The Dismal Swamp south ...

We are back in Daytona Beach, Alizee safely tied up in her slip at Halifax Harbor Marina, and we made the trek from Norfolk in seventeen days, which is pretty good time considering we held up in Elizabeth City, NC, for weather for two days and spent half-days in a couple of other spots.  We left Norfolk on October 16th, the water so high there from the effects of a Nor'easter that it covered the fixed docks at the Waterside Marina and shut down the Great Lock south of Norfolk for two days.   But we had decided to go through the Dismal Swamp, whose locks were not affected by the high water.  It is the oldest operating canal in the United States, with locks at two ends, and a visitor's center dock about half-way through where one can tie up for the night.  We made it to the visitor's center this first day, spent the night tied up there, and departed early the next morning for Elizabeth City by way of the second, South Mills Lock.

North Carolina

We'd hoped to go further than Elizabeth City, but the Nor'easter brought bitter cold air, especially when in the open cockpit of a sailboat, so we spent a couple of days there, meeting some interesting cruisers, eating out,  visiting the Albemarle County Museum, going to a farmers market, and watching a replica 16th Century English ship sail into town.  A couple of fellows from Minnesot Beach, NC, who we'd met at the first lock of the Dismal Swamp, showed up in the same sushi restaurant we headed to one night, and I guess because we were special people, they bought us dinner.  Now that's North Carolina hospitality!  We also connected with David and Ginger on their Catalina Avalon, who we'd met earlier at an anchorage in Virginia and shared some photos with, and we met Richard and Robyn on Buiochas, another Cabo Rico.

On the 19th we set out motor-sailing down the Pasquatank River and across the Albemarle Sound to Alligator River Bridge.  Here we started retracing our steps from the trip northward.  We found a nice anchorage on the Alligator River, spent it with only another boat nearby, and quietly celebrated our anniversary of the first time we ever had contact via Match.com.  Very sweet!



The next morning we headed out down the long Alligator-Pungo Canal, the Pungo River, past Bellhaven, and ended up anchoring in Eastham Creek, one of the spots we'd anchored coming up.  This time, however, we had company.   Avalon and Buiochas both came in and joined us.  I put the dinghy in the water, and we all wound up on Avalon having appetizers and wine until the sun set.





The 21st found us on the way to Oriental, where we got a transient slip at the Oriental Marina, fueled up, and then wandered around connecting with acquaintances from my stay there in 2008.  Wayne Lamm, owner of the Oriental Deli loaned us his pick-up truck so we could do some provisioning, and Karl Lichty drove in from New Bern to have dinner with us, stopping at our behest at the ABC store along the way to freshen our liquor supply.  Ross Pease, dock master at Oriental Yacht Harbor, was his old self, friendly as ever, and offered his SUV as well to get us around.  We had a wonderful dinner with Karl, joined by David and Ginger, at M&M's, where the best crab-corn chowder on the eastern seaboard can be found ... well, that's my opinion!  Oh yes, and Peter Waterson came by to look at my Sirius Weather system, which worked only part of the time and had recently not worked at all.  Turned out it was a loose connection in the Navpod on the pedestal, which I had not been able to check because I didn't have the "tool" to open the Navpod.  Bless his heart, Peter had an extra and gave it to me ... no charge for the visit at all.  Good man!

We'd hoped to spend a couple of days in Oriental, but we'd blown our extra time in Elizabeth City, so we headed out on the 22nd for Adams Creek and Morehead City.  As we crossed under the highrise highway bridge at Morehead City, acquaintances from our stay at the Dismal Swamp visitor's center and Elizabeth City just happened to be walking across it, and they snapped a couple of photos of Alizee making her way under the bridge.

Eventually we anchored at Mile Hammock Bay, which is in Camp Lejeune, NC, well-know home to the Marines, and I finally took note of how many more boats were on the ICW than when we came up in September.  In Elizabeth City there were at least fifteen boats hold up with us waiting weather.  Oriental had almost twenty boats in the harbor and on the docks, and here at Mile Hammock we found nine other boats anchored, all of us enjoying the touch-and-go landings being practiced by a marine helicopter.   Later in Charleston, the anchorage must have had 30 boats in it.

The 23rd found us in Wrightsville Beach, where we anchored after navigating Motts Channel.  On the way up, I had gone aground in Motts Channel ... local knowledge would have told me that there was a high point right in the middle of the channel ... and this time I called ahead to a marina as well as to Boat US to check the path through the channel.  Again we found twenty some boats anchored in the main anchorage, so we went to a side anchorage, and dropped the hook virtually by ourselves.  Well, I say that tongue-in-cheek because soon after we settled in we had the University of North Carolina Wilmington Sailing Team doing there work out in "our" anchorage. "You're okay where you are," said the coach who waved at me from his little outboard boat.  "They won't hit you!"  Well, one came mighty close, but they didn't and it was a treat to watch these really good young sailors doing their stuff.

The next morning we headed out for Southport.  The trip would have been uneventful but for two incidents.  At Carolina Inlet, a tug with a barge loaded with gravel or such was stuck temporarily in the shoaling waters at the inlet mouth.  We watched as he muscled his way out, turning the barge back on to course and heading south.  We'd heard several exchanges on the radio about shoaling, which I made note of, but when we went through, wouldn't you know it, we found ourselves driving right up on to one of those shoals near the red markers (all the radio talk had been to stay wide of the green markers, which we did).  I thought we were stuck, and a fellow in a small power boat was going to try and help us off, when I realized that the tide was coming in and the swells were sort of lifting us, so I managed to back off and get on our way.

