Annapolis to Longboat Key, FL via the ICW

Annapolis to Longboat Key - October 4, 2009 - Day 1

After much preparation, we finally pulled away from our dock on Spa Creek in Annapolis at 10AM. "Twice Blessed", our 49' Beneteau was finally provisioned for the 24 day trip down to the Florida Keys and then back up the Gulf side of Florida to its new home (and ours as well) in Longboat Key, FL, which is off of Sarasota. It was a bit melancholy as we have had "Twice Blessed" slipped in Spa Creek for the past two years at a super location with a great view of Annapolis.

Vicki is still in Texas helping her daughter, Cassidie, with her first baby, so my brother, Steve, sailed with me as "first mate". He lives in Wilmington, NC. With some luck, the plan is to drop him off as we pass through Wilmington in about a week and pick up Vicki. Steve is at the helm (kindof) in this pic.

Our hope was to make it to Tangier Island, VA before the sunset, but we knew that tides, darkness, and questionable depth into Tangier channel would make this difficult, so we were going to see how things progressed before deciding on an anchorage for the evening.

It was a beautiful sunny day with a good bit of wind. We cleared the Severn River and turned south about 10:25AM, running under both power and sail. Winds were 15-25 knots out of the NW. Our speed across ground (SOG) was almost 10 knots.  

We have a Raymarine E120 chart plotter to plot course and track progress. We are off of the Thomas Point lighthouse in this shot, at the mouth of the South River. 

Winds were brisk until we were down near the Patuxent River. At this point, we were running against the tide with light winds, doing about 8 kts SOG. We dropped sails and headed on under power, arriving off of Point Lookout at the mouth of the Potomac around around 5:15PM. Local sunset is around 6:40pm. Anticipating that our arrival would be after dark, we chose what appeared to be a safe anchorage that we could reach safely after dark. Mill Creek, off of the Great Wicomico River in Reedville, VA looked like the spot. The hope was that the full moon would provide good illumination as we motored into the Great Wicomico around 7:15PM. Unfortunately, things had clouded over, so the chart plotter/GPS would hopefully get us in the last 1.5 miles in the dark. The only concern was snagging a crab pot, but luck was on our side. There were a few other anchor lights nearby, but we dropped anchor around 7:50PM and finally could start thinking about dinner. The trip for the day was about 87 nautical miles.  The anchorage is shown in the pic of the chartplotter to the right.

Steve fired up the grill and cooked a couple of steaks while I whipped up a batch of Kraft Macaroni and a salad. We crashed around 10PM.

Day 2 - Reedville, VA to Norfolk / Portsmouth, VA

Today started out beautifully. We were up with the sun, had a nice breakfast and had the anchor up and cleaned off (there was a ton of mud on it) by 8:45AM. The anchorage on Mill Creek was pristine. It really was a great way to start this journey, and encouraged us to spend more time at anchorage rather than trying to find a marina for the evening.

I have included a couple of shots.

This one is of the imminent sunrise looking off to the east and out over the Chesapeake Bay.

This is one of Steve fishing. He always has a line in the water when we are anchored or docked (more on this later).

A few other boats managed to get in here before we anchored last evening. What a beautiful and tranquil place!

As we were motoring out of Mill Creek, the Cross on the bank in the middle of nowhere just seemed appropriate as we asked the Lord to watch over us on this 1500 mile journey.

Trip to Norfolk Harbor and Hampton Roads

We arrived in the Hamtpon Roads, crossing over the Hampton Roads Tunnel, I64, at 3:48PM. We were shadowed by a USN destroyer as we motored in, and gave him plenty of ground to port. it was a bit intimidating!

After we moved into the channel we turned to port (left) and entered the channel for the Elizabeth River. We motored for about 10 miles before finally reaching downtown Norfolk and our slip for the evening at OceanMarine Marina on the west bank of the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth. 

Here is a multitude of photos as we motored down the Elizabeth River, including an aircraft carrier, E2C Hawkeye, downtown Norfolk Waterfront, and the red buoy which is Mile Marker "0" on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway (ICW).

Once reaching the marina, we fueled, filled up our water tanks, and dumped our waste tanks before backing into a slip around 6PM. For the record, backing up in a single screw sailboat can be a difficult task. We are fortunate to have bow thrusters which makes the effort manageable in a 49' sailboat!

We made it into the ICW, by about 1 mile. Here we are in the slip. Steve is waiting for me to hope off the boat so that we can go get some dinner. 

