Late October 2006 – Norfolk, VA to Oriental, NC
October 16th – Coinjock, NC
For the first time we are leaving Norfolk without going ashore. We never even put our dinghy down. We leave at 8 AM because now we have to do the Norfolk bridge dance. But, first we go around the corner from Tidewater Marina and go to Ocean Marine Yacht Center. Rick and Eliena on Adagio called us on the cell and told us that the fuel here is super cheap. It is. With a Boat US members’ discount it is only $1.95 a gallon. We have heard reports of over $2.50, so this is a true bargain. We unload our trash and get a pump out as well.
We are back on the river by 8:30 and make our way to the first bridge, the Belt Line RR Bridge at Intra-Coastal Waterway statute mile 2.6. It is an ordeal at each bridge. First, you must arrive at the ideal time. Many bridges do not open except on the hour or the half hour. Many will not open at all during rush hour. And they will almost always open on request for commercial traffic, which is typically a tug and a barge. Second, huge luxury yachts, super fast sports fisherman boats, fast motoring sailboats and slow motoring sailboats are all trying to “make the next bridge”. We never want to be the boat left behind waiting for the next opening. Third, everyone tries to time their arrival. We could be going a slow 3 knots at 1200 engine RPMs or 7.8 knots at 3300 engine RPMs. Since we all arrive before the opening, we must hold our position or circle waiting for the opening.
After the first RR bridge, which is open, then it’s the Jordan Lift Bridge (2.8), the Jordan Bridge (2.9), the old Virginia RR Bridge (3.6), the Gilmerton Bridge (5.8) and the N&S RR Bridge (5.8). At this point a number of the boats split off and start heading down the Dismal Swamp. We find the Swamp route too shallow even though it is beautiful.
We continue on down through the Virginia Cut. We get through the Steel Bridge (8.8) then go through the Great Bridge lock. We hide out towards the back and make our way in. We tie up on the port side with no trouble. It raises about 18 inches to adjust for the difference between the Elizabeth River and the Albemarle Sound. There are 18 boats in the lock and it gently raises us about 8 inches.
We exit the lock and all 18 boats are immediately stopped by the Great Bridge Bridge (12.1), the Norfolk Southern RR Bridge (13.9), and the North Landing Bridge. Finally the bridges are done.
We continue down the narrow cut in the swamp to Coinjock. We have decided to stay at Midway marina. The dock master warns us that the current is strong. Another boat comes in just before we do, so we go past the slip and have to turn around. After going sideways down the channel, we decide that we will just tie up with our bow against the current. So we tie up with our bow to Anania. They are Tom and Sandy from NJ. It has been 40 nautical miles and 8 hours of stop and go motoring.
We go out to dinner. This isn’t the restaurant across the channel known for the obscenely, big steaks, but John has a reasonably big steak and Jennifer has her favorite, clam strips. There is no bread in the marine store, so we will be on tortilla wraps until we find a real grocery. The marina has hot tubs which are open, but it is a little cold and we don’t use them.
October 17th – Alligator River, NC
Anania Under Sail
In the morning we help Anania leave the dock, which makes for an easy exit for us. We do some sailing across the Albemarle Sound, but then motor when we get to the new markers that mark then entrance to the Alligator River. The markers are confusing and they are only charted on the latest charts that we have on the computer. It is supposed to blow from the south during the night, so we anchor at the end of the Alligator River where there is good protection from the south. Two boats, Favorite Child and Gratitude follow us in there.
Traffic in the ICW
October 18th-20th – Dowry Creek Marina, Belhaven, NC
We go to our favorite marina, Dowry Creek. We have a very lazy day slowly motoring down the canals. There is no cell phone reception at all, so we hail Dowry Creek on the VHF to make arrangements for our dockage. We wind our way into the marina and settle into our slip. We recently had rigging work done, so we attempt to tighten up our rigging. Mike from Anahata lets us borrow his Loo’s tension gauge and teaches us how to use it. Favorite Child comes in to Dowry Creek as well. We share the courtesy car with Favorite Child and go into the grocery store in Belhaven and get BREAD. John arranges a social get together in the Captain’s Lounge. About six boats come, everybody brings an appetizer. We meet a couple on a house boat who tell a hilarious story about dragging onto a marker at Tice’s Shoal. Another couple of boaters, in their sixties, are newly weds, yet they went to their senior prom together.
Foggy Morning
In the morning it is very foggy. About noon the fog lifts and many of the boats stream out of the marina. But today is beer can chicken day, so we are staying. Ted, the owner of Dowry Creek marina, cooks a chicken with a can of beer stuck inside of it. Everyone brings a dish and contributes a few bucks toward the chicken and paper products. We meet a bunch of people heading south like us.