The second incident occurred on the Cape Fear River.  A squall came up the river and caught us in driving rain for about twenty minutes.  We had no sail up, but the wind on our beam hit over 30 knots and literally drove us sideways across the shipping channel.  I could barely see, had to rely too much on instruments, and all the while was aware that a tanker was coming down the channel from Wilmington at 14 knots and about fifteen minutes behind us.  The storm lifted just about ten minutes before the tanker appeared, and by the time we reached Southport, it was as though there had been no storm at all.

In Southport, we were the only boat to try and anchor in the little harbor.  It took us two tries, but we got snugged in, just as we had on the way up.  This time, I took down the dinghy and got us ashore.  We walked around town, and with the squall fresh in mind, Pen bought herself a nice new slicker.  We had fresh shrimp at a port side restaurant, and then we bought some of the best large fresh shrimp we'd ever seen at a little fish market on the waterfront.  At $4 per pound, it was truly a steal and later we kicked ourselves for not buying more than one and a half pounds.


Off shore toward Georgetown


While devouring fried shrimp on Alizee in Southport, we weighed the decision of going off shore to try and make some time.  Weather forecasts suggested the Nor'easter was behind us and we had 10-15 knot NE winds along the coast, gusts to 25 and 30, but only well out past twenty miles.  We plotted courses to both Port Royal, SC, and Georgetown, SC, and decided to try it.  Next morning, the 25th, we weighed anchor, went by the Bald Point Marina on the mouth of the Cape Fear River and topped our fuel tanks and pumped the head, raised sails and headed out at 0945.  We had 14 knots of wind on a beam reach, and made 6.3 knots out to the end of the Cape Fear channel.  Then we turned down, putting the wind dead on our stern, and sailed under the main at 5.7 knots.   Around noon, the Sirius Weather reported that we'd probably get gusts of 25 knots that night, so we decided to head into Little River, a prudent target, although we'd have saved no time from going down the ICW.  We put the trolling line out, and sailed along with the wind more to our starboard.  Then we changed our minds.

I'm not really sure what led to our decision.  We certainly still knew we'd get 25 knot gusts later, but we decided to tack 45 miles our so out to bear on Georgetown, which we decided we could make in 20 to 24 hours, putting us there in mid- to late-morning the next day.  We tacked, re-rigged the preventer on the main, made sure our jack line was in place, had our life jackets and tethers handy, and off we went.  The wind initially was about 11 knots and we were doing 4.7 knots.  It was a pleasant ride, but the wind was building, so imperceptibly we hardly noticed it.  By 1600, it was blowing 20 knots with four foot swells, and we were flying along at 6.3 to 7.8 knots.  We caught ourselves a mackerel, put it in the freezer, and pulled in the fishing line.

It was at this point that we should have reefed (if not sooner).  By 1800 the sea swell was six to seven feet and the wind gusts were closing in on 30 knots.  I decided that if we were going to jibe and change course back to Georgetown, we'd better do it now, before the sun set, rather than go on another couple of hours as we had planned.  At 1830, we jibed, but just as we did a 30 knot gust hit us, the main sheet flew around (although we'd pulled it in for the jibe) and a shackle holding one of the main sheet's three blocks to the boom snapped, leaving only two shackles holding it.  We got the preventer reset, and now had a second, totally accidental jibe, this one snapping a line holding the preventer to the deck.  The swells nearing 10 feet and the now steady 25 knot wind with 30+ knot gusts were too much for us.  We rolled in the Genoa, turned on the engine, managed to drop the mainsail and secure it with a couple of ties, and we started motoring toward Wynyah Bay and Georgetown, over 34 nautical miles away.  To stabilize the boat, we deployed the staysail, and shut down the engine, and Alizee started behaving like a thoroughbred, dancing along the following sea of 8 to 10 foot seas at between 5 and 6 knots.  At this speed, we reached the channel markers leading into Winyah Bay at 0200, pitch black since the moon was hidden in a overcast sky, and I navigated the markers with the invaluable aid of my chart plotter.  The winds hardly let up, and we found ourselves motor-sailing up the Winyah River at close to 7 knots, following the lighted channel markers and range lights.  At 0430 we finally dropped anchor at Rabbit Island, just off the channel, drank a couple of drams of rum and collapsed into our bunk.  We'd covered 85 nm in 16 hours, averaging 5.5 knots with top speeds of nearly 8 knots.  And, we'd learned yet another lesson about miscalculations, the danger of not reefing when you should, and just what a good boat can do when it's set up correctly.

When we finally awakened around 1130 on the 26th, we found ourselves facing a drizzly day.  Pen made some poached eggs, and we motored just fifteen miles to Minim Creek off the North Santee River and anchored with three or four other boats.  We cleaned the mackerel and Pen found a recipe to try with it, which sadly turned out to be pretty pedestrian.  Maybe we just weren't in the mood.

