carolina beach state park marina.

that last night at the topsail sound anchorage was a tonic.  the night was black. the stars were out. no city lights. no city noise like cars going over bridges.  we heard gentle splashings outside of the boat (dolphins) and the roar of the ocean surf in the distance.  it was wonderful!  reminded us of why we do this.  the thing with the SAIL rally is just regimented and packed with activities and it is go, go go!  and when you get to where you're going, it's clean, clean, clean!  hahaha...  no, this time it was quiet and peaceful and... nice :) 

we left in the morning for the carolina beach state park marina and met up with mark and diana doyle.  it was a short run to a really nice marina .  it was a small place, inexpensive, but with everything a cruiser needs plus the added advantage of being a state park with hiking trails and such.  it boasted venus flytraps growing in the wild and so tom, consuelo and i set off to find them.  unfortunately, we had absolutely no luck :(  i guess it's the wrong time of year.  the office staff said they were there and even gave some vague instructions on where to find them.  trust me, we looked and looked.  and both tom and i know what the plants look like.  short of crawling on the forest floor but no, we did not find them.  that was kind of disappointing.  on the other hand, we spent all afternoon walking around so we got some exercise.

a little cape dory arrived at the marina from the mile hammock anchorage today.  the owners stepped out and kissed the ground haha!  later, they came knocking on our door and told me that they wanted to thank me and that they had all my books.  huh?  i pointed at the doyles' boat and said ,"them, not us!"   and an acquaintance from the LIVE ABOARD BOATS facebook group actually drove from wilmington to meet tom!   i guess it was THAT kind of a day.  anyway, he stayed for dinner and i learned a new term that i thought was perfect for the appropriate people: "jackass whisperer."  :)

consuelo got a bath today after all that rummaging around in the woods.  i bet if she knew what we were looking for, she'd have found the darn plants right away!  it's been a pretty good last two days - relaxing.  well, except for work, of course.  necessary evil.

heron conference along the ICW

root "braid"

carolina beach state park marina at the junction of snows cut channel and the cape fear river - wonderful little marina!

topsail sound anchorage (surf city, NC).

we stayed two nights in spooners creek marina.  the first morning, it POURED.  that was kind of a surprise.  we weren't expecting to get THAT much rain!  our plan had been to break out the bicycles and ride to the walmart but there was no letup to the rain and in the end, we walked to the store in the rain with our umbrellas and then called for a cab to take us back to the marina with all of our STUFF.  the downpour finally ended in the late afternoon and that evening, we had dinner with steve and patti on WIND DANCER.

LOVE AND LUCK, the boat that broke down on our first day of the SAIL rally finally caught up with the group and arrived that day. i'm afraid that there was some celebration that evening on another boat and it involved something called "apple pie moonshine!" 

in any case, we left spooners creek before 7:00 a.m. and headed back out into the ICW  with the intention of spending the night at the mile hammock anchorage but we managed to make the 11:00 a.m. onslow bridge opening.  poor TADHANA's engine worked very hard to make that bridge.  we didn't think it was possible but the bridge tender held it open for us and we kept up a speed of 11 knots -  i think the fastest that TADHANA has ever gone was 12 knots downhill!  and we don't want to talk about how much fuel we were burning ugh....   in any case, then we found ourselves almost to the anchorage before noon and decided to just keep going to leave the space at the anchorage for the rest of the fleet.  instead, we decided on the topsail sound anchorage - another 20 miles further - and it was a good decision.  we had one more bridge opening to negotiate before our turn-off and we got there early enough to have to wait for the on-the-hour opening.  topsail sound was more like what we were missing from cruising the chesapeake - a quiet anchorage with salt marshes.  the hook was down at 3:00 p.m. which gave us time to dinghy consuelo to shore at a public "ramp," which was really just the end of the road into some grass and a little beach.  we walked one block up to the highway, crossed the road and there was the atlantic ocean!  topsail island is one of north carolina's barrier islands.  the sand was white and so very fine. 

