sv Abacus

Weather was perfect for motoring on the ICW for the last 50 miles.   The engine starting missing as we arrived in the narrow canals and creeks approaching Beaufort.  It turned out to be a clogged racor filter, which was quickly remedied by switching to the back up.  We arrived at Dataw Island at about 1700.  Pam and Ollie picked us up .  It was great to get home and settle into our fall routines.    On Tuesday, September 29, we moved the boat to Skull Creek Marina on Hilton Head Island so that authorized servicers could work on the engine, bow thruster and generator.  Everything is now ready for our next adventure, which may be Florida Keys or the Bahamas.    

Saturday morning, we arose at daybreak.  We pulled anchor and started south.  Suddenly, we knew we were in SC – gunfire in the morning!  About 10 boats had passed us in the river, each camouflaged with grass and carrying duckhunters in camos.  Here and there, we would see them nesting among the tall grass along the river.  About 30 minutes later, we heard gunshots only 200 feet from us on the edge of the river, as two hunters jumped up to dispatch some ducks overhead!  Glad to see the muzzles of their guns pointed up river, not at us.  We didn’t notice any retriever dogs in use, as alligators patrol the edges.  Rough neighborhood.

 

We continued on to Charleston, about 60 statute miles.  We were fortunate that we arrived at the Ben Sawyer Swing Bridge when we did.  It had sustained electrical damage, and was only opening at 7 AM, 2 PM and 6:30 pm, instead of on the half hour.  We passed through at 2 PM and arrived in Charleston at 4 pm.  We were on the long face dock intended for big boats – 200 mega yachts with fenders bigger than our dinghy.  After settling in to the City Marina, we were interested to see a 134 foot mega yacht dock in front of us.  Continental Drifter III, Jimmy Buffett in town for a day.

 

On Sunday, September 20, we departed at 7 AM, backing out into the strong incoming tidal current.  Dataw Island Marina is only 50 miles away!

Thursday, September 17

Beginning at 1 pm, this was planned to be a 170 mile overnight voyage, past the Frying Pan Shoals at Cape Fear, and on to Georgetown SC at Winyah Bay.  There are two long legs to the route, each 70 nautical miles, run at 231 and 253 degrees magnetic respectively, plus the long inlet channel approaches.   We plotted our course on the electronic charts, with waypoints at every 7 miles to track our progress.  All of this was duplicated on paper charts as a back up.  We alerted Debbie’s siblings Stephen and Pam of our “float plan” and for them to expect a call from us at about 2 PM on Friday. 

 

Generally, we were 25-30 miles offshore, finding 3-5 waves on our beam, and 10-15 knot winds from the north and Northeast, on our stern.   We put up a staysail and motorsailed.   At night, with a new moon, and frequent cloud cover, it was very dark.  We could see no shore lights and we passed no other boats the entire trip, but we could hear military jets overhead all night.   At 1 AM, we were passing through 40 foot waters at Frying Pan Shoals, about 20 miles offshore, keeping the red flashing 4 meter high navigation light on our starboard.  Unnerving to find it was extinguished.

 

We arrived at the entry buoy at Winyah Bay at about noon on Friday, about 2 hours before low tide.  That meant that the prevailing east wind would oppose the strong currents of the Waccamah River flowing out through the bay.  The seas were confused and stacked up with strong cross currents as we made only 2-3 knots up the shipping channel.   We diverted to the ICW channel heading south on Minim Canal and found an anchorage at Minem Creek.  We put the dinghy back on the davits, took sorely needed showers, and turned in, rejoicing that we had avoided miles of shoaling, tidal currents and 27 fixed and draw bridges on the ICW in NC and SC , all bypassed by going offshore for 27 hours versus 3-4 days of daylight hours motoring.

We continued on from Norfolk at 1 PM, through the navy yards and then the locks at Great Bridge, and stopped at a local public dock for the night as local fisherman tried to drift lines underneath our boat to catch, what, stripers?  We stayed until Monday morning.

 

At 7:15 AM on , we pulled over to Atlantic Yacht Basin, a marine center, to have our wind instruments taken off the top of our mast in anticipation of the notoriously low  NC and SC 65’ fixed bridges.  This left only our flexible 30” VHF antenna atop our 63.5 ft mast.   We are armed with spreadsheets listing each bridge on the ICW, their type, height, height boards, if any, and rules of thumb based on the number of visible wood fender slats protecting the base of the bridges, indicating water level. Here we go!

 

For the next 180 miles, the bridges are either swing or draw bridges, or 65 ft fixed bridges whose height above water should only be affected by a few inches of “wind tide” driving waters from Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds.  At about 100 miles south, Fairfield Bridge, our VHF bent double under the bridge.  12 miles later, we arrive at the Wilkerson Bridge, which has been officially marked down to 64 feet by the Army Corps of Engineers.  The bridge height board in fact says 64 feet above water.  We inched up to the bridge, expecting  6 inches of clearance, and likelihood that I would have to go up the mast to rotate our antenna 180 degrees.  Too close to call.  Finally, we called TowboatUS in Belhaven, 12 miles away.  They arrived in their launch an hour later.  First attempt, we all agree, the front of our mast touched the bridge.  They hung two 100 gallon water barrels to our boom swung to port to deflect the mast sideways.  Eventually, we slid under, while warning power boats to stay away.  No time for a 1 foot wake!

 

We continued on, touching our vhf on each bridge.    We arrived in Beaufort NC, taking a side creek to avoid the bridges in Morehead NC.  We intended to go offshore the next morning late, but in the morning, found weather and sea conditions marginal for the trip, so we decided finally to continue down the ICW.  Rounding Radio Island and past Morehead, we came up to 65 ‘ fixed Atlantic Beach bridge at 10 AM  – at mid tide – and the height board reads 63.5 feet, with 3 hours to wait to pick up 2 feet at low tide! We turned around, found a dock, pulled the dinghy, and went out the Beaufort Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean. 

We decided to layover in Annapolis a day or 2 or 3.  Our beloved Maiden France in Chicago has a prospective buyer!  We are hopeful and anxious, since our Maiden has been sitting on a cradle for the last 2 years.  We could use a little boat prayer about now.

 

The Chesapeake has been whipped up by 35-40 knot winds from the N-NE, causing 4-5 foot choppy waves.  After 4 days of waiting, there is a break in the weather predicted Friday afternoon, so we left early in the morning amid gale warnings.  We sailed 40 miles south to the Solomons, fueled, ran Ollie, rested for 3 hours, and departed at 7 pm for Norfolk, about 110 miles.    Overnight, conditions improved, and we had a good sail amid the push/pull tugs, barges and freighters.  Everyone was crowding the western shoreline for lee protection, so there was a lot of communication with the captains of these vessels.

 

On September 12, we pulled into Portsmouth/Norfolk at 10:30 AM.  This is a good place to drop off a crew member – OLLIE!   Our good neighbors Kitty and Don had been in nearby Virginia Beach with family, so Kitty came by to pick up Ollie to take him back to SC.  This will facilitate our taking longer offshore passages weather permitting to avoid the ICW bridges and shoaling in NC and SC, hopefully starting from Beaufort NC.