Blue Skies Smiling on Me...Until they aren't

 

Yesterday,10/19/20 was gorgeous,  76 sunny, nice breeze and this morning their was heavy fog, 100% humidity,  62 degrees and drizzling.   No I'm wrong its raining.  That's how it is when your traveling via boat. 

We are approximately 70 miles from Charleston, SC as I write this. We stayed on Alligator River when we left you(no alligators) beautiful stars because nothing is around(including cell service) From their we stop in Morehead City, NC but first made a quick pickup at the Mayo Fish Dock and scored 3 lbs of fresh Atlantic shrimp at $7 a pound.   We were able to fuel up. Pump out, do laundry and get groceries. The highlight was having lunch with our friend, LuAnn, who lives near Oriental. She drove an hour and half. We appreciated it, caught up on all the news and had shrimp and grits at the Ruddy Duck. 

Mile Hammock Bay was our next anchorage located at Camp Lejeune. We spotted some dolphins fishing and some noisy birds.  The next morning we headed for Carolina Beach, SC. This part of the ICW (Intracoastal Water Way) is a bit crazy because there are a couple of inlets from the Atlantic and their are temporary markers all around to help you navigate the most recent shifting of sand (called shoals) and the current is usually a bit stronger. So especially if going at low tide you watch the depth sounder go from 20 feet of water to 6. Yes, I get spooked and always ask Jon to take over. But after all the fuss you end up in Carolina Beach...awww we grab a mooring ball and stay a few days...now this is nice. Laying on the beach, long walks along the beach...making our way out to a sand bar and jumping waves. We slept good at night. Well kind of..we met a Vet, ex-navy seal, ex-hell's angel, ex-sniper(we hope, he says he has a M16) ex-con(he went to jail for selling drugs, but has gone straight after he was released) who rode his hydro bike over to us and talked for about an hour. Telling us all about his life and how he looks after all the boats in the bay because there has been some pirating and he hates theives. All while we are having our beer on deck, sitting on his hydro bike holding onto our boat.  He was very interesting and said he has taken a lot of psychology courses to help him understand himself.   He said he'd watch our boat too. So yeah, we slept pretty good. 

Wow, next came time to head down the Cape Fear River (no, i did not see Robert Dinero or Robert Mitchum) Lots of fun, not really, the current was against us and the wind behind us. At one point I think we were going about 4 knots( for you land lubbers, that's less than 5 miles an hour) torture. All day was like that and when I called for a reservation at Barefoot Marina in Myrtle Beach he'd said he have to ask his boss and call me back. ??? No one called,  so up until 4pm we kept trying to reach someone...there was no answer and I left about four messages already. Finally the 6 day old employee tells me sorry they don't have any room. Oh crap!!  (Some inside info..this stretch has only one or two anchorages that we passed miles ago, and we called all the other marinas along the route, even ones we had passed....All Full!)  Okaaaaaa, let's think, think, think..I go on Google maps looking for restaurants with docks...nope none ...its low tide..too shallow...part of this ICW is rock ledges...I'm steering because Jon wants to see what anchorages are after Myrtle Beach...all about 20 miles past.  Uggh we are still going about 5 knots or less, we won't be at Myrtle Beach ( Barefoot Marina until after 5. It gets dark at 6:30...so...ok if there are any empty space at the fuel dock we will just pull in and ask for forgiveness in the morning... we get through the Barefoot Landing swing bridge and see a few spots on the fuel dock and on another face dock....some one comes on radio asking the marina where they want them (obviously they called the day before and got a reservation) so I hop on radio and ask them if they can take us too.  Fingers crossed, he ask where we are...We Are Right Here i answer..ohh let me check...fingers crossed...no, no room. All reserved...sooooo we start looking across the way to the day docks that are supposed to be for dinner or shopping...but maybe we could eat and accidentally fall asleep..only problem is the docks have a narrow entry between pilings. The current is running pretty good. Jon is making a couple of passes...more than a couple, we were circling for about half hour to 45 minutes. Suddenly, Jon hears the marins talking back and forth that maybe they could fit the sailboat circling, in between two power boats....YES!!  So, I fix the fenders and lines...there is 8 men on the dock between two 50-60ft motor yachts and Jon gracefully squeezes in( well the dingy was caught on the anchor of the boat behind us for a second. ) We literally had a foot on each end.  Everyone applauded from both sides of  the ICW. As we are walking to check in one lady says (in a real sweet southern accent) "bless your heart for being on that water all that time"  oh..just another blue sky. 

