ocracoke island, NC

when dave back at ball creek told us that ocracoke was only 33 miles away, we decided to go.  for some reason, tom had manteo on roanoke island in mind - we lived there for a while - and forgot about ocracoke (so many places to visit!).  anyway, so we went.  crossing the pamlico sound was generally unremarkable and uneventful except at the very end when 1) the wind picked up considerably, 2) the depth sounder was showing half the depths of what was written on the chart, and 3) my computer started acting up.  my ONE AND ONLY computer, i might add, since i had a hard drive failure on the other one a couple of weeks ago and it has not yet been repaired.  all i know is that all of a sudden, my screen dimmed and when i checked the system tray, it showed that the laptop was running on only battery power even though it was plugged in. the breaker for the DC outlets had tripped, too.  anyway, after trying a few things like plugging elsewhere and changing the charging cable to another 12V adapter and then finally to a regular wall outlet adapter, still no go.  the battery icon was showing 83% and so i just shut the whole thing down.  i had to help keep watch anyway as the entrance channel to ocracoke was unfamiliar territory.  we got into silver lake with no problems and docked at the national parks service docks.  there were only two other boats there and  with tom's senior pass to the national parks, we got a pretty hefty discount so that was nice. 

once we got settled, i started seeing to my computer.  i wasn't panicked yet as tom's old computer still had my work software in it, otherwise, the situation would have been pretty dire (as far as work was concerned anyway).  as it turns out, i had five days left on my laptop's warranty!  i called dell and explained the situation and the tech asked me to remove the battery, plug in the computer and fire it up.  well, it worked so that was a relief.  i was told that they would send out an on-site tech to replace the battery and charging port.  what?  send someone out to ocracoke island??  that would have been something considering that wherever this tech was driving from, he/she would still have a greater than 2-hour ferry ride one way!  in any case, the computer worked fine plugged in with the battery removed so i wasn't too concerned about when and where the repair was going to take place.  after several phone calls, it was finally decided that the tech would meet us in norfolk in a week.  we will be anchored at lafayette river then but can meet the tech at a friend's house nearby.  anyway, so that was that for that!   things could have been a lot worse so i was cool with it. 

so...  on to ocracoke island which is a totally charming place.  tom and i had been to the island before back in 2008 when we lived in manteo.  we had come by car, taking the hatteras ferry which is on the other side of the island from the the ocracoke village.  at that time, it rained hard all day so we really didn't get to go around much plus we had to catch the ferry back.  this time around, it was extremely windy but dry at least.  our marina was right by the ferry dock so we got to watch that show often. tom and i love workboats of any type and ferries are no exception. we just like watching them do their jobs. 

we brought out our bicycles and went around town, around silver lake to the ocracoke lighthouse and to the british cemetery.  we went to the beach (spectacular) and we even went inside the gift shops!  we also took a little hike at the springer's point preserve.  i worked mornings and nights and reserved the afternoons for exploring.  it was very relaxing and we had a fabulous time.  it's too bad that dell decided that coming out to ocracoke would have been too much of a hardship - we certainly wouldn't have minded staying longer!  it is just that kind of place.  maybe they were afraid that the on-site tech wouldn't leave once he/she got there?  hahaha...   about the only thing that we didn't do was  eat out although we did check the fish markets - why is seafood so expensive???  i'm glad that we had our fill of shrimp and clams at mcclellanville!

in any case, we enjoyed our stay in ocracoke but aside from my computer needing fixing, tom also has work to do in norfolk so we had to leave.   the weather was also starting to deteriorate so i'm glad that we had a couple of really nice days in that beautiful island. 

ocracoke lighthouse

silver lake and tadhana in the distance

swan quarter-ocracoke ferry

some kind of barge with reef balls

close-up of reef balls

ahhhh.....  the beach! 

more beach

the trail at springer's point preserve

and the trail led to the beach on pamlico sound

someone carved a racoon on this old dead tree stump

sunset over pamlico sound

we did not check to see if they had eggplants

we left ocracoke on april 25, 2015.  the weather wasn't bad although the forecast called for rain in the afternoon.  pamlico sound wasn't uncomfortable at all but it was not flat and the day was grey.  at that point, we knew that we we were going to cross the sound to the pamlico river and then to the pungo river but after that, it was either belhaven, dowry creek or onward to stage for the albemarle sound crossing.  it was hard to make a decision - tom kept checking the weather but even the meteorologists were having a hard time calling it, plus somewhere in the middle of pamlico sound, we lost our internet signal so it was kind of hard to check the weather.  we ended up stopping mid-day at belhaven since we hadn't been there before and we would at least have some protection at the town dock if the weather got nasty. 