The next day it is blowing like stink, so we decide to stay another day. We are out of chores that we feel like doing. We take the courtesy car to town to try and get a new connector for the VHF radio. The Standard VHF with an external speaker is not working.
Yorel, an all wood boat
October 21st – Broad Creek, NC
We get up fairly early to leave Dowry Creek. Our friends, Tom and Lisa on Symmetry have anchored just past the marina. We wave at them like crazy people on the way out. I hope they figured out who we are. We are able to sail a little bit, but all through the day we keep changing the direction we are going. We hear Blackfoot say that they’re going to Clubfoot Creek, we think about going there. We were originally going to go to South River. The wind is supposed to shift so that the anchorage at South River will be exposed. Finally we settle on Broad Creek. When we are entering Broad Creek and Jennifer is at the helm, someone hails us on the VHF and tells us we’re heading directly for 3 feet of shallow water. Jennifer makes John take the helm, since people on other boats are yelling at her. When we get to Broad Creek we have a little bit of cell reception, so Jennifer is able to check in with her parents.
October 22nd – 28th – New Bern, NC
We leave Broad Creek and head Northwest up the Neuse River about 20 miles to New Bern, North Carolina. There is a sailor’s Gam, a mini-convention of southbound cruisers. It is a charming town with two main streets with about three cross streets. There is a restored Royal Governor’s Palace, a Fireman’s Museum, and many architecturally interesting churches. Most of the buildings are made of brick. It is named after Bern in Sweden and it its town animal is the bear. The waterfront has a Sheraton Hotel with a good-sized marina and a Convention Center. Pepsi Cola was invented here by Caleb Bradham over 100 years ago. A rumor is that Pepsi Cola is an anagram of the EPISCOPAL church that is seen right outside of his pharmacy’s window.
John and one of the many Bern Bears
We try to get a slip in one of the marinas in but they are full. It is still 3 days until the Gam starts, so there is enough room to anchor. We see our friends, Tom and Emilie on Cygnet as we come in. It is like a reunion, we see Blackfoot, Anania, Adagio, Fantasy, Time Out and more. Most of the boaters are staying at the marina associated with the shore-side Sheraton Hotel. It is Sunday, so we try to find a sports bar or some place to watch the NFL. We try Captain Ratty’s, which from its name sounds like a perfect choice, but it is not. It is really a seafood restaurant with a tiny bar and one small TV. We end up going back to the hotel bar at the Sheraton.
On Monday, we arrange for our Florida mail to be sent to Saint Jude, since the post office in town does not get general delivery mail. We have lunch at the Cow Café, where everything has a Cow them. We renew the yearly service for the Globalstar Satellite phone, but we need to fax them a form, so we go to the library to print it out and then fax it from the Sheraton.
On Tuesday, we are freezing when we wake up. It is not really freezing, but it is 38°. We did not expect this, since the record low is 35°. We run the generator for 45 minutes so that we can run the tiny ceramic space heater to take the chill off of the boat. Then John makes breakfast, which warms up the boat a little more. By the time we get in to shore we are almost warm. We check in to the Gam, rent a car with Tom and Emilie and go to Wal-Mart for shopping. At a 5 O’clock reception, the mayor of New Bern welcomes us and encourages us to move down and stay permanently in his lovely town. We go out to dinner with Time Out, Island Time, and Rhyes and Pat on a boat whose name we forget.
Wednesday is the start of the Gam. It is still cold, but we go to an outdoor knot tying class at 8 in the morning. It is very hard to tie knots with frozen fingers. The Gam contracted with a local business to come out and get our fire extinguishers inspected. We bring in two of ours and get them re-certified. We go to a talk on the physics of anchors. Apparently there is no physics of anchors. Anchor makers design their anchors and do a set of tests in pristine conditions but there is no theoretical basis to extend the results to our real-life situations.
In the evening there is a potluck dinner. Everybody, about 255 people, brought dishes so the tables are laden with tasty platters. It proves difficult to coordinate everybody in a line and there are not enough chairs. People without chairs get to eat first. Then there is a table lottery. We are lucky our table is one of the first to be called. When John goes to put out the rest of his Shrimp and Sesame Noodles, he almost causes a riot. As Eileen Quinn says in her song Piranha Potluck, “The last ones in line to don’t get to eat at all”. After dinner, Chris Parker (a beloved weather forecaster demigod), Bentley Smith and others talk about WiFi antennae in the evening. They have lots of schemes for raising a WiFi antenna up the mast using low-loss cable, using powered antennae, and building home-made dishes that convert an omni-directional antenna into a directional antenna. The extreme nerdiness of the whole talk was hilarious. Needless to say we loved it.