We found a great little Italian restaurant, Amore, on High Street in Old Portsmouth. We had a good meal and then headed back to the boat and called it a night around 10PM.

Tomorrow will be our FIRST full day on the ICW..only 1087 miles to go to Miami!!!

Day 3 - Portsmouth, VA to the Albemarle Sound, NC (almost)

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.......

Day 4 - Across the Albemarle Sound to Roanoke Island and Manteo

I was sleeping soundly when we were hit with a some severe winds around 3AM. A cold front was pushing through with strong winds straight out of the west. I had just purchased a new anchor the week before the trip. It is a "Ronca 25" and it is supposed to have great holding properties. I did not put out much anchor rode, maybe 60' because I was concerned about swinging into shallow water on a change in wind direction. I really should have let more line out, but I can report that the anchor held well, even in 35 knot winds.

With the news about the closing of the Alligator River, and my concerns over the US264 Bridge at MM "127" that is only 64' high (it is the only bridge that is not 65' due to a contractor screw up), I decided to head east across Albemarle Sound to Roanoke Island. 

Since it would only be about a 3 1/2 hour trip, we were not in a rush. I slept in this morning until 8:30. Steve decided to do some fishing. I heard him yelling that he had just caught breakfast. Here is a photo of breakfast.

We had fillet of Rockfish and scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning...not a bad start to the day!

Today's trip to Manteo (on Roanoke Island) would be a short trip, but with some rather rough seas. Last year I motored up the Chesapeake Bay in a 45 knot blow, but the boat, captain, and mate all did well. This trip was much worse!

We pulled anchor and headed out of Broad Creek around 11AM. This time, we had to cross the Albemarle Sound with 25 knots directly across our starboard beam. It was much different than the Chesapeake Bay. The shallow depth of the Sound really churns it up. Waves were 4-5 feet but with a very short period. I buried the bow of the boat at least 4 times and was taking water over both rails. It was a very tedious couple of hours.

As I exited the north River, I headed for the marker MG at Middle Ground, and from their to a red marker that started my journey around the north side of Roanoke Island. We pulled into the Manteo Waterfront Marina at 2:30PM. Dockmaster Carl met us and helped us to back into a slip for the evening. 

Once we got settled, we found out that the strong blow out of the west had blown the water from the Albemarle Sound into Roanoke Channel and Pamlico Sound. The effect was to raise the water level about 3 feet above normal. One of the reasons that we had headed this way was to cross under the US64 bridge onto Roanoke Island. It is supposed to be 65' high. We were encouraged to wait for a day when the winds would turn to the northeast and bring the water levels back down..so we decided to just take it easy until tomorrow, especially with our bridge adventures of Tuesday!

Manteo is a neat little community. Its main claim to fame is that it is the location of the "Lost Colony". Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first British settlement to land here in 1587. He returned to England for provisions with plans to return in 1588, but was delayed by the defeat of the Spanish Armada in that year. When he returned in 1589, the colony was gone, supposedly absorbed by the indigenous Indian population. BTW, Andy Griffith also lives here!

There is a museum and theater at the sight of the First Colony, as well as a recreation of the original vessel. These photos of the replica boat and of "Twice Blessed" were taken at dusk.

Once we were settled, we stopped at a local restaurant for dinner, and then took a cab to get some groceries. We finally settled in around 7PM and just vegged for a bit, turning in around 10PM

What will tomorrow bring? We will be able to get under the bridge, or have to wait until Friday..or later? Darn, I wish that this mast was just one foot shorter......

Day 5 - Under the Bridge at Manteo?

We woke this morning to a change in wind direction. It was out of the north and the water levels were slowly subsiding. While we were killing time, we decided to rent a car and head over to Nags Head. The local Manteo Ford Dealer is THE source for car rentals on Manteo. "Doc" the owner, brought us a Ford Focus. We stopped back at the dealership to sign some papers and ended up talking about his journeys on the ICW...he also does business with Quigley Motors in York. They apparently add 4-wheel drive to vans. I never knew that but intend to check them out when I get back up to York.

After a nice breakfast at the Dunes in Nags Head, we headed up to the K-mart in Kill Devil Hills. I was running out of socks and underwear (how did that ever happen?). We got back to the marina at noon time and decided to motor over to Pirates Cove, which is about a 30 minute trip. We needed to top off our fuel tanks and could also check out the water levels at the bridge. 