i mentioned LOVE AND LUCK earlier (and the apple pie moonshine) as tom got a call from the folks on that boat just as we were done anchoring.  unfortunately, they had run aground at one of the trouble spots, brown's inlet.  nothing tom could do but tell them to wait for the tide to come back in tonight and extricate themselves from the mud - we were 30 miles ahead.   luckily for them, wally, as the tail end of the fleet, caught up to them eventually but we will have to hear how that saga ended.  it seems to me that LOVE AND LUCK isn't having too much luck lately.

another early morning for us tomorrow.  in the meantime, i can hear the roar of the ocean surf from my desk :) 

a peek at the atlantic through one of the many inlets

i am very glad that they were not firing today!

the pink house at mile marker 251

the atlantic at topsail island, NC

the sand is SO fine

old observation tower

tadhana at topsail sound

sunset at topsail sound

spooners creek (morehead city, NC).

so much for the 6:30 bridge opening.  tom decided that we would do the 7:30 bridge opening instead and let me sleep in except that i woke up early anyway.  at 7:00 a.m., just as we were getting everything ready and about to start the engine, his phone rang.  one of the boats was having trouble getting started!  wonderful.  tom ran off to the other dock and i got stuff ready and agitated.  at 7:12 a.m., tom came back and we got going and got in line with the other boats waiting for the bridge.  but then we sidled up to wally's boat and they talked and to make a long story short, we got ourselves tied up again and tom ran off to help these people.  i won't get into the details but suffice it to say that this was an owner-maintained boat, or as a friend put it, a non-maintained boat, i.e. a disaster!  one wonders how they manage not to break down more often.  in any case,  tom (my hero) got them going again but he did mention that there were live wires in that engine room AND sparks!  OMG...  do i really want to know??? as i told tom the other day in front of wally when i was being cranky and tired from all the noise, regimentation, working and lack of sleep, we are NOT doing this again next year!  anyway, that's how our day started. 

we managed the 8:30 bridge.  the sun was in our eyes going through the neuse river and then the wind kicked up but thankfully we were making the turn into adams creek.  and then we had to deal with asshole sportsfishermen and large fast cruisers who don't know either HOW or WHEN to slow down in a narrow channel where there is quite a bit of boat traffic.  picture us smaller , slower boats getting tossed around like bathtub toys.  very annoying.  the current was hard against us the whole way, too.  remember, EARLY is best!  some parts of the trip were interesting and some were boring but i probably wouldn't have said that if i wasn't already in a bad mood. i hate it when other people don't have their shit together and i'm the one waiting which invariably happens when you are in a group.  did i mention i don't do groups well?  

as we passed jarrett bay boatworks on the adams creek canal, we saw a sailing cat we recognized -  LO SPIRITO DI STELLA - and turned around hoping we'd see someone.  we met andrea stella while he was visiting tangier island.  he is an italian in a wheelchair.  the boat is set up with ramps and elevators for wheelchair-bounds.  he was an interesting guy.  he was going to leave tangier island when we arrived and we convinced him to stay one more day and he did and had a fabulous time.  anyway, it's hard to forget a guy like that.  too bad we didn't see him. 

coming out of the adams creek canal into the newport river and the channels to both beaufort and morehead city, we encountered dolphins and the area reminded us of our salt marshes in the chesapeake.  i have to say, we do miss our chesapeake bay.  anyway, it was beautiful and it's too bad that it was yet another grey day because the sunlight would have made it look so much better.  well, we will come back.  we took the channel to morehead city and then into spooners creek - the second to the last boat in the fleet to arrive (wally is always the last boat).  anyway, we are staying here at spooners creek marina a couple of nights.  we arrived too late to do our grocery shopping and tom was helping yet another boat with an inverter issue.  consuelo and i just went off exploring by ourselves.  spooners creek marina is actually a very nice marina.  the whole area reminded me of pirate's cove in manteo, roanoke island, where we lived for a little while back in 2008.  it had that outer banks "look." there were just some odd things though like each finger pier had its own ramp - so, if you wanted to visit your neighbor boat beside you that wasn't on the same finger pier, you'd had to go up the ramp walk across to his slip and then go down his ramp.  and could they make these ramps any steeper?