South Carolina


On the 27th, recovered more or less from our adventure off shore, we motored down to Charleston, getting the Genoa out only as we crossed Charleston Harbor.  We took a berth at the Charleston City Marina, did laundry, showered, and used the internet.  I cooked us a stir fry for dinner, and by morning we were truly ready to move on.   We continued down the ICW to anchor for the night at Alligator Creek on the South Edisto River.  It was lovely, and we barbecued our second rack of lamb, which we'd been carrying with us in the freezer since we'd started the trip.  It was a wonderful, peaceful, beautiful anchorage ... until the sun went down and suddenly it turned into the Great Mosquito Massacre of Alligator Creek.  We must have killed a hundred of the pesky little bastards, all filled with globlets of our own blood.  Ugh!

On the 29th, we got a fairly early start and head south to Beaufort, SC, where we decided to take a marina slip for another night.  The Link 20 monitor on my charging system has not been working and the batteries don't seem to be holding a charge as they should, so I thought shore power would be nice.  Also, Beaufort is supposed to be one of the more picturesque historic towns along the way, so we could spend an afternoon there.  We arrived just before 1300, took the marina's courtesy car over to West Marine, where I got a shackle to replace the broken on the main sheet, and to the grocery for some provisions.  We walked around a bit, took a historic "carriage" ride (really a wagon with twelve of us on board), found a restaurant that served wonderful sushi and Thai appetizers, had an it-turned-out-to-be-not-very-good pizza for dinner, and watched the town's kids enjoying a night of trick-or-treating with all the businesses downtown and enjoying a movie on the riverfront.

Slammed on the docks

The next morning we were up at 0700.  We showered, made coffee, and got ready to cast off.  We were going to try another off shore jaunt, this time to Jacksonville, FL, which we could make in 24 to 28 hours.  The only hitch at the moment seemed to be the current in the Beaufort River.  My God!  It was churning along through the marina at at least three or four knots, and the dock master had put us head in to a slip from which we had no choice but to back out ... straight into that current.  Now I've gotten pretty good at backing Alizee, but I was worried.  This would require me getting up to speed quickly and not letting the current swing the stern.  With Pen on deck to retrieve lines, the dock master (a pretty young guy) and his assistant (even younger) casting off lines, the dock master let the stern go too quickly.  That was it, the current caught the stern and started pushing it port (the direction of my prop walk anyway).

Within moments we were abeam the current and up against the dock master's shack.  We still had one line from the bow to the slip we had been in, with the dock master and his assistant holding it, and now we had four bystanders trying to fend us off the dockmaster's shack and the dock to our stern.  We thought it through.  First a line to the dock astern from the sheet winch on the starboard side.  I winched us ever so slowly up and away from the dock master's shack, at the same time a sailor more experienced with lines helped to warp the bow line in a bit onto the finger dock where we had originally been tied up.  This lifted our stern away ... slowly, ever so slowly ... from the dock astern Alizee.  Then with my spare halyard (about 100 feet long) from the main sheet winch on the housetop to a shackle affixed at the bow, thence to the dock astern of us, we slowly winched the bow around, into the current (stopping to continue winching us away from the dock master's shack and getting the stern off the dock), and finally pulling Alizee all the way around and tying her up.  Whew!  That's the hardest way to turn a boat around I can recall seeing.  We managed not to break anything on the docks, didn't get a scratch on Alizee, and we celebrated with back-pats and handshakes all around.  I don't think that young dock master will again put a sailboat into that slip; certainly not bow in.

Skipping by Georgia off shore

It was now 0945, and Pen and I managed to get off the dock and underway ... oops, a fender fell off, which the dock master recovered and we picked up as we scooted by the outside of the marina.  We'd had our excitement for the day, for sure, so we motor sailed with the current and the Genoa down the Beaufort River, passing a couple of shrimp boats coming up river as we headed to and out Port Royal Channel.  We put up the mainsail going out the channel, which gave us a nice boost, but once we turned south we realized we'd be better with just the Genoa, so we hove to and dropped the main.  Although with a bit of yaw, we set out at 5+ knots southward to the St. Johns River and Jacksonville.  A Coast Guard helicopter buzzed us just after we dropped the main, and I wondered if he thought we were in trouble.  Maybe it was written all over us, a big sign on the sails perhaps that says: "Help, we don't know what we're doing!"

This sail turned out to be wonderful.  We got used to the yawing, the breezes never got much over 15 knots, and we made good time.  At Savannah's channel we had a quarter-mile close encounter with the C. I. Breves, a cargo ship heading for Mobile.  We watched him drop off the Savannah pilot, then called him on the VHF to alert him of our course and intention, and he adjusted his course to give us space.  Pen set up a watch bag filled with snacks and such, which she hung from the front of the pedestal, and after cocktails, we set up for three-hour shifts.  Pen really loved her night watch, from midnight to 0300.  She had a full moon, really nice seas and breezes, and she danced away to I-Pod music the whole watch.  She didn't wake me once on her two watches, something for which she was rightfully damned proud.  And, since I took the 0300 to 0600 watch, she didn't have to deal with cargo vessel Somers Isle coming within a 1/4 mile of our stern on its way into the St. Mary's inlet and Fernandina Beach.

At 0900 we arrived at the St. Johns River inlet, and in 45 minutes we were up the river and back on the ICW headed toward St. Augustine.  I took the opportunity on the flat water of siphoning 20.8 gallons of diesel from the Jerry cans into the main fuel tank, and we had a peaceful trip down to the anchorage just north of the Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine.  Although we'd planned to spend the afternoon and evening in St. Augustine, we were pretty tired, so we elected just to lounge about in the cockpit, have a couple of cocktails, call a couple of friends on the phone, and barbecue a steak for dinner.  We agreed that we are going to drive up for a weekend and night in a bed and breakfast in December, so we can really enjoy St. Augustine.