When we got to the bridge, it was marked  from 5' to 0'. The water level was at about 1.5'. I guess this is based on reported tides by NOAA. Today's high tide was supposed to be 0.7' and low tide at 0.1'. I assume that this meant the water level was still up about a foot above normal. Since the winds are supposed to turn back out of the southwest tomorrow, we felt like it was now or never.

We headed back to the Manteo Waterfront Marina to dump our holding tanks and top off water. Then we decided to leave at 4PM so that we could take advantage of the approaching low tide at 6PM. 

Here is THE bridge at Manteo. We are going to know soon enough whether we are going to keep our windex.

The plan was to make this a short trip, as we would not find an anchorage until we crossed about 75 miles of water to Oriental NC, just above Beaufort. We decided to lay up in the commercial fishing village of Wanchese for the evening, about 5 miles south of the bridge.

We crept under the bridge. We never scraped the VHF antenna until the very last piece of steel. We had 66' all the way. BUT, if we had tried yesterday, we would definitely have taken the windex off the mast...so the wait was worth the time!

Once under the bridge, it was a 30 minute trip into Wanchese. We tied up at Broadcreek Marina for the evening, cooked a couple of steaks, and called it an evening.

Here are a few pics of our spot for this evening in beautiful Wanchese Harbor (NOT).

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Our plan is to be underway at 7AM for the 75+ mile crossing of the Pamlico Sound over to River Dunes near Oriental NC. Let's hope that it is not as rough as our journey across Albemarle Sound!

Day 6 - The Long run across the Pamlico Sound down toward Beaufort, NC

This was a long day on the water. We got underway just as the sun came up around 7AM, motoring out of Wanchese harbor and picking up the narrow channel that the fishing boats use to get out to Oregon Inlet. As we were leaving the harbor, the fishing vessel "Vickie II" was just pulling up to the dock. Seemed appropriate somehow.

Heading south, we passed the Bodie Island Light House and then picked up the bridge over Oregon Intlet. The channel going south splits near Oregon inlet. 

We took the channel to starboard which heads SW across Pamlico Sound. From this point, the trip would be about 8 1/2 hours to the Neuse River where we planned to reconnect with the ICW around MM "173". The channel is shoaling and the day markers have been replaced with nun buoys in several spots so that they can be easily moved as the shoaling grows.

As we were negotiating around a shoaling channel, Steve took this pic of me as I was trying to avoid running aground.

 

About 5 miles SW of the channel split, we passed an island to starboard which must have been pelican utopia. I have never seen so many pelicans anywhere.

I guess there was too much excitement for the rest of the day because we did not see another thing (other than this marker) until about 3PM. In fact, this was the very first time that I have been out on the sailboat and could not see land in any direction. At this point, I think that we were about 22 miles west of Cape Hatteras. This is one big body of water.

What is really intriguing to me is the number of pelicans on this marker. They had to fly at least 22 miles to get here...why?? Guess everyone and everything needs someplace to veg once in awhile!

The winds continued to increase during the day. Around 1PM they were 17 gusting to 27. The chop got pretty serious on the Sound and we spent the next 3 hours just pounding the bow into the water. The boat is covered with salt residue. I will be glad to get into a slip in a day or so that I can wash things down.

We had made reservations to stop at the River Dunes Marina on Broad Creek (isn't it strange that this would have been the third time in 4 days that we had spent the evening in a "Broad Creek"?). However, we were passing it around 4PM as we entered the Neuse River and wanted to get a few more miles under our belt. At this point, we have reconnected with the ICW at MM "173".

 

In these chart plotter pics, we are in the Neuse River and will be turning to port (left) to enter Adams Creek shortly The ICW breaks off from the Neuse River at Adams Creek. We decided to head down this way before we finally anchored at MM "187". In the pic above, the crosshair is where we started this morning.

We dropped anchor just before 6PM. The anchorage was just off the channel in a fairly exposed spot to winds from the south and southwest, but it seemed to be the last that we would find before Beaufort. There was just not enough sunlight left to get any farther. We did about 100 statue miles today and finally reconnected with the ICW on our journey south.

The sunset was around 6:30PM. It was beautiful as it dropped across the water and behind the trees.

We are in a fairly isolated spot. Cell coverage is spotty, but the night sky is awesome tonight. It has been awhile since I have seen the Milky Way. It is just popping out of the sky this evening.