well, poor little belhaven is a town that is struggling to come back but i'm afraid that it is a long way from it at this point.  i feel bad for places like that - they remind me so much of the chesapeake bay's Eastern Shore.  we walked around town a little.  we made the mistake of going into the museum.  it may have been that no one had been there in so long that the attendant felt the need to follow us around and talk incessantly!  and the items in the museum consisted of stuff from one woman's house - some of it was pretty weird like the jars of dead things preserved in formaldehyde hahaha....

the rain finally came in the afternoon but it was very light, not the nice boat-wash kind of rain and not only were we a bit salty, we were also a bit muddy. since i wasn't doing anything at the moment, i went out in the rain and hosed down the boat.  the chamber of commerce person came over to say hello - she said she always greeted the new boats at the town dock, which was really sweet, her coming down in the rain and all.  they are trying...  but i'm afraid that belhaven is going to have to do a lot more to bring people in to their town.  and, of course, now that we are all safely tied up and plugged in, the rain has stopped and the wind has dropped, i don't have work and there is no place to go :) 

ball creek, NC

we met dave and sandy when they cruised through the chesapeake a couple of years ago, when we were still living at regatta pointe in deltaville, VA.  our common denominator was the rosborough boat - they had one and i used to have one.  we also shared mutual friends in craig and tammi, also rosborough owners.  we got together with dave and sandy when they came through the lower Bay and stopped at deltaville and we hit it off right away.  they are former sailboat owners and very experienced cruisers.  at the time, they had a sweet yellow lab named misty who had to be the largest yellow lab i had ever seen -  misty was a BIG girl! she was also quite old but she was a boat dog and where they went, she went, too, kind of the way consuelo was with us.  it's how dog people are.  dave and sandy lost misty on that trip and i remember thinking how terrible it must have been for it to happen while cruising and so far away from home - to have to make that return trip minus one member of the crew, which is the situation in which tom and i find ourselves now.  in any case, they talked about maybe getting a smaller dog because, really, it is much harder with a big dog that you have to muscle on and off the boat, especially when they start getting older, but, not surprisingly, they ended up getting another yellow lab, sadie, who is now 2 years old, and she is a sweetie :) 

dave and sandy came to see us at vero beach and we got to meet sadie then but it was a very short visit so it was nice to pass by their place this time and stay for a little while to get caught up.  they have a beautiful place on ball creek and tom and i spent a couple of extremely relaxed days there while spring was springing, grass was growing, and birds were singing. the nights were wonderful, too, with very little light pollution so that the moon and stars were so bright in the very black night.  it was like being anchored!  but more than that, it was the pleasure of the company of a couple who have become good friends :) 

let me just say that it would have been easy to overstay at this marina - free dockage and electricity and wifi, courtesy car and driver to the grocery and for running errands, homemade dinner two nights in a row and sandy even folded my laundry because i didn't get back for it fast enough!  we really enjoyed our brief stay with them. we will be back!

tadhana at the ball creek marina

early morning fog on the water

three chesapeake bay magazine articles by tom, march and april 2015

the deal with dinghy outboards

new volvo breakthrough

storm lines

carolina beach and mile hammock

it was another rainy day when we left osprey marina first thing in the morning.  we had three trouble spots with shoaling to negotiate and as tom said:  "to quote meatloaf (the singer),  two out of three ain't bad."  they were the new river inlet, shallotte inlet and lockwoods folly.  they are going to have to dredge lockwoods folly - it was pretty bad.  in fact, we later heard the coast guard on the radio saying that it was 3 feet at dead low - ugh.  but not only did we make it as far as southport, NC, we also managed to cross the cape fear river all the way to the carolina beach state park marina where we had stayed last fall and spent a fruitless afternoon looking for venous flytraps in the woods.  well, i hate to say it, but we spent another fruitless evening looking for those venous flytraps with no luck at all - i wonder if it is a myth?  we did, however, see a baby owl in a nest up in the fork of a very tall tree.  that is why the photos are so fuzzy - i zoomed in as far as the camera could go.  it just wasn't enough.

baby owl - use your imagination!