We left the next morning beautifully rested, fueled up, pumped out and shoved off.  The day was beautiful and we were averaging 7 knots.  We put our anchor down behind Butler Island about 4pm. The current was running about 2 knots and the area was full of branches and debris from the resent flooding, but the anchor held well.  We sat back and watched the debris float past our boat and watched the sunset. We were inside about ready to go to bed when we heard an awful noise...oh no maybe a branch hit our boat. It will just slide off...what the heck...it sounds terrible,  it must be stuck...I can't see anything from the windows or from the windows in the canvas. Jon decides to go up on deck and see what it is.  While he is walking up one side I'm looking out the other side of the front dodger...there is something hung up on the life line...I yell to Jon to look over here, but something isn't right, it's black and ??? I get closer and get scared to death as a cormorant flies off the bottom life line.  I scream and Jon laughs. Oh blue skies. 

Jon and I always take turns steering and navigating. We try to talk the night before we travel and look over charts. We also pick out a few anchorages.   Daily chores include......wait I was interrupted as it was pouring out and our new anchorage is coming up...Awendaw Creek...Jon is calling for me.  The sight strikes me as completely hilarious...his face is priceless( mind you there was only a 15% chance of rain so we don't have our center panel on or our sides on)  I'm laughing and singing Blue Skies and Jon look miserable...which again, I find hilarious. We anchor during the monsoon and begin putting our canvas back up and try to dry things out...not possible. But its fine. We have some Poker Mix and ice cold beers. Another blue sky. 

Ok....you don't want to hear about our daily chores so I'll say so long for now...besides we are on beer two and its time to relax. Tomorrow we should make it to Charleston.  Look up the song Blue Skies and play it while you read this blog.  Please leave a comment if you want..tell us who are and we will try to answer. 

Chart picture of Alligator River

Our wine at night

Mayo Fish Dock( ask Ken & LuAnn about it)

Our big score

Heading out of Morehead City...some of these boats fish right in the channel.  ???

great taco place

Carolina Beah

I love these little birds, blow the pic up because some of them are half buired..so cute

the Hydro Bike

Going down CapeFear River

Birds are so loud and annoying they are called Boat-tailed grackles

Mile Hammock Bay

yep, Blue Skies....

Jon in the rain, its letting up now

I find it hysterically funny when Jon starts getting miserable

WILD SWAMP HOGS, SNAKES AND THINGS THAT GOES BUMP ON YOUR KEEL//DISMAL, DISMAL OH DISMAL SWAMP

 

Well before I get to the DISMAL,oh so Dismal Swamp, I need to tell you about our passage to Norfolk.  

You might be familiar with the saying "May you have fair winds and following seas!"  Well I'm hear to tell you to stop wishing that on us...that's exactly what we had on the way to Norfolk. The problem was that the day before the Cheapeake had 15 to 20 knot north  winds with waves 3 to 4 ft. When we left Deltaville we had 5 to 10 with "1-2 feet" waves. Well, no, the waves were easily 3 feet and made the ride so rolley that we both were feeling pretty queasy. Forget going down below. We couldn't wait to get into the traffic of the Navy. And there was a lot of traffic.   Not so much Naval. The tugs were pushing huge barges by that time of day. (4pm)  The best part, and the part that changes our whole day around  was we saw pelicans and dolphins. In fact we had a few dolphins fishing in our anchorage the next morning. One surfaced about 100 feet off our dingy as we were heading to shore for gas.  