Dinner this evening was a prepackaged turkey breast that popped into the microwave. Steve and I are both pooped this evening. He is already out and I am heading to bed shortly. 

We plan to get an early start tomorrow. Our goal is to get into Wrightsville Beach. We have 15 miles into Beaufort and then the plan is to go out the inlet and head outside down the Atlantic Ocean to the inlet at Wrightsville. It is about 65 miles outside between the inlets. We hope to be out in the Atlantic by 8:30 and back in at Wrightsville Beach by 5:00PM. 

I am really excited about getting Vic on board tomorrow! We can finish this trip together.

Day 7 - North of Beaufort NC to Wilmington, NC - The FIRST trip out in the Atlantic!

We had a good blow last evening with winds approaching 30 knots. I was up every few hours, checking to see if we were dragging anchor. The good news is that the new Ronca 25 held tight. The bad news is that I never really had a good stretch of sleep.

Today turned out to be our first day over 100 miles. It was also my first time with the boat out in the Atlantic Ocean....AND, it was the first time that I had seen Vic since September 26..a good day of firsts, but a tough sail for sure.

We pulled up anchor at 7AM and headed south down Adams Creek and then into a canal that took us south about 15 miles into Beaufort NC.

As we have journeyed south, the tides have been modest, usually less than a foot. From here to Florida, they will start to become a significant part of our planning. We are arriving in Beaufort about 2 hours past low tide. The tides here are about 3 feet, increasing to 8 feet in South Carolina and Georgia, and then diminishing back to a foot or so in South Florida. Note the height of the docks as we motor south along the canal.

This part of the ICW seemed to be comfortably wide until we passed this barge traffic. This fellow was pushing a load of phosphate from a plant in  Beaufort.

We cross under a fixed bridge at MM197. Tides were down about 2 feet and the boards were showing 65.5' clearance. As we crossed under, we never touched the VHF antenna..we were breathing easy for a change.

Just before we entered the open waters north of Beaufort, we picked up a couple of visitors in our journey south. There were 3 porpoises that swam about 3 feet off our starboard sign for about 10 minutes...looked like a baby and parents..as we looked behind us, there were at least 10 more just playing in the channel.

As we entered the open waters north of Beaufort, we can see this plant as well as the next bridge to be navigated. I am guessing that this is a phosphate plant. After the last bridge, I was feeling pretty good about this next one. As we approached, it was also showing 65.5' on the boards, BUT, we only cleared the windex by about 4" (according to a passing boat) as we struck the VHF antenna at least a foot below the top.

Note the bascule bridge behind the fixed bridge. This one is usually open.

At this point, we decided to go outside, as the bridge at MM "206.7" at Morehead City is reported to be lower than published...so we turned to port and headed out the channel into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. We did this with some trepidation as seas were forecasted to be 4-6' and winds over 20 knots from the southwest. It turns out that this forecast was conservative.

Exiting through the channel, a pair of tugs were really struggling to get this barge moving, not doing more than a couple of knots.

As we passed the last buoy around 9:30AM, our path headed west (the coastline turns west here from Cape Lookout) under both power and mainsail as we worked our way down to the Wrightsville Beach / Wilmington area about 5 miles offshore. It was rough. Seas were running 6-10 feet and we spent the first hour just trying to keep from getting seasick. It would be 6PM before our arrival at Mason Inlet at Wrightsville Beach. It seemed like this day would never end.

In this pic, we are about to bury the bow for the at least the 100th time. It was just a rough ride today. About 11AM, it seemed like we would never get there, but we just kept moving forward beating a path to the southwest. Around 4PM the seas calmed to about 4 feet as the winds dropped from 25 knots to about 10 knots. By comparison, it was as if we had entered a "glass smooth" lake. We were relieved..but only until the ominous black clouds of a thunderstorm overwhelmed us. 

The rains arrived at 4:30PM. I managed to get the "connector" canvas over the cockpit of the boat to at least keep us out of the worst of the rain. It rained hard for 30 minutes. This ended up being a blessing as the boat was covered with salt spray, and needed a good bath. We were out of the weather around 5:15 with Mason Inlet on our bow. We even had a good rainbow behind us to lift our spirits after this very long day.

Twice Blessed motored past the jetty entrance to Mason Inlet at 6:05PM, and were thankful to have the rough seas and weather behind us, at least for today.