baby owl peering down at us

pitcher plant

the next morning, in light rain (again!), we resumed our journey without being really clear as to how far we were going to get.  everything is dependent on tides, currents and bridge openings and though we thought that swansboro would be a good stop for us, as luck would have it, we got delayed by the surf city swing bridge which only opens on the hour rather than both hour and half hour.  vertical clearance was only 12 feet - we had no choice but to wait.  sometimes, when the bridge is marginal, we can drop the mast and still get through.  add to that the current against us and in the end, we stopped at the mile hammock anchorage just past 1500h. the next good place to stop would have been swansboro, 15 miles away and at our speed, another three hours so we just quit.  the mile hammock anchorage is located within the military base of camp lejeune and though it is open to the public for anchoring, there is no shore access.  tom and i dropped the dinghy and went back out into the ICW to look for possible PFAs (pet-friendly areas)  - not that we need one currently, but for future reference and to exercise the dinghy.  one by one, boats started showing up at the anchorage.  when we entered, we were boat number 5.  there were 16 total before the sun set.  it really is a lovely anchorage and there is room for many boats. 

beautiful evening at mile hammock

we got up very early the next morning and were underway by 0615h in order to catch the onslow bridge 0700h opening.  everything after that was pretty much  uneventful until we reached the neuse river and just prior to that, on the adams creek canal, we saw a shrimper coming at us with her arms open.  we had heard that these boats have edged recreational boats into running aground in the shallows and though there was plenty of room, both tom and i came out to the front deck with our cameras, just in case.  there is no reason for them to be moving along like this in a narrow channel if they don't have their nets down.  in any case, i clicked away and waved at the men in the pilothouse as they went by.  no, they did not try to edge us out of the channel, and yes, she is a beautiful boat :)

the miss kelly of beaufort, NC with her arms out

the neuse river was not particularly formidable when we entered from adams creek canal, however, as we made our way north, it started to deteriorate considerably until it got to the point where tom turned off the autopilot and actually started driving to make our ride less rough.  it had been a long day and we were beyond the point of anchoring before entering the neuse river and past ducking into oriental so we just kept going and when we made a slight turn to port at maw point, the ride got considerably better and by then, it was just a matter of time before we got to our destination - dave and sandy netting's place on ball creek off the bay river.  we missed seeing them on our way south because we were committed to the SAIL rally but they came to visit us in vero beach when they drove down in their camper and we promised to visit with them "for more than just a minute" on our way north.  dave came out in the rain and wind in a boston whaler and led us in and we tied up to their dock and here we will sit "for more than just a minute" with our friends. 

in the meantime, i'm throwing in these photos of a couple of houses we saw along the way that were painted colors that i probably wouldn't choose.  unfortunately, i failed to take a photo of the lime green house, too. 

beaufort, charleston, mcclellanville and myrtle beach.

back in beaufort where we stayed for five days in november, including the cruisers' thanksgiving at lady's island, this time we took a mooring instead of a slip.  tom wanted to go back to OLIVE THE ABOVE, an olive oil and balsamic vinegar store to have his tuscan herb olive oil bottle refilled.  me, i just wanted to find a bottle of NO NATZ.  we both got what we wanted, had some ice cream, walked on the waterfront a bit and went home. i gotta say, it was pretty buggy!  the blue angels were apparently in town and we just missed the show but that's okay since we are from annapolis and we have seen the air show many times.  we stayed home that evening and it was just as well because we got some heavy rain.  we noticed that our neighbor's hatch was open and they were gone, probably out to dinner, but by that time, it was already too late as the rain was coming down hard.  my allergies were really bad that day, too, but when i found the bottle of Dymista (combination steroid and antihistamine nasal spray) that marie had given me, it really took care of the symptoms.

we left the next day for charleston but stopped just before elliott cut at the edgewater park anchorage and spent the night.  it was very windy and rained overnight but it was a pretty good anchorage for the wind direction.  unfortunately, the next morning, i lost my reading glasses overboard.  i had them pushed up to the top of my head and they kind of slipped backwards, bounced off the rail and into the water.  i felt pretty bad because that was a pair that i had accidentally fractured when i sat on them and tom had repaired them with epoxy so that i could continue to use them.  oh well....  it had been a while since i had dropped anything overboard.

we bypassed charleston the next day, figuring we'd be back in the fall.  we had the shoaling at isle of palms timed for the rising tide.  that section is just very bad and getting worse, unfortunately.  the area north of it, though, is beautiful - wide open spaces, marsh as far as you can see.  we hit another shoal-y spot south of mcclellanville at high tide and then went into jeremy creek for the night.

mcclellanville is one of our favorite towns.  it is usually bypassed by everyone but those who "know" love the place.  all its live oaks are really old, not just the deerhead oak.  the wisteria and azaleas were out.  the noseeums were also out in full force.  and i made a new friend. 

the dolphin was looking for handouts but i'm afraid that i didn't have any fish for him.  but it sure was thrilling to be so close to one.  who doesn't love dolphins anyway?

also, the leland oil company's marina's black lab had puppies!  gruff old dwayne at the marina said "take one.  hell, take two!"  the puppies were barely two weeks old - they were nowhere near ready to leave their mommy.