steeep ramp!

we'll do our grocery shopping first thing tomorrow morning and then i can go back to work and tom can help all the people he wants to help.  he actually wants to do cursory engine room inspections in all the other boats - sort of like preventative medicine.  he really is a nice person.  if it were me, i'd escape in the middle of the night  :)

sunset at spooners creek

new bern, NC.

new bern is not exactly along the ICW but we stopped there because mark doyle and tom were doing presentations for the southbound cruisers rally and they just sort of combined it with the SAIL rally.  or something like that.  in any case, we went to new bern.  this was just a short run from oriental - 22 miles or so, but the wind was right on the nose.  after we finally got past the boats blocking us at the town dock, as we were leaving the harbor, the guy in front of us went the wrong way and promptly ran aground.  oh well.  he backed out of it easily enough though.  we stayed on the lee shore and didn't get banged around too much.  it was an easy cruise - one bridge opening and then we were there.  except that we were on the opposite shore to town at the bridge pointe marina.  i didn't realize until later that it really wasn't that long a walk across the bridge to get to town but probably because of the late nights working and the early morning consuelo awakenings, my mind was already a little fuzzy. 

oh, i failed to mention that at the oriental town dock, there were two white ducks that i considered making friends with but decided against it - we were only going to be there for one night.  here in new bern, we have coots! 

but i digress.  that first afternoon at new bern was the first of a series of seminars on the ICW for the weekend.  if you looked around, everyone was looking a little ragged.  i don't know if they were just tired from the early morning get up and go, the stress, or possibly partying too much the night before at oriental (probably not - i think the party ended early).  in any case, we were to sit in new bern for three days and i guess folks really needed that.  as usual, the priority was to get the boat cleaned up - we had gotten a little salty with all of that wind and wave action.  then seminar, then dinner, then bed for some, whatever for others, and work for me.  i stayed up late so i could get stuff done, planning to sleep in the next day.  didn't happen.  consuelo woke up at 5:48 a.m.  unfortunately, when i got her off the boat (nice floating docks, by the way, easy peasy), she turned left when she should have turned right!  it's a very long dock.  she has gone sort of deaf so i didn't want to shout and wake everyone up so i ran after her, still dressed in my nightgown and bathrobe since my plan was to go back to sleep.  as soon as she sensed that i was running, she went even faster!  she may be deaf, but she can still move.  i didn't have a poop bag with me because i thought we would be going the OTHER way, where the poop bags were,  so i had to go back to the boat to get the bags, etc. etc.  good thing no one else was awake to see all of this happening.  i tried going back to sleep but it was hopeless so i just went to work instead.  more seminars saturday morning which i skipped since i had attended them before at hampton.  tom had his presentation at 11:15 and it was extremely well received.  i think that after people finally realized who he was and what he could do, all of a sudden, he got REALLY popular!  and as soon as he could get away from everyone, that afternoon, we decided to take some time off and walk to town to look around. 

new bern is really a nice little town with lots of shops and historic buildings.  it's also where pepsi-cola was born!  i can see going back and spending a little more time there.   consuelo would not let us go by a pet boutique without going in and after she gave the saleslady her best, soft, brown-eyed look... well, let's just say that she scored big time in the treat department!  tom and i, unfortunately, had to pay for our own afternoon snacks.   but we had a great time walking around new bern, albeit short, and as said earlier, i am sure that we will be back.  let's just call it a taste. 

dinner with the rally group was at 6:00 p.m. and for once, i "socialized."  we had a fun table with two couples from our group, plus ben ellison, the editor of panbo.com, the marine electronics hub, who was one of the speakers at the seminars.  i was looking forward to his presentation which was on iPad and iPhone apps.  geeky, geeky me.