 

Wrightsville Beach has some beautiful homes as we are finally coming back in to the ICW at MM "285". We turned north on the ICW to head back to "Bridge Tender Marina". This will probably be the only time that find ourselves going northbound, at least for this trip/

 

Bridge Tender marina is on the west bank of the ICW, just past the draw bridge at MM283. Here we are tied up for the night.

As you can see, the boat needs a good bath. I will get around to it when we get to Longboat Key.

Tomorrow is going to be a layover day..a chance to do some laundry, provision for the next week, and spend time with family and friends. I am surely glad that this day is over. I am also thankful that we made Wrightsville Beach in one piece!

Day 8 - Rest and Re-provision Day - Wilmington, NC

Last night and today we stayed at my brothers home in Wilmington. After spending 7 days on the boat, everything rocked until this morning. Steve and I were both struggling with the same issue..very wierd sensation.

Today we re-provisioned the boat, cleaned things up, did laundry, and then went to a movie, Couples Retreat. It was a cute picture.

We will spend this evening with Steve and then head to the boat early tomorrow morning. We should be under way by 9AM. Now that Vic and I have reconnected, we will slow down a bit. We will try to get in to Myrtle Beach tomorrow and then just play it by ear after that. We still need to get to Longboat before the 27th, but this should not be a problem if the weather holds up.

Wilmington / Wrightsville Beach is at MM "283". Miami is at MM "1087". At 80 miles a day, we should make Miami by the 21st. Another 4 days should get us to Longboat Key. So far we have done 3 days that are close to or more than 100 miles. This is just too much in a day. it is time to slow it down a bit.

Tomorrow starts a new week and new discoveries......

Day 9 - Wilmington NC to Myrtle Beach, NC

Today Vic and I finally got to set sail together. Steve dropped us off at the boat at 8:30AM. We had a couple of loads of clean clothes, plus Vic's suitcase to get loaded and then we cast off from alongside the docks at the Bridge Tender Marina. It was just past low tide, so I was feeling rather comfortable about the the fixed bridges that I would encounter over the next 4 hours.

Unfortunately, about 10 miles south, at MM "293.5", Carolina Inlet, we ran aground right in the middle of the channel. We hit hard and the boat lurched forward to a hard stop. There was a commercial fisherman on the west bank of the ICW yelling at me. When I finally had my wits to listen, he was saying that the channel had shoaled across and I needed to go out of the channel to the east to work around...but first I would have to turn the boat around and head north for a couple hunderd yards before I could get back across the channel. This turned out to be quite a task, as I mushed my way through the bottom and got stuck twice more. I was about ready to call the Boat US Towboat when I managed to use my bow thrusters to slide sideways and finally get back up to the north a bit and take another shot. We bounced a few times, but finally got past the inlet and back into 12' of water. This all took about 20 minutes.

We were on our way once again. Shortly thereafter, the ICW cuts across to the Cape Fear RIver via Snow's Cut. We managed this transition with no problems, picked up the BIG River, and headed south.

Current was running south and we were making almost 9 knots (anything over about 8.3 knots is a gift). While motoring south, The Southport Ferry crossed our path. It is a long way back up to Wilmington and across the river, so this ferry was rather active (we saw two of them leaving the Southport terminal). 

We headed down as far as Southport, just before entering the Atlantic when we made a turn to starboard to pick up the ICW channel. Onward to Myrtle Beach!

There are some beautiful homes along the Waterway along this route. Seems as if they just got nicer as we got closer to the South Carolina line and Myrtle.

There are several ocean inlets that cut across the ICW. Shoaling is a problem at most of these. We were a bit more wary after our experience at Carolina inlet. We watched local traffic a bit more carefully at Lockwoods Folly Inlet, and Shollote River inlet, and managed to avoid running aground. We were also helped by the rising tide. Along this section of the ICW, high tide was around 4PM today. This likely kept us out of big trouble at the inlets, but as we progressed farther to the south, it made each bridge a bit more difficult.

As Twice Blessed crossed under 4 bridges, each was a bit closer to catastrophe. The last bridge at MM "333" was showing 66 feet on the boards, but we hit the VHF antenna about 1 foot down on the whip. Since we had the antenna measured at 66'0", I am becoming more and more circumspect about the accuracy of the level indicating boards on the bridges. Tomorrow I am planning to depart before low tide and let the large tide swing on this part of our journey (>5 feet), give us some cushion on the fixed bridges to come.

Birds are everywhere along the Waterway, especially cormorants and pelicans. There is always one more "bird picture" to suck me in. Here is the one for today!