we also went to the seafood market and bought some shrimp and clams.  dinner that night was pretty good :)  it rained heavily first thing in the morning which delayed our intended early departure.  in the meantime, though, disaster struck and my computer wouldn't boot up.  when i ran a diagnostic, it said it could not detect a hard drive.  oh well, dead computer.  good thing i always carry a spare!  so i set up my other one and we got going.  the bugs were REALLY BAD as we were leaving and it was all together just a grey, miserable day with intermittent heavy rain.  not to mention that we had the current against us all the way to osprey marina on the waccamaw river at myrtle beach which was our planned stop for a couple of days.  the engine oil and transmission oil needed to be changed.  we loved osprey marina when we came through in the fall.  it's our kind of place - small, quiet, inexpensive and nice people.

in any case, we fueled up (ouch) and then were told that our slip would be right there on the fuel dock.  well, that was easy!  in the meantime, i made more new friends - apparently, the turtles here at osprey are also beggars.  i can't step outside of the boat that they're not rushing over.  i had just thrown the trash, too, and tom reminded me that there was moldy bread that we had gotten rid off in it so i fished that out to have something for the turtles.  when i ran out of bread, i wondered if turtles would eat dog food and then i realized that i had given them all away at cocoa.  i have to say that as we head north, we miss consuelo more and more as we pass places like osprey where she was with us.

that evening, disaster struck again.  i was downloading software to make my computer current with the one that died and i was careless and managed to download a version that was bundled with a browser hacker.  it took me all night to clean it out and fix the damage and get my work software back up and running again.  i was so angry with myself for having wasted all that time because i was rushing to get things done and wasn't paying attention.  in any case, it all got fixed somehow.

tom got the maintenance on the engine done today but we decided to stay one more day as the weather was not going to be the best for traveling.  okay by me - i like here at osprey.

skidaway island and isle of hope, GA.

the delegal creek marina is in a lovely spot on skidaway island, a gated community. it is small and quiet, has all the amenities a cruiser would need including the use of a golf cart, and a great view of the surrounding marshes.  the only snag is that if you draw more than 3 feet, you have to wait for at least mid-tide.  but it is a great place for staging for the hell gate trouble spot on the ICW.  once we got through the channel, the dockmaster, billy, helped us get situated and the big clean up began.  my friend and former classmate, cynthia, arrived with flowers and lunch and it was a grand reunion - 33 years since she and i had seen each other!

she took us on a tour of the island and we had her over for dinner that evening - corned beef and cabbage (corned beef brisket went on sale after st. patty's day last month!)

the next day, tom and i spent the day at home working quietly at our computers while the barn swallows flew around us eating up noseeums and the dolphins splashed and played in the creek.  in the late afternoon, cynthia took us over to savannah for a tour.  i had never been to savannah and the last time tom was there was a  very long time ago.  it really is a lovely city, made even lovelier by apparently a lot of funding help from SCAD (savannah college of art and design) infused into the city.  downtown savannah is a fun place with lots of shops and places to eat and we could have eaten anywhere but we ended up, of all places, at FIVE GUYS because cynthia loves their peanuts!  tom has no problem with their burgers and i certainly have no problem with their bacon cheese dogs.  but,  the really amusing thing was the old-time music that they had blasting out of their speakers - my sharona by the knack. if anything reminded me of medical school, it had to be that song which was played CONSTANTLY ad nauseum when i was rotating in bay, laguna (rural) during my clinical clerkship - how appropriate was that?  haha...

we had a great time getting caught up while walking/driving around but we had to leave skidaway island the next day because of the tides.  we did not, however,  go far - only to the isle of hope marina.  we had to get out of delegal creek or be stuck there for a while and the tides were not favorable for negotiating the next ICW trouble spot at fields cut north of the savannah river.  more importantly, cynthia's husband, edgar, who is also my former classmate, was arriving from NJ and we had to wait and see him, too.  as soon as his plane landed, they drove directly to the marina to pick us up for dinner at  pearl's saltwater grille.  dinner was excellent and conversation even better.  it is good to see old friends - we remind each other of the things that we had forgotten - of simpler times when our chief concerns were a lot different from what they are now.  it is always an education to compare eras. 

we got dropped off at home before the rain came.  i failed to mention that before they arrived, tom and i took a little walk.  the isle of hope marina is right on the ICW and it was fun to see the parade of snowbirds going by, quite a few of the boats looking mighty familiar, all of us members of the same grand exodus.  we walked along the road that hugged the shore and enjoyed the view - the stately and gracious homes, the live oaks, the spanish moss - the atmosphere of the south.  we had georgia on our minds.