On November 1st, we caught the 0830 Bridge of Lions (we had forgotten that day light savings time ended over night, and thought it was the 0930 opening, until some other boater reminded us of the time change), and we had a peaceful motor sail for a couple of hours until the wind died, and then continued motoring down to the Palm Coast Marina at Mile 802.9 on the ICW.  Along the way we were treated to a wonderful site of a flock of white pelicans along the waterway.  Uncommon this far north, they were truly spectacular.  We went ashore to the local "European Village" shops and had a gigantic, scrumptuous pizza at Mezza Luna, of which we took half back to Alizee and munched on it for the next two or three meals.

November 2nd was our last day of travel down to Halifax Harbor in Daytona Beach, and we arrived at 1300, stopped at the fuel dock and filled the diesel tanks up (it only took 15.7 gallons), and pumped out the head and ran clean water through it.  Once in our slip, we gave Alizee a good wash down, cleaned the cockpit and cushions, cleaned her up inside as well, and enjoyed a nice stir fry dinner.  Now a couple of days ashore, busting in on Erin, who is living at Pen's house in DeLand, a quick trip to California for Lisa's birthday, and then we'll be back and forth from the boat to the house for the next couple of months, re-varnishing all Alizee's teak, checking over her rigging, engine and electrical system.  In January we'll move back aboard Alizee completely for six months and head out to the Bahamas by way of the Florida Keys.   But for now, it's nice to be sort of in one place for a while.

Oxford to St. Michaels, and south to Norfolk ...

After a second night at Mear's Yacht Haven in Oxford, Maryland, where we charged batteries and waited out rainy weather, we departed on October 8th for St. Michaels, a thirty nautical mile trip (although it's just a hop, skip and jump as the crow would fly).  We had full sails up as soon as we got outside Oxford's Town Creek and had a nice sail down the Tred Avon River to the Choptank River, where we turned west and in two tacks made it out to the Chesapeake to turn north to Eastern Bay.  It's not all sailing on the Chesapeake, particularly when you have destinations in mind, and turning up the bay put us close to the wind, so we motor-sailed until the wind fell off almost completely and then motored the rest of the way through Eastern Bay and the Miles River to St. Michaels.

We anchored comfortably between two other cruisers in Fogg Cove, just off the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  We spent two nights at anchor here, provisioning a bit at the local store and going into the Crab Claw Restaurant for a dozen blue crabs ... we had to do it, although it took us almost two hours to pick out a dozen crabs.  Yum, yum!   Even better we went to the local farmer's market, which was really a highlight.  Even though we'd bought produce at the grocery, we couldn't help ourselves and loaded up on really fresh produce!


The really nice experience of St. Michaels, however, is the historical maritime character given by the presence of the maritime museum.  Wonderful old skiffs, skip jacks, log canoes and crabbing boats are in various stages of restoration, both on display on land and in the water.  The museum takes out visitors on one of its boats, another local fellow takes out people for sails on the Miles River in a beautifully restored skiff, and there are in fact a couple of working crab boats in the area.  In Fogg Cove, one crabber runs his lines out early in the morning and makes three or four passes on the lines before the sun is too high in the sky.  It was truly a pleasure to watch him out there the two mornings we awakened at anchor.

The next day our friend Peter Jakab drove over from D.C. for a short sail and then dinner with Bob and Dian, who drove up from Easton for another visit.  Pen planned a nice lunch, which we hoped we'd have during a calm, light-wind sail on the Miles River ... we'd watched local tourist sail boats do this the day before.  But, as luck would have it, just after getting the sails up and out on the river the winds screeched up to 30 knots, so we reefed down the main and Genoa after screaming downwind at seven knots for 20 minutes and had to tack back upwind for 35 minutes or so to get back to St. Michaels.  Peter (not a sailor at all) seemed to enjoy the whole thing and even helped out reefing the main, but it was hardly the introduction to sailing we'd planned for him.  In the end, we returned to a berth at St. Michaels Marina, had the lunch that we'd hoped to have on the river, and relaxed for the afternoon until Bob and Dian arrived for dinner at the Town Dock.

On October 11th, we got up, did a load of laundry, pumped out the head, topped off the fuel tanks, and motor-sailed up just a few miles to an anchorage on Crab Alley Creek, which put us in a good jumping off spot to turn south down toward the Solomons, Maryland.  I tried a bit of fishing here, but without success.  We'd hoped to do a lot of fishing, on the trip, but for one reason or another, it hasn't seemed to work out that way.


Our motor-sail down the Chesapeake to an anchorage on St. Leonard's Creek off the Patuxent River (where the Solomons are located), was a very long, cold trip.  The sky was overcast the entire way and the temperatures had to be in the fifties.  We were most happy to slip into the Patuxent River and make our way up to St. Leonard's Creek, along the way passing a classic old wooden skiff going up the river.



We found anchorage in Rollins Cove, one of the prettiest places we've found.  The famous Vera's White Sands Beach Club was just a mile more upstream on the creek, and although we'd vowed to visit it, we were too cold and tired to dinghy up there, so it has to be on another trip.  "On our next trip" is something we've found ourselves saying a lot.  ... At any rate, Rollins Cove provided another chance for unsuccessful fishing, and perhaps the most beautiful sunset either of us have ever seen in our lives.  It just got better and better for a full hour ... we think you'll agree it was pretty amazing.