the next day, we attended more seminars and then a pizza dinner.  party poopers that we are, tom and i left as soon as they gave away all the raffle prizes (no, we didn't win anything, but that's okay as we managed to win prizes at the hampton snowbird rendezvous.  i can't remember now if i had mentioned it or not, but one prize was a brand new inflatable PFD and the other was a certificate for two nights' stay at the deltaville marina!).  in any case, our next destination is spooners creek in morehead city, NC.  and it is going to be another early morning departure to catch the 6:30 a.m. bridge opening.

city hall

the tin man at mitchell's hardware

bridge pointe hotel and marina

the town of new bern was across the river

sunset on the trent river, new bern

oriental, NC.

up before the sun and out into the pungo river at first light, crossing the pamlico river and then into goose creek, upper spring creek and through the ICW cut into gale creek, bay river and the neuse river. on the bay river, the sailboats put up their sails and blew right by us - hey, we are a slow boat, right?  but we cut quite a few corners and when all was said and done, those who sailed lost some time and still ended up behind us.  there is a reason our pennant has a caricature of a turtle on it - slow but steady, yes?   however, to give them credit, they did get a chance to put up their sails.  the wind picked up on the neuse river, right on the nose, and by the time we got in at oriental, NC, it was really starting to blow.  the fleet trickled in one by one and those who were already secured "helped" the ones who were coming in.  there was a lot of shouting and "instructions" on how to do what.  lots and lots of shouting and what i call testosterone poisoning.  one boat got towed in.  anyway, tom and i stayed out of that mess - too many chiefs, not enough indians - until wally on GYPSY WIND straggled in at last.  we stayed close by and watched everyone going nuts trying to get him in only because he was going to be in front of us and we didn't want TADHANA to get accidentally dinged.  well, and that went on for quite some time because he kept circling.  probably trying to drive the boat in instead of coming up against the piling and doing the piling/pivot thing and letting some of the other men take the lines.  anyway, as i mentioned, LOTS AND LOTS of shouting back and forth. 

tom, consuelo and i took a little walk around oriental.  i say "little" because it is a little place. and our walk was soon done.  we were at the free town dock but the others were at the oriental marina and inn that had bands playing one after the other all afternoon and all evening at the tiki bar.  the wind howled and the bands played on.  everyone milled about the lawn chilling out and socializing except for anti-social me.  i had intended to go to work but then there was a knock on the door and there went that plan.  it was a young man, a friend of tom's son and daughter-in-law.  nice young man. 

i didn't have the opportunity to take any photos in oriental and we didn't stay long either.  as for work, i tried, but by 9:30 p.m., i was totally beat and simply could not stay upright anymore so i gave up and went to bed instead.  unfortunately, consuelo got up at 5:30 a.m. the next day but i went right back to bed after taking care of her.  and we didn't get to leave until past 8:30 anyway, blocked in by a couple of other boats - until they got going, we didn't have a choice but to twiddle our thumbs until they finally got out of the way. 

ok, my thoughts so far could probably be summed up in one sentence:  "i don't do well with groups."

it has nothing to do with the people - they all seem very nice, very eager, maybe some are ill-prepared, but my contention has always been that the bigger you are, the more complicated it gets.  i have full-time work to contend with, a geriatric dog, and my standard of cleanliness to maintain and it keeps me pretty busy.  i simply don't have time for anything else - socializing or waiting for others.  it probably doesn't help that i don't drink because then i'm never "loose" or chilled out.  i don't like crowds or tight places.  and i hate noise.  gosh, that really makes me sound....  well, SOME people find me likeable in any case :)  if people were to ask my advice about doing this trip, i would say:  1) know your vessel way in advance so that you have worked out all the kinks before you even leave; and 2) do your homework every night so that you know what to expect the next morning.  anyway, that's my two cents. 

elizabeth city and (almost to) belhaven.