We were able to catch up with our friend, Captain Kev off of Distant Horizon.  He is there doing some improvements to his boat. We had a good time walking around and visiting over beers and dinner.  

finally feeling better after the waves calmed down

Jon and Capt. Kevin walking around Norfolk 

always standing ready. We heard (VHF) on our way out of Norfolk that a submarine was on its way in

we are always lucky enough to catch race night

this is bridge going out of Norfolk...not bridge to lock.

 

Ok, so we headed out about 8:30 from Norfolk towards the dismal swamp.  We had enjoyed it the last time we went through out six years ago, so peaceful and picturesque.  It was peaceful to, if you could unclench your stomach from bumping every mile or so on some submerged log or whatever...we must have bumped at minimum 20 times. You'd think we'd get used to it..you'd have 8-9 feet of water then, thump, we bumped. Then 7 feet. 6 feet ok we have 8 feet again we're safe. Then we could enjoy the nature all around us.  The blue Herron flying in front of us, the yellow butterflies, wow an eagle...."what the heck is that black thing swimming across the swamp!!"   "could it be a dog orrr, get a picture..."I don't know how to use your phone", "give it to me...awe we missed it"  "ok google. What kind of animals live in the DISMAL Swamp "  Black bears. Wild hogs, otters..It would have been either a small bear or wild swamp hog.  We're going with wild swamp hog. So back to enjoying, bump, ugh.  "But look at the falling leaves and the sun, What the heck. Is that a snake?? Get the phone,  give it to me!@   I got it! Wow did you see that, it was redish with diamond shapes...ok google what kind of snakes live in the..."  

Well after a "peaceful day" we made it to the bridge that lets you in toward  the canal lock..we were behind a boat,  YeeHaw, who is calling the bridge tender.  (Side note, the bridge tender also runs the lock..so he would let north bound traffic in the lock, fill the lock, let them out of the lock, jump in his car, drive the quarter mile to the bridge and open the bridge. The scheduled opening was 3:30pm and they only open on scheduled openings)  its 3:10pm and the boat a head of us hailed  the bridge tender, who answered and said something about schedule and something we couldn't understand.  YeeHaw waits about 3 minutes and calls again and then again every 3 minutes  because the current is taking his boat.  He is yelling and struggling to keep boat under control, but makes it to the bunker right before the bridge.  In the meantime Jon has put our anchor out, we are about 500 to 600 feet behind him. The current was pulling us a bit and between reverse and forward we were doing ok...then no it was just to narrow. So we pulled up anchor and the reset it about 350 feet now.   And, still, the current is pulling us a little. It is now almost 3:30pm. We also hail the bridge tender to let him know we are there as well...no answer.  Jon has to pull up anchor as we are about to go aground. Now things get stupid.  The current is so intense that Jon is unable to keep  control (yes I handed over the wheel, as things were getting hairy) we were traveling sideways toward the bridge!! all of a sudden our port quarter stern(left side rear) was heading for YeeHaw and the Captain of YeeHaw is flipping out, yelling at the bridge tender for not opening and possibly damaging two boats. Jon is doing his best to not hit the bridge which is only about 4ft off the water. He is putting in reverse then forward...we don't have enough room to clear the other side and hit the bunker with our anchor...again a bit of reverse..me pushing off yelling instructions that I'm not even sure he could hear..a lot of forward we are at the wall (which  by the way, has a small bush coming out of it and all I can think of is I hope it doesn't have pickers or poisonous cause I'm going to get a face full of it.) Steady..get a line on the bunker...there's a cleat. We are safe.  But we are headed the wrong way. THEN YeeHaw has left his bunker (wall) and heading the other way, telling his "crew" to get in dingy and push his bow around..the bridge is now opening..and the one north bound boat comes through.  YeeHaw Captain is spewing and yelling all the way through and telling his crew in the dingy to meet him in the lock, but help us first.  Turned out Jon got us turned around pretty good and we headed for the lock..kind of nervous as to what YeeHaw was going to do. I saw the Bridge Tender/lock tender get in his truck and race towards the lock.  YeeHaw says nothing, except gets off his boat to talk to us and dispose of a can (no speculating) He ask us if we could believe that he just sat in the building watching us struggle..  I nicely told him that I think he was tending the lock at the time.  All was forgotten. 

