A small ICW photo essay

I don't have very many pictures of the last few days because the weather has been so bad that I haven't wanted to risk my camera. These pictures are the few that I have been able to grab in between rain showers. Unfortunately, the light hasn't been very conducive to good photos but if you really want to see what the ICW is like, then I guess these are pretty accurate.

The anchorage at Bull Creek is a new favorite. We would like to see it in October when the leaves change colors.

I took this while cooking breakfast as we were underway. This is what you see out the galley port mile after mile.

One of the many swing and bascule bridges that we have to call to open.

You see all kinds of houses on the ICW from multiple million dollar ones to these middle range ones to, yes, trailer parks.

You can't trust the charts. Use your eyes. We were actually in the middle of the channel when I took this one

One of the few breaks we got from the rain today but the next storm was on the horizon already.

This mud was about a half of a boat length from our boat. The channel is very very narrow in some places.

We saw a lot of this view today.

One of the more interesting houses we saw today.

When we got to the Mile Hammock anchorage at Camp LeJuene, the wind totally died. it was stunning.

One of the 20 or so boats anchored with us at Mile Hammock

The reflections of the sunset on the water

A fish jumped and left ripples

It started to get fuzzy as son as the sun went behind the clouds. I expect there will be fog in the morning.

This panorama was so awesome that I put the full size up. Scroll to see the whole thing.

Salt Air

It was a weird day.  It was a day of sometimes nerve wracking driving, (yes, driving because that is what we do with the boat on the ICW) which I was happy to let Tim do, because shooting an approach to minimums is what he does so well and with seemingly no effort. Seven hours of it, with the worst at the very end, though, was a bit much.

There was a time in the afternoon where a Crealock 45 named Bees Knees (absolutely love that one), who left the anchorage an hour before us, was heard on the radio summoning Tow Boat US. While firmly in the middle of the channel, her captain discovered an uncharted shoal and was grounded. We chatted a bit on the VHF and she told us which way the local fishermen told her she should have gone to miss the shoal. Had she not left the anchorage before us, that would have been our afternoon destiny instead of hers.

Then there was the series of three bridges whose timing only a perverted masochist would dream up. The first bridge only opened up on the hour at the hour. The second bridge, 18 miles later, opened up on the half hours, but the third bridge, 5 miles later, only opened on the hours. Make bridge #2 and you're doomed to progress to #3 at a crawl my grandson could beat. We ended up doing a pretty standard aviation holding pattern of about 1/2 mile to bleed off the time. The current was too strong up by the bridge to just go there and sit and wait. Well, I should qualify that with the statement that the current was too strong for those of us without mondo bow thrusters like the power boat that roared past us at 15 knots, nearly dumping my tea in the wakes that followed.

Full size giraffe

Surely all the homeowners along this stretch are aware of this quandry, because they've provided a bevy of the most baffling lawn ornaments I have ever seen to entertain.

10 ft. statue

At least we were escorted by our dolphin friends a good bit of the way, whose beauty is still unmatched to me by anything else we've seen so far.

After transiting #3 you're spit out into a maze of marinas and channels that lead to Wrightsville Beach, our destination for the evening. There are two ways, one of which is described by the cruising guides as best left to shallow draft boats. During my chat with the captain of Bees Knees it came up that she intended to go through there so we figured we may as well try, since the other choice involves 3 extra miles of narrow channel. It is some of the skinniest water we've navigated yet, and I believe that Tim more than earned the rum and coke that is residing in his grip at this very moment.

Where we are sitting is a very short dinghy ride and even shorter walk to the beach, and as I stand at the stove cooking I can smell the salt air. We might just have to stay put a day and take a stroll to see the ocean that we've worked so hard for so long to get to. 

Mile Hammock

Five boats spent the night in Mile Hammock Bay. By 0800 this morning 4 of them were on their way further down the ICW. Kintala remained behind for a long awaited rendezvous. When we left Boulder Good Friend James was finalizing plans to head East as well. We have been keeping track of each other's progress and heard that Chardonnay had been lifted from Carlyle lake, loaded on a truck, and currently resides at Swan Point marina, located just over two miles from here. Kintala is allergic to dock fees at the moment and this is the closest anchorage; so this morning James headed this way. His boat is still on the hard (of course) so he drove to the parking lot that lies along side the bay. That still left about 400 feet of cold water between us.