Up early the next day, we raised the dinghy up on the davits as mist rose from the cove's water, I weighed anchor and Pen handled the helm, effectively switching our tasks for the first time, and we motored slowly and reluctantly down St. Leonard's Creek, watching the leaves changing color almost before our eyes.  It would have been wonderful to stay, but we've been watching the weather, and we knew we only had two days before a big storm would hit the region to get as far south (perhaps to Norfolk) as we could.

This day was sunny with temperatures in the 60s, cool but comfortable, and as we headed down the Patuxent, we wondered do we go to St. Mary's Creek on the Potomac, just a few hours sail?  Or should we try for Deltaville, a 45-mile push?  Or perhaps split the difference and go to Little or Great Wicomico?  When we reached the Potomac, it was barely noon, so we decided to leave St. Mary's to our next trip.  We also decided to skip past the Wicomicos, since motor-sailing we were averaging close to seven knots, and we finally settled on going into Antipoison Creek, just above the Rappahannock River.  The cruising guide explains the odd name: "...local Indians are said to have saved the life of Captain John Smith by medicating a wound he'd received from a ray.  Hence, legend has it 'antipoison' was applied to the creek as well as to Captain Smith."

Our anchorage next to Avalon, a Catalina 42 (the winged keel version is very popular along the eastern seaboard), was pleasant enough, although noise from a fish plant nearby was a bit distracting.  We had a nice conversation with the couple on Avalon, from Connecticut and making their first trip down the ICW and to the Bahamas.  During the night the winds came up, and we discovered in the morning that our neighbors had dragged a bit and had to put out a second anchor.  The anchor that dragged was a Fortress, which our neighbor commented held well in mud, but what secured them was their Delta with chain rode. 

From Antipoison Creek, I figured if we left at 0800 and the wind was north or northeast at 15 knots as predicted, we'd be able to make Norfolk.  So I made a reservation at the Waterside Marina and we set off.  Some watermen waved us away from thin water going out the channel (thankfully ... we didn't need a grounding), and enjoyed pretty nice sailing for almost three hours, when the wind started falling off (as predicted, though a bit sooner than).

A bit before the wind fell off, Avalon crept passed us (motor-sailing with the Genoa out), and we each snapped photos of the other.  In Norfolk connected and exchanged the photos, which for us is the first photo of Alizee under sail.  For the rest of the trip we also motor-sailed, managed to get into Norfolk while negotiating three monster cargo ships all coming in at the same time, and arrived at the Waterside Marina just as the rains started to come at 1730.  We leave on Friday, after heavy rain all morning Thursday, a bit of shopping, a great sushi lunch, and later dinner at Outback.  Today we begin the Dismal Swamp...

More photos

Smith Island to Oxford ...

We are in Oxford, Maryland, after an adventure leaving Smith Island, three days in Solomons, Maryland old  from Encinal Yacht Club on San Francisco Bay.  In Oxford we have seen other old friends from the world of the history of technology, and after three days here (partly waiting on weather), tomorrow we'll make a thirty mile sail to St. Michaels (which is just 5-6 miles as the crow flies), where we hope to meet another friend.  Then it will be time to turn south and head back to Florida, which we figure will take us three weeks plus.

Leaving Smith Island, we had planned to wait for high tide at 11:45 in the morning, but I spoke to a local waterman who said we could follow him out in his crab boat so we'd better navigate the channel and do it before high tide.  So, although we hit bottom in one tricky spot, I managed to navigate around the shoals in the channel and make it out at 09:30.  By 10:00 we had our sails up on a close haul and laid in a course for the Solomons.  Along side us our slip mate from Smith Island, John, sailed his Francis Hershoff designed gaff rigged, two-foot draft boat with dagger boards, which is powered by a Solomon-built electric wheel motor with 12 AGM batteries.  A very pretty boat, indeed, and he looked great under sail.

At the Solomons we tied up at Spring Cove Marina right in front of Lu Sea, Karl and Lucy's motor vessel.  We had a cocktails and watched the sunset on Lu Sea's fly bridge, had a great dinner at a local restaurant, enjoyed spending time together, dinghied into another place for lunch the next day, walked around Solomons, had a party on the fly bridge the second night where I played my new Casio keyboard and we all over-beveraged, provisioned at the local market, and generally had a rousing fun time.

On October 4th, Sunday, we were up to see Karl and Lucy head out for Norfolk (a hundred mile run) and then see John and Gail off in their rented car to catch a flight out of Baltimore after a day in Annapolis.  Then we cast off for Oxford.  We had a good sail, though close hauled, for the morning, crossing the bay and back again before turning to motor sailing.  We navigated our way through an enormous crab pot field, which was my own fault for skirting the main channel while trying to keep from going head into the wind.  Then coming into the Choptank River we killed the engine and had a nice broad reach to the Tred Avon River, where we beam-reached up to the Town Creek entrance at Oxford.

We anchored in Town Creek and six feet plus water, and then dinghied over to Schooners restaurant to meet Bob and Dian for dinner.  Great fun, indeed!  ... The next day we wandered about the town, got a couple of things at the local market, and lazed about on Alizee.  We thought about weighing anchor and going to another anchorage a couple of miles up the Tred Avon, but we were so comfortable, we just stayed and read and relaxed and made plans to see Bob and Dian again for dinner the next evening.