from the south mills bulkhead, it was into the south mills lock and then on to elizabeth city where we tied up at the free bulkhead next to the park.  elizabeth city had a shindig for us that evening.  it is really a very hospitable city with free dockage (no water or electricity though), free wifi, cocktails and hotdogs at 5:30 (so long as there are at least five boats at the docks), roses for the ladies, and only a small fee if you want to use their showers.   i am sorry that we didn't get to stay longer but we will be back.  at least tom and i got to walk around that afternoon a bit.

we were up at o'dark early the next morning in preparation for an extremely L-O-N-G day: 82 statute miles through the pasquotank river into the albemarle sound to the alligator river, into the alligator river-pungo river canal, out into the pungo river and then into the upper dowry creek to stop at the dowry creek marina. 

the pasquotank river past elizabeth city had a ton of crabpots but we are from the chesapeake and we're used to that although the floats were painted black and hard to see especially with the rising sun.  if we had left any later, it really would have been blinding!  the sailboats in our fleet got to sail on a nice long reach until the albemarle sound which, i have to say, was not pretty that morning.  it actually wasn't THAT windy but we were getting it from the beam which, on TADHANA, is not very pleasant.  in any case, two hours of fighting that and finally into the alligator river and past the alligator bridge after asking for an opening.  some of the boats from our fleet stopped before the bridge at the alligator river marina while the rest of us plugged on into the alligator river-pungo river canal which is, literally, a very wide ditch, not very interesting and with a spotty cell phone signal to boot.  more boats from the fleet dropped off and anchored at mile marker 100 or so and only four of us actually made it all the way through the ditch, into the pungo river and up to the upper dowry creek where we were rewarded with a two-night stay at the wonderful dowry creek marina.  mary and nick and their staff run a great place in very pleasant surroundings.  plugged into electricity and water, i got gobs of laundry done (we were pretty dirty) and we had a nice little cocktail get-together in the lounge before everyone called it a day.  except me, of course.  i went to work until about 1:30 a.m. and then slept in the next morning.  tom got TADHANA all cleaned up on the outside and then we borrowed the loaner car and ran off to the Advance Auto store to get some transmission fluid and that was tom's afternoon project while i went back to work.  the rest of the fleet trickled in one by one and that evening, we all had a nice BBQ pulled pork dinner together at the marina lounge.  it was early to bed as an early start was planned for the morning.  early to bed for everyone else but me, of course.  i don't sleep anymore, it seems.

blimp hangar - blimps are made in elizabeth city!

blimp

beginning of alligator river-pungo river canal

it really is a ditch

i have to add that when we borrowed the car to go to the auto parts store, we passed some cotton fields and and i made tom stop the car so that i could take some photos.  i guess it's like when caucasians see palm trees and are totally fascinated.  that was me being a tourist :) 

cotton field looks like it snowed

just needs to be cleaned up but looks like regular cotton balls

really and truly heading south.

we left the hampton public piers at 0720h and circled the harbor slowly waiting for the others to get in line.  mark and diana on SEMI-LOCAL had already gone ahead. out into hampton roads, we took the small boat channel and made our way to the elizabeth river, going very slowly, waiting for the others to catch up.  it was a little rolly at times but not too bad and once we got into the river between norfolk and portsmouth, it was fine.  i had to take a photo of red 36  at hospital point which is mile marker zero of the ICW.  truly a momentous occasion for us and hopefully the first of many times that we will be passing that marker.