The last bridge of the day was the only pontoon bridge that we will encounter in our journey southward. The Sunset Bridge won't be in service much longer asa fixed bridge is under construction just to its south. We waited about 15 minutes for this one to open around 3PM. There was a commercial "shrimper" to the south, and 2 power plus 2 sailboats to the north. Here are a few shots that Vic caught as I motored through.

About this time, the rain finally caught up with us. It was just cold and dreary and we were ready to find some place to anchor or tie up for the evening. While we were feeling sorry for ourselves as we hunkered down in the drizzle, we passed these two guys at a golf course...not sure if this is commitment or stupidity!

And for those thinking that they are having a bad day, this scene puts it all in perspective!

We ended up at Lightkeeper's Marina in a very nice manmade harbor at MM 346. We were tied up at the slip around 4PM. There are actually 3 marinas in this basin. We are about 5 miles north of Myrtle Beach in the little community of "Little River". Lightkeeper's charged us $1.25/foot to tie up, not a bad price, but an anchorage would have been preferred. There were several restaurants around the basin, but two of them were closed on a Monday evening. We ended up at the local Holiday Inn for a light dinner and then headed back to the boat in the rain.

Vic has crashed and I am shortly going to do the same. We will start this once again tomorrow.  I doubt that we will make Charleston, SC, but we should get within 20 miles. Let's hope that the rain slides out and the sunshine takes hold!

Day 10 - Myrtle Beach to 30 miles north of Charleston SC

Today was a good day, but a long one as well. We did not get underway until 8:30 this morning. There were at least 10 fixed bridges ahead of us today, including one almost as soon as we got underway. We also dealt with several swing bridges. I wanted us to get underway before the local low tide so that most of the bridges would have a bit of extra clearance. We did well, only scraping the very last bridge just before the merge of the Waccamaw River and the Great Pee Dee River (who ever came up with that name?)..Our starting point was MM "346". We finally shut it down this evening around 6:15PM at MM "430"..a good 84 miles today.

 So here are some of our bridge adventures...

Note that there is a swing bridge in the background (now why would they need two bridges this close together?).

Note the sailboat in front of us here. This is the "Southerly" from Maine. This fellow was sailing south single handed..not sure where he was ending his journey, but we have crossed paths the last few days.

 This bridge was just south of Myrtle Beach...and this next pic is what it looks like up close and personal.

 The little "V" with the arrow is the windex. The circular antenna is a broadcast TV antenna which actually sits below the top of the mast height of 63' 6". The VHF marine radio whip antenna is about to be 4" below the steel beam of this bridge. The top of the windex is 64' 7". The top of the VHF whip is 66' 0".

And here is one more swing bridge. These things are amazing!

And finally, this is a bascule bridge. The reason for two bridges here is that the bascule bridge is a train bridge. It is normally open.

Right at Myrtle Beach, there is a section of the ICW known as the "Rock Pile". Here is why.

These photos were taken at low tide. Normally, they are 2-3 feet below water, drifting toward the side of the fairly narrow channel can ruin your day! The rock pile continued about 15 miles before opening up into the Waccama River.

This is an interesting photo..so what is it??

Here is a hint..we were cruising past North Myrtle Beach Airport. For those of us who are pilots, we know this as a VOR Beacon. It transmits a signal that is encoded and can tell the pilot what direction he is from this beacon.

As we were motoring along, this just caught our attention... (you can click on this image to blow it up to full size).

New York - 657, Miami - 720. FWIW, we have at least 200 miles to go past Miami.

During the day we traversed some remote geography, including a long stretch of the Waccamaw River, the Esterville Minim Creek Canal, and portions of the North and South Santee Rivers. There were many miles of marsh and uninhabited (a least by humans) real estate.

In fact, in the last two hours of our trip today, this is the only sign of civilization that we saw until we arrived in the tiny fishing village of McCellanville, SC.

This is a two car ferry..and the only sign of a road that we saw for more than 20 miles.

Lastly, there were many bird pictures that we took today..but this one made the blog...

All in all not a bad day..only scraped one bridge, covered more than 80 miles, temperatures were in the 80s (I see that the lows are in the 30s tonight in York, PA)...no rain, and no wrong turns. 

It is 11PM and planning is done for tomorrow. Vic has crashed and I am close behind...Now all we need to day is to keep the rain at bay on Wednesday!