The Link monitoring system for my batteries is on the fritz ... it was when I first bought the boat but I had it repaired.  Now it's out again.  I think I'll have it replaced when we get back to Daytona Beach.  Meanwhile, I'm a bit worried that the batteries aren't holding a charge as they should, so we made a reservation to spend Tuesday night at Mears Yacht Haven.  Good thing, because the batteries really needed a charge.  I may have a bad battery, as well as a monitoring problem, though I surely hope not. 

Another little bit of excitement was that we docked at low tide on Tuesday.  As the tide rose, the stern of the dinghy (with the motor on it) got caught under the dock and was wedged in tightly.  Pen suggested if we let some air out of the dinghy and lifted the bow up, it might slip out.  Fortunately, a fellow from an adjacent boat came over, and with his weight and mine in the stern, air let out of the dinghy, and Pen lifting the bow, we managed to slip it out.  It was easily re-inflated with a foot pump, and we averted a real disaster.

It was just in time for Bob and Dian to pick us up and take us out to dinner at a really nice restaurant with a name well familiar to sailors on the Pacific Coast: Latitude 38.  No souvenirs sold, or to be sure I'd have bought one.  I found it intriguing to know that Oxford is at 38 degrees 41 minutes north latitude, and I felt a brief wave of nostalgia for San Francisco Bay.  Not much though, for we were soon into a scrumptious meal and talking about plans to meet again in St. Michaels on Friday or Saturday.





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Traveling up the Chesapeake ...

We departed Norfolk on September 26 under overcast skies and with a variable wind of around 10 knots.  Down the Elizabeth River and past the line of naval ships (what few are in Norfolk these days, with all our investment in the Middle East), we had a lovely sail as the wind built to 15 knots.  The water was flat and we glided along at over six knots.  But it was not to last, for as we turned east on the James River to enter the Chesapeake Bay itself, we turned right into the wind.  For an hour we beat into the wind, Pen actually having the fortitude to make us a couple of sandwiches for breakfast, and then we shifted to a northwest course and things smoothed out a little.  At 1400 we reached our destination, Claxton Creek, where we anchored and snub in in six feet of water, amidst a could of duck blinds and a ration of crab pots.

Claxton Creek reminded me of anchorages Pen and I stayed in on our way out of the Abacos last May.  Perhaps it was the threatening overcast skies, for on our way out of the Bahamas we had ten days of stormy weather and spent a lot of time waiting for windows in which to seek out another anchorage a little farther along.  We'd left Norfolk in just such a window and sought out Claxton Creek as a refuge to avoid marina fees and wait out a bit more weather.  But it was also the somewhat exposed nature of Claxton Creek, which allowed the 15-20 knot winds to blow right across us while not really disturbing the water, and it was also the fact that we both felt so comfortable at anchor, with a good spaghetti dinner (thanks to Patricia, who'd made it for the trip) and really meaningful conversation about life, the universe and everything ... 42.

At 0730 on the 27th we were up having coffee and spent the morning planning how we would work our way up to the Solomons on Maryland's western shore to meet friends Karl and Lucy Lichty and John McCartney and Gail Lapetina, who were joining them from the Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda for a week long cruise on the Chesapeake.  The rainy weather faded by noon, and we weighed anchor and had wonderful broad-reach and some wing-on-wing sailing up past Mobjack Bay to Horn Harbor, a nice little protected spot but one with awfully thin water.

Arriving in Horn Harbor, we took three tries to finally get anchored in six feet of water on the south side of Horn Creek between markers 12 and 14, discovering a twist in the anchor shackle after the second try that had caused the anchor to settle on its side and not dig in.  The spot we did anchor in was that recommended the Guide to Cruising the Chesapeake Bay (2008), and in finding our spot we discovered that the guide has a couple of big errors in it concerning Horn Harbor.  It reminded us that cruising guides are just that: guides.  Once dug in, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset, marred only briefly by our dropping red wine on the foredeck, and then we were in bed by 2030 after a good chicken curry stir fry.

September 28 at 0615 we awoke to a gorgeous sunrise and by 0645 were weighing anchor and working our way out of the Horn Harbor channel with the beginning of the ebb tide.  At one point the depth meter read 3'7", and by past experience we know we are going aground at 3'2", but we made it out, raised the main, and motor sailed out to Wolf Trap Lighthouse, one of the Chesapeake's several classic lights marking areas of shoal and danger.  We laid in a course of 354 degrees true for entrance to Ingram Bay and our next anchorage at Mill Creek.  With wind out of the southwest at 10 knots, we sailed on a broad reach and breakfasted on a Western omelet.  After three hours the wind shifted to out of the south, and we went to wing-on-wing and skmmed along at almost six knots.  Finally turning into Ingram Bay, the wind had picked up and we hit 7.2 knots and a school of porpoises swam along with us for about 10 minutes.  They had a great time playing with Alizee and gave us a distraction for the 25 knot winds.

Mill Creek is a wonderful spot, completely secluded, ten feet of water almost up to the shoreline and quite protected from high winds.  One still gets a breeze, but it's gentle and comfortable.  It was the perfect spot for us to ride out the predicted cold front moving across the Chesapeake that evening.  We passed another cruiser in a nice ketch and at 1330 anchored by ourselves one more bend up the creek.  I took advantage of the time provided by the early arrival to change the oil and filter on Alizee's engine, and as the sun waned and clouds began to move in we enjoyed feeding stale crackers to a couple of seagulls, had our evening cocktail, and cooked a pork stir fry.  The cold front finally blasted through with perhaps 30 minutes of rain, lightning and thunder and high winds, and then the stars came out and the temperature dropped into the 50s.  Out came the sweaters and the jeans and even socks. 