The next day we get our propane refilled, which is another service set up by the Gam. There is a mariner’s flea market. We buy Skipper Bob’s new marina book. He documents a whole host of information in his books. The two we enjoy the most tell about marinas and anchorage on the ICW. In the afternoon Skipper Bob himself speaks. He is really very funny. Bentley Smith talks about what to have on board in your medicine chest. We hear another plug for super glue to securely close gash wounds. Our mail comes, with Jennifer’s passport, our absentee ballots, our cruising permit, and the check from the people who rented our dock in October. What great mail! There is a great catered dinner in the evening and then Eileen Quinn gives concert. In her songs she describes the goings on at the worst Piranha Potluck dinner. She makes a case for when it might be necessary to kill the captain. She begs her shipmate not to make dock the boat. She sings a hilariously sarcastic song about the Golden Age of sail when everyone had to poop over the rail. Her concert was brilliant and we buy the rest of her CDs.
The final day of the Gam is Friday. Claiborne Young writes detailed guides for cruising in North Carolina through Florida and more. He covers not just the ICW but many of the interesting side rivers as well. His books go into great detail about the histories of the many small towns up and down the coast. In an hour and a half, he starts at New Bern and goes down to the Florida Keys and reviews many of the places we should not miss, the best deals in marinas and repairs, and the most difficult passages on the ICW.
In the evening we go on the New Bern Ghost Walk. This is a lot of fun even though it is raining. Several historic homes are open to the public. Each home has a “ghost” who does a little skit about life in New Bern during the “Gilded Age”, the late 1800s early 1900s. There was a ghost who was a maid in one of the large, formal houses, who requested us to leave our card to request a visit. There was a ghost, who worked in one of the oyster houses, there were staggering zombies, a ghost family, and plenty of “dead” bodies in coffins. A confederate general ghost in the cemetery ghosts invites all the Yankees to stay with him there. It was a wonderful blend of a house tour, theatrical entertainment, and history. We go to the Episcopal Church for chili dinner. Of course most of the diners are boat cruisers.
Saturday we go to the Farmer’s Market. It is blowing like stink so we can’t buy any perishables because the dinghy ride is too rough. We go to the Firemen’s Museum. We meet a gentleman of German descent whose ancestor went to the Lutheran Church in Pluckemin. This church is now the Presbyterian Church that Jennifer’s parents attend. The same ancestor went to St. Louis and did typesetting for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Jennifer’s father is of German heritage from St. Louis. Strange!
New Bern Fire Department
We are told that the after the Civil War there were two firehouses. One was founded mainly by Yankees who occupied New Bern during the Civil War and the other was Confederates. Eventually the city built a new firehouse and combined the two fire departments into one. However, they still refused to commingle so they had separate facilities in the firehouse, even two fire poles! Now there is a new firehouse with only one pole. The old one is going to become the new site for the museum.
Tryon Palace Entry
After the fire museum, we go to Tryon Palace. This was built by the British Governor of North Carolina before the Revolution and it was one of the most beautiful public buildings in America during the colonial times. Governor Tryon did not did not like the heat in North Carolina though, so he got a transfer to become governor of New York. The next governor had to flee during the revolution. After the revolution, the palace became the capital of North Carolina. George Washington even attended a ball here.
Tryon Palace from the Water
Later, there was no money available to maintain the building, so it went to ruins and eventually the abandoned building burned. A major restoration project brought the palace back in the 50’s. Inside is an astonishing array of period pieces. Outside are great lawns, flower gardens and working vegetable gardens.
One of the flowering gardens
A detail on a brick pillar
A marble statue and purple flowers
Flowers surrounding a fountain
A cannon actually aiming at Shamrock
In the evening, our Ghost Walk tickets are still good. We go to a few more houses and then stop at the Masonic Opera House for a Vaudeville show.
Vaudeville
It is local talent but amazingly entertaining. There are comic skits with a little girl, dancing, and a sultry songstress named Little Audrey. It lasted about 20 minutes and it could not have been more enjoyable.
Dancing
Little Audrey Sings
October 29th – Oriental, NC
Well it has been a long and full week and it is time for us to finally leave New Bern. During this whole time, we have been at anchor and taking our dinghy to shore rain or shine. We never ran the engine to charge the batteries. With the solar panels and only running the generator 3 times for 45 minutes, we made it through the week using refrigeration, lights, anchor lights, and an occasional 110Volt heater. We had two cold fronts with 30 knots of wind come through, from different directions and we never had to reset our anchor. We were very pleased.