norfolk in the grey mist

mile marker zero

there are a number of bridges to pass on the elizabeth river and most were either open or high enough for us not to have to ask for a bridge opening  so we really didn't pay any attention and completely forgot that ALL of the boats behind us are sailboats WITH MASTS!  in any case, at some point, these guys are going to have to ask for their own bridge opening eventually but this time tom did it for them and i really dropped the ball on this one, completely unprepared.  the bridge tender did not answer the radio call on channel 13 and the phone number on the guide was apparently an old one that was out of service.  i was able to get the new number by using the binoculars to read it off the sign that was on the bridge.  well, that slowed us down a bit.  oops...  at the gilmerton bridge which is the last one before the turn-off to the dismal swamp canal, one of the boats behind us, LOVE AND LUCK, turned around abruptly at speed, scaring the heck out of the guy behind him!   they did not know the vertical clearance of the bridge - apparently, they did not do their homework!  and that wasn't all - at some point, the boat broke down.  we were having trouble with radio communication with that boat but another boat called us for them and all tom could say was "drop the anchor and call towboatUS."  we, on the other hand, had made the turn into the dismal swamp route and had to deal with a dredge barge that was blocking nearly two-thirds of the channel making for a very narrow passage.  we really felt bad for those folks but what were we supposed to do?  there was no room to turn around even if we wanted to.  it was hard to believe that so soon into the journey, these people were already knocked out.  last we heard, they said their propeller "fell off." they got towed in and will be having a diver look into the matter.

the next thing was deep creek lock.  the fleet had more or less divided into two groups:  the doyles on SEMI-LOCAL, TADHANA, L'ATTITUDE and ADAGIO were the first group.  the second group was the rest, herded by wally, and were way behind so we just went ahead and locked through.  the famous robert peek, lockmaster at deep creek lock was not on duty that day.  instead, we got harry, his assistant.  harry allowed me to let consuelo out to pee.  she had to get off from the flying bridge to do so as we were in low water.  i just waited on the boat and called her back when she was done.  in any case, locking was cool and we didn't mess up on that one except that i forgot to put out the fenderboards and two of my fender covers got a bit dirty from the lock walls.  oh well, the rain will take care of that eventually and i will never forget again.

even though it was a grey, misty day, the scenery on the canal was beautiful and we just meandered along watching out for landmarks pointed out in the guide, as well as submerged logs.  there isn't much water in the canal so we really couldn't go any faster even when pushing up the throttle - venturi effects. 

we passed the VA/NC state line, as well as the NC dismal swamp canal welcome center - we glanced wistfully at the docks and the manicured park but since we were the ones ahead, we had to keep going, cross the pontoon foot bridge, the south mills bridge and tie up at the south mills bulkhead and leave the welcome center for the rest of the fleet as there was limited space.  as it turned out, i'm glad that we were ahead because our group did not have to raft up like the rest did - meaning, if you were on the outside, you'd have to get on someone else's boat, possibly two, to get to land.  it wouldn't have been convenient for us especially with consuelo's needs.

going forward

looking behind

the color of the water

we finally left virginia

tadhana on the south mills wall

we got tied up to the wall at south mills at about mile marker 33 and i opened up the hatches to the engine room and the heat released from down there warmed up the boat nicely.  as i had previously said, it was grey, misty, at times rainy - just not a really great day to speak of.  tom, consuelo and i took a walk into "town" and found a barbershop where tom had a badly needed haircut with a very chatty barber.  on the way back to the boat, the scent coming from the market at the gas station was too much to resist and we ended up going home with some fried chicken.  that night, it blew like crazy and it was COLD.  there is no electricity at the wall so we ran the generator for a while to warm up the boat for showers, etc.  i worked until midnight but the next morning, everyone except for consuelo knew about reverting back from DST and she was ready to go at 6:30 which was actually 5:30!  oh well...  luckily, because we were right on the wall, it was so easy to toss her outside and get her back in after she did her business and then crawl back into bed.  unfortunately, an hour later, she was grumbling about not having had any breakfast yet. one simply does not mess with an old dog's routine. 

sunday morning was our usual pancakes and bacon breakfast.  it was raining, it was cold and it was nasty out but it cleared up by noon and at about 12:20, donna from the welcome center drove over in a bus and picked us up.  they had a presentation for our group at the welcome center about the dismal swamp canal and robert peek gave it and played his conch for us.  it was pretty cool.  they even had a little reception afterwards with snacks and drinks.  we also took a walk around the park and when all of that was done, our little group was bussed back to the south mills wall. 

it is pretty cold out again as i write this but i wanted to get it done.  i figure i won't be blogging every day but the first day had to have a page of its own.  it's been pretty special :)