We awakened on the 29th to a beautiful, sunny, crisp morning.  We were underway at 0800 for what turned out to be a real adventure getting up to and into Ewell on Smith Island.  Out of Mill Creek there was barely a 10 knot breeze, and on the bay it remained gentle and very comfortable even as it built to 15 knots.  But by 1100, it was blowing 20 with 25 knot gusts, the seas were rolling up and we had 30 minutes to the entrance of the Ewell channel.  We had a struggle bringing down the sails just outside the channel in the high winds, and Pen got a rope burn on her fingers fighting with the genoa.  We would have left up the sails in gentler conditions, but all the information we had was that this was a pretty narrow and thin water channel passage.  Both frustrated, Pen hurting and me nervous, we start entering the channel.  I tried to keep to the center of the channel, but drifted to the starboard side (the wrong side, it turns out).  The almost breaking wind waves behind pushed us along, I put the engine on hard forward, and suddenly we were literally bumping across two and a half foot depths.  If it wasn't for the wind waves (literally surf), we would have been hard aground, but we got over this bad spot just after the entrance to the channel, the depths became seven to ten feet, and we found our way to the ferry dock.

Sad to say, I made a bad and elementary decision at this point.  We had put the lines out on the starboard to go right alongside the ferry dock.  Because the wind was behind us, I should have switched them to port and come past the dock and around to come along side into the wind.  But, oh no, the Captain just plowed on ahead.  Pen got off the boat with a midship line, but the wind was too strong, and my going into reverse to stop the boat being pushed by the wind just blew the stern out from the dock.  Pen could not pull in the boat with the midship line or get it tied off.  I couldn't throw a stern line to her, and the bow had become the fulcrum up against one of those ugly pilings so common on eastern seaboard docks.  Pen finally had to let all lines go, I gathered them in before the prop caught them, and I went out for a second try.  I don't know whether it was the first or second try, but on one of them I crunched the bow lights ... damn, I feel bad about that ... I hurt my Alizee.  Anyhow, on the second or third try, John, a fellow from the only other cruising boat in the harbor, a nice little two-foot draft, dagger-board Francis Herreshoff design gaff rigged two master, came over, and with his help we got tied up.

Afterwards, I walked a few steps over to the little marina where John had his boat and asked the marina operator, Steve Eades, if the ferries were running in the wind we were having.  "Well, ya can't stay there," he said.  "Do you have a tie-up for us?"  "Sure do, right here beside John's boat."  So, John helped us untie from the ferry dock and met us at the marina dock and tied us up.  Only problem is the slip depth declines from five or six feet at the entrance to only two and a half feet two-thirds of the way in, and that's at high tide.  So, the front of our keel grounded, and we can only leave at high tide.

All afternoon and through the night the winds have been 20 to 25 knots, finally subsiding this afternoon to about 14 knots.  We, along with John, have decided to stay another day and night, for the winds are predicted to lessen to 5 to 10 knots tomorrow and the seas flatten out considerably to one-foot.  The wind will also shift a bit to come out of the west, not northwest, which is the direction of our next destination, the Solomons.  Consequently, this morning we enjoyed a lovely sunrise and have spent a relaxing day aboard Alizee, helped a 55-foot motor yacht tie up at the far end of the ferry dock (he really had no choice), and caught up on more internet stuff. 

Tomorrow we'll leave at the 1130 high tide and try and find our way out the channel.  The locals have told me to hold very tight to the green markers on the way out and I should have five to six feet of water.  When we bumped our way in, I was closer to the red markers.  And with the wind down to 5-10 knots, we shouldn't have the surf problems at the channel entrance that we had coming in with the 25 knot gusts.  At least we've got power, internet, and nice shower facility, and little grocery down the street, and we can have soft-shelled crab, the best probably anywhere on the bay.

More photos

The Captain's story ...

Great plans! We set out from Daytona Beach's Halifax Harbor Marina with a freshly pumped holding tank, fuel topped off and twenty gallons more in Jerry cans, and a sunny day predicted for our jaunt down to Ponce Inlet at New Smyrna Beach. We considered the possibility of spending a night at anchhorage just off the inlet, but when we arrived it just looked too nice to delay, and we headed out into the Atlantic.

Our course took us directly into winds from the east that came down on our nose, but we persevered, motoring with the mainsail up for balance out toward the Gulf Stream. I figured we'd make the stream by evening, and once in it, turn north and, with the wind on our beam, shoot up the stream to Ocracoke Inlet in North Carolina (or at least Beaufort, a bit south). Best laid plans, as they say ...

Winds from the east. Well, quite simply the Captain did not know enough about the Gulf Stream and did not take into consideration that it really doesn't run true north-south but bends eastward. We'd been in the stream (on the western edge, actually) for perhaps three hours when I finally began to understand my error.  But for a time it was pretty nice, and as the sun set gradually in the West, we had cocktails and enjoyed a not too unpleasant ride.

