Waccamaw River, South Carolina

Waccamaw River, South Carolina   …   Wednesday 7th November 2012

You know Brits love to talk about the weather, so let the former me start by saying it was sunny but rather cold this morning (British understatement). We don't have a thermometer but the weather channel said it was 36oF at 8am. We cranked up our Espar heater to warm up the cabin and took hot showers at the marina facilities. We finally got away about 9.15 am and headed down the "rock pile" section of the ICW. This area is somewhat treacherous if you get out of the channel as there are many submerged rock ledges. All went smoothly and we negotiated a number of swing bridges. This section runs just inland of Myrtle Beach and It's interesting to see the amount of construction that's going on at the edges of the canal. What was once wild and natural has mostly been clear cut and there are luxury houses / condos going up all along. After about 20 miles we made it to the Waccamaw river, where nature still triumphs. This area is very beautiful with moss covered cypress forests and no apparent development. Shortly after entering the river a coast guard power boat came up behind us and then drew level. We were certain that we were about to be boarded and inspected, but after giving a good look from alongside they simply waved and roared off. There are a number of secluded anchorages  along the river and we chose to go up Bull Creek because it gets good reviews in the "Skipper Bob" guidebook. It is supposed to have good holding but we really struggled to achieve a solid hook. It seemed like the anchor was scraping along rock, it would rumble along the bottom, seem to grip, then as we backed up harder it would pop. We finally managed to get a secure holding on the 4th attempt. You are advised to use a trip line in this area to help recover the anchor if it gets snarled up, but after our first three attempts we took the trip line off in case it was this that was messing up the anchor. Now we are well hooked I'm worried that we won't be able to get the anchor back. I'd be more worried if we hadn't already decided to replace our primary anchor (45 lb CQR) with a better model (55lb Rocna), but I'd hate to lose any chain. This is an exceptionally secluded spot. No other people, no boats, no lights … only the sound of the birds. We heard a Northern Screech Owl at dusk, but this looks like Ivory Billed Woodpecker territory to us so we are hoping to see one tomorrow. Here's hoping they aren't really extinct!

Mike

33 36 02.9 N, 79 06 29.3 W

Grande Dunes Bridge - a private bridge owned by the real estate development - north east of the Waccamaw river

Waccamaw river

At anchor in Bull Creek, off the Waccamaw River

The Tale of the Frozen Mariners

The Tale of the Frozen Mariners   ...   Election Day ... Tuesday 6^th November, 2012

The day started off cloudy and cold with a brisk wind from the north.  We left the South Harbor Marina at Southport and motored down the ICW.  At first it was just windy and cold.  After a few hours it began to rain making for even nastier conditions.  We were both pacing and shuffling around the cockpit trying to keep warm. We successfully negotiated a number of inlets that are potentially troublesome including Lockwood’s Folly and the Shallotte Inlet.  Often shoals appear as a result of the currents, however we didn’t have any problems.

Somewhere near the Shallotte inlet we saw some dolphins off to starboard.   I was at the helm when a dolphin appeared along side the boat. It was so close that the sound of it exhaling startled me.  It continued to swim alongside for quite a while, surfacing and submerging.  Of course, when Mike scurried off to get his camera, it vanished. We carried on to just past the Little River inlet and are tied up at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club.  Having now passed into South Carolina, we feel closer to Florida but colder than ever!

On our way down here we passed "Little Bit", an Island Packet with our friends Rick and Steve, that we had rafted up with in the Dismal Swamp. They also came into this marina so we had a very nice evening catching up with them.

Now we are hooked into the net watching as the results of the elections unfold. We were delighted to see the election of Senator Warren in Massachusetts!

Gloria

33 51 49.3 N, 78 38 18.3 W

Rick and Steve Brooks - fellow cruisers from the Island Packet "Little Bit"

Visiting with Susan and Clark

Visiting with Susan and Clark   …   Monday 5th October 2012

You wouldn't think that any day that started out with maintenance to the septic system would be a good one, but actually we had a great day! We did spend a couple of hours this morning dismantling and cleaning the pumping mechanism on the aft toilet. The rubber non-return flaps were both heavily mineralized which was causing some problems, but we got it sorted pretty easily and things seem to be working much better now, which was very satisfying. Gloria then headed out for an appointment with an optometrist which Susan and Clark had managed to set up. Gloria had been experiencing the sense of a shadow over part of the vision in one of her eyes. The optometrist diagnosed a "retinal infarct" which apparently is not serious and he could already see that it was beginning to heal. Nonetheless we were very happy to have checked this out. After the eye appointment we headed in to Southport with Clark and Susan, walked around and had lunch down at the waterfront at the "Yacht Basin Provision Company" - which was great. Then it was off to do groceries. Having a lift in the car seems to be a strong inducement to buy large amounts of food and drink! We stored these aboard the boat then headed over to Oak Island for a sunset walk along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. I know that in photo competitions judges get well and truly sick of sunset photos - but to me there's something very magical about sunset over the water and I can never resist taking a few shots. I also wanted to take some pictures of the pier in the gathering dusk and found myself shooting with a 200mm lens hand held with the ISO set at 5000 and still able to get reasonable if grainy shots. Its incredible to think that this is possible when previously I carried two camera bodies to have one with 50 and another with 200 ISO film.  It's now getting dark really early (6pm) and we headed back to Susan and Clark's house for another fine dinner. We had grilled "Sheeps Head" fish which was really excellent, a lemon pasta and steamed asparagus. It was a fine end to great day.