Bridging this final gap meant flopping the dink over the side and reuniting it with the outboard for the first time since Back Creek in Annapolis. That was when we discovered that our newly purchased motor would not actually motor anything. Randy fixed it in Oriental but we never had a chance to try it out. So I admit some trepidation when reaching for the pull cord. (This is no reflection on Randy's skills, just my experience with anything mechanical related in any way to Kintala.) And for a moment it appeared my fears were well founded. There was much relief when the motor eventually sputtered, caught, and then kept running. I smiled and waved at Deb which resulted in the motor immediately dying. That whole kill-switch-attached-to-the-wrist thing sounds like a good idea, but … I actually killed the motor several times this way. Good thing no one was close enough to see. Keeping hand on tiller I made a couple of circles around the boat and then Deb jumped aboard for a couple of more. I know it sounds pretty dumb but I've never driven a dinghy with a motor before and figured I should give it a try; lessen the risk of dumping James in the drink from the dink.

The dink is an unwieldy thing but it does get the job done. Loading James, some Captain Morgan Black and a six-pack of Blue Moon aboard we headed back to the main house. (Never miss a chance to have a friend pick up some needed supplies.) We had a great visit that included a couple of dolphins nosing around. Tales, catching up, a fantastic dinner, some more catching up, and it was after sundown when the dink made the return trip.

(Dinking at night must be an acquired taste, particularly on a cold, misty, pretty dark night. Can't say I enjoyed it much.) Getting the outboard secured and the dink on the deck after dark was another first but went well enough.

Tomorrow morning we intend to head out with the other two boats who have joined us for tonight.

A 39 mile GPS approach

Back in my old life we used to find runways shrouded in ugly weather using various land and satellite based systems; NDB, VOR, ILS, LOC, Back Course, and the latest and greatest LVP/GPS.  Though we might start setting up for one of these 100 miles or more from the airport the hard part, that bit where we worked extra hard at having everything exactly right (because Mother Earth was near by and going past at a very high rate of speed) was usually less than 10 miles long and was finished in just a couple of minutes.

Today we left the anchorage at Taylor Creek in Beaufort at 0800, heading for a place called Mile Hammock Bay.  The bay actually belongs to the military and lies within the confines of Camp Lejeune.  Word has it various units use this place for loud and impressive practice at all hours of the day and night though the cruising community thinks of it as a good anchorage.  And it is.  This night there are 5 sailboats here, all resting peacefully in the mist and rain.  Getting here wasn't as peaceful.

The short days and changeable winter weather have Kintala still in the ICW, and this part of the ICW is tight, convoluted, and beset with currents; an easy place to lose one's way.  Bogue Sound is a large expanse of water just a couple of feet deep except for the channel gouged out by the dredgers.  That channel is barely 100 feet wide and, after passing through the sound convolutes its way, first around the Bogue Inlet, then zigging and zagging through the Bear and Brown inlets, and finally winding its way into the New River inlet where lies the cut into Mile Hammock Bay.  It was like shooting a 5 hour, 38.2 mile long GPS approach.

There were a couple of other chapters adding to the fun today.  Being lake sailors we never dipped very far into Kintala's fuel tank.  I have done some basic math of fuel burns and a bit less than 1 gal per hour of engine time has been the answer.  We left this morning with a estimated 1/2 tank; a number echoed by the fuel gauge ... kind of.  Let us just say the average of its bounces seemed to be around 1/2.  But a routine engine gauges check just as we got into the Bogue Sound provoked a crass claim from yours truly, the gage was bouncing on ZERO, EMPTY, about to cough an engine  and face bleeding the air from the Wester-Beast again.  Fortunately Spooner's Creek Marina was near at hand.  Quick communications by Deb had us in and at the fuel dock where Kintala took almost exactly 1/2 tank of gas.  Add "fuel gage" to the list of things that don't work very well.

And then there was the Onslow Beach Swing Bridge.  East of the Bridge a tug had grounded its tow against the bank; deliberately or by bone-bone headed driving.  Either way the thing swung out and nearly blocked the entire width of the narrow channel.  As we eased by the stern Kintala was nearly shoved aground by the wake of the tows still spinning engines.  Ugly.  (That tow had already run one boat aground, we heard the Captain getting help from Tow Boat US and, in fact, he is in the anchorage with us tonight.)  Just a couple of miles after having survived the towboat of Thrash we noticed what looked like a large industrial complex in the middle of the still narrow channel.  That turned out to be one towboat dragging a dredging platform and hundreds of feet of pipe all being helped along by a second towboat pushing on the whole rig.  Four sailboats, including Kintala, were soon stacked up behind this assembly as it slowly approached the bridge.  I mean slowly like less than 2 knots, a bit of a trick since the current was about 2 knots.  A boat moving two knots in a two knot current is actually not moving in the water, which means it can't be steered either.  The four of us were doing quite a dance.  It all worked though and eventually the whole entourage of tows and barge and pipes and sailboats cleared the bridge and went about our business.


We saw some more dolphins.

It was an interesting day.