The problem by then, of course, is that we were committed for the night ... returning through Ponce Inlet, a good six hours back, at night, was not going to happen.  And, as the wind shifted more and more to the Northeast and headed into the current of the Gulf Stream, we found ourselves almost unable to go down below.  We were reduced to munching on hard boiled eggs, cooked chicken that I'd thought a good idea (this was about all we had while off shore), and and a few crackers.  As Penelope put it so well: "It was truly horrible!"

Next morning when the sun arose, we were barely abreast of St. Augustine, Florida, where, if we'd stayed in the ICW the day before instead of going off shore, we would have been when the sun came up.  It was depressing, and so Pen and I conferred and I finally decided it was too disheartening to go into St. Augustine now (a six to eight hour sail), so why not spend the day off shore and one more night and head out of the Gulf Stream and into the ICW around Port Royal, South Carolina.

This we did.  And the seas did calm a bit as we left the Gulf Stream, but we were beat up, tired, so much so that we never even put out a fishing line, and when we finally ghosted our way under sail into the ICW at
Port Royal, the inland waterway never looked so good to any sailors anywhere ... at least, that's our story!

So, mark this humbled Captain's words: know the waters you are going to sail in and talk to those who've done a fore you.  That is, unless you want to persuade your crew that the only thing you should do is keep your boat tied up to the dock and spend your days at the yacht club bar.

Fortunately, my crew gave me a second chance ... at least I think so, for here we are in the Chesapeake Bay, enjoying more adventures.

A view of Alizee's trip to the Chesapeake ...

Even though I haven't had time to get the story of our trip up to the Chesapeake put together, Penelope has jotted down her perspective on it all.  So she and I thought we'd share it with you:

"We made it to Norfolk yesterday and Pat, who made the trip with us, flew out today. I miss her already.  What a trip this has been so far. We spent 52 horrendous hours offshore, getting beat around and slammed all over the place by bad seas… very, very unruly seas, much like the crew at times, like when we were hove to, reefing sails in the dark, as we watched  a monster ship steaming right at us!  [Yes, but it was a couple of miles away.]  Despite a couple of squalls, there was very little real danger from the weather.  The real danger of serious injury was from the being thrown around so much especially below decks. That old rule of "one hand for yourself and one hand for the boat" is a crock of you-know-what. You need at least three hands in those conditions...two hands for the boat and a third hand to tend to yourself, like trying to get your pants down to use the head! I can't tell you how bruised and battered I was. We all were.  In fact, one of us rammed a head locker door so hard it stove it in! James said he had never been in such miserable seas.  Speaking of miserable seas, Pat and James were pretty green at the gills several times due to the unrelenting reeling and roiling.   In retrospect, I say the whole ordeal was a lot like giving birth-in the midst of it, you hate the son-of-a-bitch who got you in that condition but as soon as it’s over and you’re at a peaceful anchorage watching a beautiful sunset,  the pain begins to fade.  But please, if you ever hear me say I'm going to go offshore again for more than an afternoon sail, please do me a favor and have someone come put me away!  Or better yet, have them lock James away! 

"Because of conditions the captain says he didn’t anticipate, the trip  to Norfolk that he had hoped would be 3 days of offshore sailing  and a couple of days up the Intracoastal has ended up being 2+ days of an offshore nightmare and 12 days of motoring up the IntracoastaI which we caught at Port Royal, South Carolina.  I doubt I’ll ever let him live down that miscalculation! And remind me sometime to tell you about another thing I'll never let him hear the end of. It has to do with orders to "Get on the boat!"  and "Get off the boat!" that only a trained professional or a crazy first mate might actually obey.  Despite all of this, sailing still has its rewards even if there are times I want to mutiny or  jump ship!  Of course, I knew I wouldn't like this part of the trip, whether on or offshore or not (I hate the Intracoastal except when we’re just coming into it from offshore. Then I want to kiss the land it’s been cut through!) Right now I’m remembering that we’ll be cruising the Chesapeake next which like the child that makes you forget the labor will fool me into thinking that sailing is worth all the trials and tribulations.

"Now I want to know what's going on in your neck of the woods? What's it like to take hot showers in privacy whenever you’re dirty and sweaty, flush paper down the toilet and not have to carry to the effluent with you as you go, do grocery shopping and not have to decide which you’d rather have-wine or bread with no thought to which weighs the most.   And do remind me what it's like doing laundry without having to dump your skivvies into the same tub that a few minutes ago was having a go at some stranger’s dirty ones? Somebody please tell me what it’s like ashore."

So there you have it.  An unbiased report from the first mate on Alizee.  As you can tell from the photos, it wasn't all bad.  Oh, and by the way, you can find more photos on Flickr.

Norfolk, Virginia ...

We are in the Waterside Marina, which is in downtown Norfolk.  What we thought would be a week to ten days getting here turned out to be two weeks, primarily because we couldn't make the offshore trip up to North Carolina.  But that's life on a sailboat ... one is victim to the vagaries of the winds and the currents.

Nonetheless, the trip from Port Royal, South Carolina, up the ICW to Norfolk was a fun experience.  Through the Carolinas we were about the only cruising boat on the waterway, and that is a good story in itself.  Not until we reached the Albemarle Sound did we begin to see a few cruisers coming south ... it's beginning to look like the exodus of "snowbirds" is beginning, and we're getting questions from those who hail us or see us ashore such as: "Aren't you going the wrong way?"




Well, truth be told we'll be starting back not too long after mid-October, since it's likely to take us two weeks and a day more on the way back.  But for now it's finishing off laundry and setting off to sail the Chesapeake for three weeks or more.