Mike

33 55 14.7 N, 78 03 41.6 W

Southport Waterfront

Clark, Gloria and Susan

Dog on then Beach

Gull on the beach

Sanderling on the beach

Pier on Oak Island Beach - 200mm lens,F4.8, 1/100s, ISO 5000 !

Southport, NC

Southport, NC   ...   Sunday 4^th November 2012

Wrightsville Beach was lovely in the early morning light.  We made our way back toward the Masonboro inlet and then turned to starboard to enter Shinn Creek.  From there we joined the Intracoastal Waterway through a beautiful section of marshes.  After a short distance we entered the section known as Snow’s Cut, which has a reputation for being narrow and shallow.  By staying in the middle of the channel we had no problems. We even seemed to have the current flowing with us. The west end of the cut opens onto Cape Fear River. At this point we started to realize why the guidebooks talk about the problems of timing the currents well between Snow’s Cut and the Cape Fear River. Our speed over the ground (which we can read off the GPS) reduced from 7 knots to ~ 4 in the transition between the two bodies of water.  Other than slow progress the only problem in the Cape Fear River was avoiding the dredger, liquefied natural gas tanker and high speed ferry to Bald Head Island.  We just happened to be passing the end of the ferry harbor as the ferry emerged.  A few moments of excitement were had there. We turned off the Cape Fear River following the ICW southward.  Then tied up at South Harbor Marina.  This turned out to be a lovely long facing dock where a number of fellow boaters took our lines.  One of these couples we had met at River Dunes Marina while we were waiting out Sandy.  Apparently the other two boats had also been at River Dunes but we didn’t meet the sailors.

Southport had been on our agenda all along because it near to Oak Island where Susan and Clark live.  Susan is my sister-in-law’s sister. Clark and Susan were kind enough to come to the marina and pick up not just us but also our dirty laundry.  Many would say that was well beyond the call of duty.  We spent the afternoon watching Carolina beat the Redskins.  Go Panthers! Then we had a great meal of gumbo, salad and fresh bread. It’s a real treat to be in a home again and have a home cooked meal. It’s embarrassing to admit that Mike and I had seconds but Susan and Clark didn’t!

Gloria

33 55 14.7 N, 78 03 41.6 W

A passing squall at Wrightsville Beach - this didn't amount to much, but we had spectacular thunder and lightening this afternoon

Dredging the Cape Fear River

Cape Lookout to Wrightsville Beach

Cape Lookout to Wrightsville Beach   ...   Saturday 3^rd November 2012

What is it about 4:30 in the morning that doesn’t agree with me?  It might be the dark, the cold or just that it interrupts my sleep.  Either way I wasn’t the happiest bunny this morning.  We brewed the coffee, poured a travel mug each and got underway. Turning to windward to put up the main in the pitch black whilst still inside the small cove of Cape Lookout Bight was unnerving.  After we got out of the bay, I seemed to get used to the idea (at least somewhat).  Once it started to get light we unfurled the genoa and turned off the engine.  The two hours of darkness were incredibly cold. Once again we had multiple layers of fleecy clothes topped by the foul weather gear, harness and life jacket.  In fact Mike went inside to put on his regular rain coat inside his foul weather jacket! It’s no wonder that moving around seemed so difficult.

Shortly after sunrise we had our first visitor –a house wren looking decidedly wind ruffled. Later in the day we had a total of three yellow-rumped warblers.  One of these took the tour of the accommodation.  Apparently, on balance, he wasn’t that taken with it.  That might have had something to do with the large man flapping a tea towel in his general direction.

The sailing went well; over the course of 12 hours we covered about 70 miles.  At one point the wind piped up so much that we put a reef in the main.  A few hours later we shook that out.  Several times in the afternoon the wind got light.  Another boat quite close to us dropped its sails and started to motor.  We considered giving up sailing several times, each time the wind would pick up again and we’d be back over 6 knots. 