artsy fartsy gate

see the bluebird?

cumberland island, GA

from fernandina beach, FL, we crossed the st. mary's river and then we were in georgia.  we only had to travel seven miles to the anchorage, dropped the dinghy and went ashore. tom flashed his senior citizen national parks pass at the ranger and then we were free to wander around.  since we'd been at cumberland island before, we passed on the places we had been to and took a walking trail north then went out on the beach and walked along it on the way back.  it was nice to be back among the live oaks and spanish moss.  the beach was mostly deserted, just the way we like it.  the sand was hard packed and there wasn't much in the way of shelling.  the atlantic can be brutal that way.  it was also warmer than it had been when we were there last december. 

on the way back to the ranger station and our dinghy, we encountered an armadillo who didn't seem to know we were there - so engrossed in foraging.

armadillo video


we went back to the boat for lunch just as love and luck (less), one of the boats that was with us in the SAIL rally, showed up.  they and another boat, suenos (formerly ryajen but had a name change in key largo), had been shadowing us since cocoa.  i swear, we will never lose these people hahaha....  well, folks are making their way north now that spring has sprung. 

after lunch, we got back on the dinghy with the plan to explore the north part of cumberland island.  we put 25 miles on the dinghy that afternoon.  i don't think we have to worry about carbon build-up on the outboard now.  it needed the exercise anyway.  i don't think the marshes we went through have seen much in the way of people.  we also had to pick our way back when the tide went out.  we are back in the land of the serious tide swings.

even though i had to work that night, it was very pleasant being anchored - the night was pitch black so that the stars were clear and bright.  there was no road noise or ANY noise of any kind, just the sound of the atlantic surf crashing on the ocean side of the island.  unfortunately, though, i was having an issue with the internet signal - it always happens, of course, when i need to play catch-up at work and am in a hurry.  i ended up creating a hotspot with my iPad and tethering it to the laptop and that worked out okay.  it is ALWAYS something...

we got up early the next morning and after checking weather, decided that we would go on the outside that day and make some miles.  upon getting out into the ocean, however, it was a bit rolly.  it "looked" flat but it certainly didn't feel that way and a little later, some fog rolled in, however, it wasn't that bad and we just kept going.  the original plan was to go back on the inside at st. simon's sound but when we reached there, we changed our minds and pushed on for doboy sound, and with that move, we were essentially bypassing two of the ICW trouble spots where one would have to wait for high tide to negotiate the shallower areas.  after studying and calculating, the time spent cruising would have been the same but the distance covered would be much more.  as i said earlier, it wasn't exactly pleasant on the outside, but on the other hand, it wasn't that bad or even dangerous .  we lost internet signal on the atlantic side of cumberland island and then it returned as we approached st. simon's sound.  some day soon, i hope, the whole earth will be one big hotspot and no one will ever lose communication again.  still having to work for a living while cruising sucks.  on the other hand, it's better than not cruising at all, but it sure would be easier if i didn't have to fight with the internet all the time! 

we made it in through doboy sound okay despite the fact that some channel markers were missing.  from there, it was just a short cruise inland and we were back on the ICW.  we anchored amidst the marshes in new teakettle creek, a lovely desolate place with no shore access.  the only problem with the marshes at night....  no see-ums!  now that it is warmer, we've been noticing them.  i suppose that together with the bruises on my legs and arms from banging into things on the boat, the insect bites are part and parcel of the whole experience (sigh).  i can't say how many different kinds of bottles of bug juice i have on the boat.  should i have bought that bottle of NO NATZ that i saw over at fernandina beach?  i hate to use the deadly stuff after a shower.  it would be one thing if i was out in the woods camping but this is my home!  in any case, they are gone in the morning but then again, this raises the question - where do they go???  if they manage to get through the screens and into your home at night, where do they go during the day?  grrr.....  i hate the little buggers :( 

we got up at o'dark early the next morning and got going as soon as we could see to time high tide at the hell gate shoal, as well as at the entrance to the delegal creek marina to visit some classmates of mine from medical school - cynthia and edgar - who live on skidaway island, GA.  i hadn't seen them since graduation in 1981!   what a welcome - a bouquet of yellow tulips  AND a sushi lunch!  at least we got the boat cleaned up before cynthia arrived haha...  delegal creek marina is situated in an absolutely lovely spot with marsh all around.  we are here for a few days. 

the parallel trail on cumberland island

gnarly

the wind direction sculpts this trees

the beach on cumberland island

the wild horses of cumberland island

armadillo

tiny little bird

mosaic in fernandina beach

i think they need to move this red marker!

the entrance at doboy sound

sunset at new teakettle creek