Now I'm exhausted telling the story and I'm sure you are too.  We anchored about 10 miles later at Goat Island  is was very quiet and super peaceful  Jon and I laid on the deck and counted our lucky stars 

very pretty swamp...water is the color of very strong tea

Welcome to North Carolina                                          Swimming Snake...you'll have to blow up

 you have to blow up these two pictures to appreciate....they just were in the middle of no where on the Dismal Swamp

very short video of Dismal Swamp

This is Yee Haw in front of us

ok google....       

Goat Island, where Jon and I laid on deck to see the million stars....and count our lucky ones

That is all for now.  Please leave comments and give us your link to your adventures.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. DELTAVILLE, VIRGINIA

 

in front as you drive up to the Maritime Museum and park

It's true, right..all we need is Love. To be loved, love others like ourselves, love our environment and show love through your actions.  LOVE is a verb.  Its accountability to a higher standard (for ourselves and holding others that we Love to that standard) Sometimes love is a smile and friendly greeting. Which there is no shortage of in Deltaville. We have found Deltaville to be one of the friendliest places (people still wave to you when you are riding a bike or walking into town)  I got my haircut ($15 crazy right) and the woman was so sweet and we talked about my dreams,  her dreams and you could feel our mutual Love and support for eachother in that little 30 minutes.  Everywhere we went, people eyes smiled (masks on you can see their smiles in their eyes) 

Speaking of love, I love my husband. And I love music..Jon changed the speakers in our cockpit (there is a great West Marine in Deltaville)  because they buzzed with any amount of bass 🔊 .  The back of the speakers were pretty much deteriorated. We have been listening to Bobby Alu which has a Hawaiian tropical vibe..fun.  We also (ok mostly I) have been obsessed with Entrain.  We just recently discovered them but I guess they came out in the 90's. They are very heavy on the drums and are a feel good happy sound. My favorite song is Dancing In The Light. Check them out and let us know what you've been listening to. We love to discover bands we haven't listened to before

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Moon rising over Jackson creek

We left you leaving Solomon's Island heading toward Deltaville, VA. We decided to stop after at about a 40 mile day (thats about an 8 hour day) at Dymer Creek. It was a perfect stop..sun came out while we cooked dinner and we had a pretty sunset.  We were up and out early and finished our 15 mile to Deltaville. 

We anchored in Jackson Creek and paid the weekly dingy landing fee to use the Deltaville Marina's facilities. They have laundry, bath house, screened grilling and crab boiling shack, a beautiful swimming pool. bikes and best of all..a car to borrow.   So that's what we were doing this past week...using all those perks, especially stocking up on the heavy stuff from the grocery store and visiting the local seafood store. We scored homemade crab cakes, apparently the secret is saltines and cornflakes for the bread crumbs. They were very good. We also took a walk to the Maritime Museum and park. They really have a wonderful outdoor area and nature walks with bronze sculptures everywhere. They also had a replica of John Smith's exploration boat that his crew spent exploring the Chesapeake Bay. 

Time to Clean the bottom of the dingy

Pool overlooks Jackson creek and part of the bay

One of the reasons we need a car for heavy stuff

The nature trail runs along a creek, has beautiful tall shady trees and benches to sit and ponder

I think there is about 15 sculptures or more

this guy is real

John Smith's Explorer- 14 man, spiritsail rig that allows her to tack into the wind and minimize rowing.  They spent 180 days in this boat.

Sandbar at low tide at mouth of Jackson Creek

Today we are headed for Norfolk, Virginia (pronounced Norfick apparently) and hoping to catch up with a friend there. We will keep you posted. Until then....Love, Love, Love  

The Maritime Museum gives us another reminder