility.
We pulled out into the Elizabeth River and turned south at 7:30AM. It would be a hectic morning. Today we had to deal with 11 movable bridges (swing, slide, bascule), 4 fixed 65' high bridges, and one lock. We also had to deal with 4 restricted bridges and locks. The restricted bridges were closed until 8:30AM because of rush hour traffic. The only exception would be for commercial traffic. Fortunately, I managed to tuck in behind the tugboat "Mary Hope" and managed to get through 3 of these bridges with no delay.
The last few weeks I have been losing a lot of sleep worrying about my clearance under the 65' high bridges on the ICW. They are supposed to be 65' at mean high tide, but this is subject to wind, tidal anomalies, etc. To give me some reassurance, I had the folks at RIverside Marina measure my mast a few weeks ago...they measured 63'5" to the top of the mast, 64'7" to the top of my wind instruments (windex and anemometer), and 66'0" to the top of my flexible steel VHF whip antenna. I could afford to scrape the VHF antenna, but hitting the wind instruments would be a "bad and expensive event"! I am pretty comfortable that the mast itself will be OK.
The first fixed bridge was at MM "7.1". Actually it is a very high draw bridge that carries I64, but requires 24 hours notice to open, so for me, it is FIXED! As I passed under, I had at least 5' clearance. I was feeling a bit relieved about this and even slightly cocky..
Just past this bridge, the ICW splits. There is a route to the west and south down the Dismal Swamp which comes out at Elizabeth City. This is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. It is supposed to be very scenic, but with several locks, marginal draft, and a fair amount of debris. I decided to stay clear.
I chose to take the eastern route toward Great Bridge. This is the main ICW route. This would bring me out into the Currituck Sound, then back into a canal at Coinjock, NC, and back out into the North River before dumping me out into the Albemarle Sound. at MM "63". This route would take me through a lock at Great Bridge, and also 3 fixed bridges.
We arrived at the Great Bridge Lock at MM "11.5" at 8:45AM. The lock was closed, but eventually opened to south bound traffic at 9:10AM. I was alone when I entered the lock, but over the next 20 minutes two power boats and another sailboat joined me. The locks finally closed and drained. We pulled out of the soutbound end at 9:50AM.
Here are a few photos of our passage through the Great Bridge Locks
Once out the other side, the exit of the lock was supposed to be coordinated with the raising of a draw bridge just to the south of the lock. I guess it is "island time" down here because we sat for about 15 minutes after moving about 500 yards out of the lock before this bridge finally opened.
The sailboat crossing under was a bit slower than our Beneteau, and he was out of sight in about 10 minutes. During this part of our passage we were making about 8.5 kts (about 9.8 mph). The ICW really is a dredged canal (The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal) in this section. We spent a couple of hours here, including 30 minutes waiting for one more bridge opening (I missed it by about 1 minute). In the next .
"Bridge reality" arrived for me at MM "13" when I crossed under the Rt 168 fixed bridge. The batter boards on this bridge were showing about 64.5'. The good news is that it was higher than that. The bad news is "not by a lot!" We bent the VHF antenna over significantly. It appeared that the wind instruments cleared by about 4". This is a real adrenalin event!. I slowed down to about 1/2 knot and crept under this bridge while the antenna scraped on every piece of structural steel under the bridge....same thing happened at Pungo Ferry and Coinjock...so much for resting easy going under the bridges. The other good news is that all of these bridges were showing 64.5' All were effected by wind driven tides. At least I know what works and when I should just wait.
We finally crossed out into Currituck Sound around 12:45pm. There was some shoaling in the open water with levels dropping to 7'. "Twice Blessed" drafts 5'11" so I spent a lot of time looking at my depth gauge. There is little room for error as the channel is only about 100' wide.
This next photo is of the Currituck Light House in Corolla, NC. We are making progess!
We motored back into the Coinjock Channel around 2:30PM. Once again we scraped the antenna..adrenalin, humility, anticipation of disaster...oh well...we are still in one piece.
The last part of today's trip would take us down the North River and then up into an anchorage in Broad Creek just past MM "61". This was a pretty, but desolate stretch of country. It was also overcast and dreary. About two miles before Broad Creek, we were stopped by a northbound boat. he told us that the Alligator River (the ICW on the south side of the Ablemarle Sound) was closed due to a swing bridge that was undergoing repairs. It would be closed for another day..We can worry about this tomorrow.
The Chart Plotter photo is showing our course as up, so north is actually at the bottom of the image. The Albemarle Sound is at the top, and Broad Creek is on the right side.
The detour into Broad Creek took about 10 minutes. There was a bit of shoaling on the south side of the creek as we motored in. At one point my depth gauge said 5.4' I should have been hard aground but the bottom must have been pretty soft. We were in about 1/2 mile when we found a 9' depth and dropped anchor about 5PM. There was one other boat about 1/2 mile above us..otherwise it was pretty isolated. It was also mosquito heaven! When I realized how many of those little critters had found their way into the boat, I closed it up tight. We heated some spaghetti sauce that I had prepared and frozen just before we left, and had spaghetti and a salad. Steve wanted to fish, but the bugs were just too intense..so we just watched some TV and finally crashed around 10PM.
Here are a few pics of our anchorage for the evening.
Tomorrow we will have to decide whether to go south on the ICW (if we can get through), or head east toward Roanoke Island and go down Pamlico Sound...we will see what the morning brings.......
Comments