We are now anchored just behind Wrightsville Beach, NC. We had a fantastic dinner of shrimp and grits.  Don’t get the wrong idea, Mike didn’t throw this together after 12 hours of sailing.  This was leftover from a dinner I had in Beaufort.  Now, I ate as much as I could that night. Tonight Mike and I shared the leftovers and we are both feeling that we overdid it.  Is there something wrong with portion control in restaurants?  I think that plate of shrimp and grits would qualify as suitable for a “big hungry boy” (as Calvin Trillin would say).

Overall I think we are feeling quite pleased with today’s efforts.  The feeling is slowly returning to my icy feet …

Gloria

34 12 06.6 N, 77 48 15.1 W

The shrimp boat at night - Cape Lookout Bight

Yellow rumped warbler

Blasting along at 7 knots off Wrightsville Beach - mid afternoon

Wrightsville Beach anchorage

Cape Lookout Bight

Cape Lookout Bight   …   Friday 2nd November 2012

We awoke this morning to the great smell of …. the aft holding tank overflowing again! This was a real surprise because we really hadn't been using it that much and clearly our monitor is not yet functioning correctly. We did a quick clean up and put the problem aside until later in the day. 

Our plans for today mostly revolved around getting us in a position to make a really early start on a big day-passage tomorrow. In order to get out of the Beaufort Inlet to the Atlantic from the marina we either need to backtrack a couple of miles up a narrow channel (which we didn't fancy in the dark) or go through a bascule bridge (which doesn't open until 6am). So we decided to make the trip out into the ocean today and head slightly eastwards to spend the night in Cape Lookout Bight, a deep and well protected cove formed by sand bars right at the edge of the Cape. Our exit from the slip at the marina went fine (hooray!) and we had a smooth trip through the Beaufort Bascule bridge and out of the Inlet. "Out of the inlet" sounds weird but believe me no talks about the Beaufort outlet. The winds were from the south west and there were more significant swells than either of us had expected. We made good time to the cove and were anchored around 1pm. It's worth noting that the winds are blowing hard, 15-20 mph gusting to >25 mph. They are supposed to diminish and turn to the NW, which will be good for our journey tomorrow. 

During our brief passage offshore today we pumped out the aft holding tank, and after we arrived we set to work in trying to resolve this issue once and for all. Taking out the sensor we were able to confirm the tank was now empty and using bucket of water to dip the sensor in, we also confirmed that it wasn't working as required. We re-calibrated the "empty" and "full" using the bucket dipping method and were able to get it work as it should. Once re-installed it showed the tank as empty and we confirmed that it did change as pumped in some water. Hopefully now this is working properly and we won't have this problem again!

I should say that Cape Lookout Bight is beautiful, as a number of people had told us. However, our dingy is partly deflated and tied down on the fore-deck, and the howling wind didn't encourage us to pump it up, so we haven't explored around. There are two other yachts anchored here and during the afternoon a couple of shrimp boats have also pulled in.

We probably won't be blogging again now until Sunday.

34 37 24.9 N, 76 32 59.6 W

Cape Lookout Light

Shrimp Boat at Anchor

All Saints Day in Beaufort, NC

All Saints Day in Beaufort, NC   ...   Thursday 1^st November 2012

I felt I had to include the NC in the title, otherwise you might all be thinking we were in South Carolina.  We spent some time working on a plan for the next few days. Mike informed me this morning that if we were to go outside from Beaufort, it would be ‘only’ 450 nautical miles to Florida.  At about six knots per hour, that’s still a long way! 

We walked back into down-town Beaufort this morning.  A sailboat that had been on its side on land yesterday was now floating at a dock.  That seemed an encouraging sign and indeed we had a much better day than yesterday.  We happened upon the Old Burying Ground.  It’s quite a lovely spot with old trees and wisteria vines.  We looked around at the graves and picked up a leaflet.  One of the highlighted burials was “girl in a barrel of rum”—the tale is of a shipboard death where the father felt he had to bring the daughter back to his wife in Beaufort.  He purchased a barrel of rum and placed the body in it.  After lunch, we visited the maritime museum and the associated shipbuilding shed. The museum is excellent and we watched a video about the pirate Blackbeard who terrorized shipping in the early 1700s and how they found his boat, the "Queen Ann Revenge", just off the coast here and are recovering artifacts. On the way back to our boat we cut through a residential neighborhood.  A young boy shouted out to us that if we would cross the street he had a surprise for us.  We crossed as requested and a Halloween scarecrow dropped out the tree next to us. We were pretty surprised.  We chatted a bit to his mother who was taking down the extensive decorations from the porch.  She claimed that some years they greeted trick-or-treaters with the sound of chain saws revving up.   This seemed to be a household that really took Halloween seriously.

Gloria

The wooden boat building shop - part of the NC Maritime Museum

Craig Wright - wooden boat builder

A house on front street Beaufort

The Halloween kid and his monster