What was supposed to be a few months in NC has turned into 8 1/2 and counting. We stayed with Betty and Da out at their place in Chatham County, which is beautiful, but the gas it takes to get back and forth was an added stress on our wallets and consciences. Paul bought an electric bicycle and made the 15 mile trip into town and back almost daily throughout the fall. In the winter he carpooled with me.
The first time we pushed our departure date back was after a visit to the dentist led to more visits to the dentist for Paul. We thought we still might get out by early January, but then Paul noticed a leaky thru-hull in mid Nov. By December we were hauled out at a nice boatyard in Washington, NC that allows do-it-yourselfers. We replaced all the thru-hulls, raised the waterline, barrier coated where the old waterline paint was chipping, painted the hull and bottom, varnished the toe-rail, installed a new (salvaged) sink and a new double action foot-pump, installed new (salvaged) carpet, installed new (salvaged) plexiglass hatch cover, made two plexiglass slats for the companionway, made a new tiller (in October), cut out the old rotten chain-locker bulkhead and glassed in a new one, made and installed a double bow-roller, and some other odds and ends. Paul did most of this himself. We were in the boat yard a little over two months, driving down every day off except Christmas and the day after.
We left Washington two days ago. The first day we got a late start. Landlubber Time has already began to shift back to Island Time. We put the sails back on in the morning then realized we needed fuel. Paul went off in search of a ride to the station and came back with a 5 gallon jug of diesel from our dock neighbor, John. Paul insisted I needed to see John’s catamaran and, especially, his LED lights. What makes these lights so special? They cast a yellowish light like an incandescent bulb, for one. Also, they run on .3 milliamps, not amps, but milliamps. It’s actually a bulb that can be installed into any existing fixture.
So we chatted with John and admired his spacious living accommodations until about 1:00. Then we pushed off for an uneventful day on the water. It was chilly but I had my ski gloves and a hot-water bottle under a blanket. It didn’t really get cold until we were anchoring as the sun set.
The next day was forecast to be about sixty degrees with 15-20 knot winds. As I looked at the charts I saw we were going to be spending a good portion of the day out in Pamlico Sound and the ten-mile-wide mouth of the Neuse River. I knew it would probably be choppy but this turned out to be the wettest day we’ve ever spent on the water. In the afternoon the wind picked up to 20-25 knots out of the south. We were headed SW so the waves were hitting us on the port bow the whole time. Four hours of spray in the face later we pulled behind Oriental’s breakwater and tied up to the free town dock. After changing out of our wet clothes we crossed the street to The Bean coffee shop and indulged in some coffee and WIFI.
The forecast called for rain and strong winds with gusts to 35 knots, gale force. The morning coffee shop crowd agreed with Paul that some of those felt like at least 45. Certainly not a day for travel. We relaxed at The Bean all morning, then went for a bike ride. Several times a day some old sailor would stop by to admire the boat. It’s such a small town that we found ourselves running into people we kinda knew as we cruised around.
We left Oriental. Paul started to scrape and sand all the old varnish off the combing around the cockpit. I steered all day. It was kinda cold again. We made good time and decided to pass Morehead City and made it to Swansboro instead. Camp Lejeune is just past Swansboro so there were a lot of unusual noises (by that I think Piper means bombs exploding), but at least we had a WIFI signal.
On this day, our spirits sank to new lows. I was already miserable thinking of the many days I had ahead of me where I sat at the helm, back and hips sore, staring and steering. Paul was getting tired of having to fix things. Last night our poorly regulated new alternator fried our power inverter, but he fixed the alternator this morning and was trying to keep his mood up.
We were approaching a channel dredging barge and I should have slowed down but the markers looked pretty clear cut. They were directing me towards the side of the channel to go around the dredger. With the dredging crew being right there, I felt these markers must be right. We were all wrong. I’ve never run aground so hard in my life. It was like we hit a wall. I sat stunned and shaking afterward and looked around to see if I had wandered out of the channel. We were dead center. It didn’t gradually get shallow. Our depth alarm, set at 7 feet, didn’t go off until we hit. Our draft is 4’. We tried full throttle reverse and winching on an anchor we’d set out at the same time and didn’t budge. Paul started up the dinghy and then it quit. About a half an hour later he got it started again but at that point I thought the tide had already gone out too much and we’d be stuck there for the next ten hours. He insisted we keep trying and with the dinghy pushing against the stern, he turned the boat 180 degrees. Then he pushed the bow while I winched on the anchor set out behind us. Thirty seconds later we were floating again.
While Paul felt around with the oar for deeper water, I radioed the dredge operator to see if he knew of a path by him. He said, “at high tide it wutn’t much deeper ’n four feet over there, ‘n’ mos the sailboats‘ve had to wait ‘teel then.” Well, we’ve seen only one sailboat in the five days we’ve been traveling so how long have they been watching boats hit this speed bump across the channel? Paul did find a seven-foot-deep channel past them, within eight feet of the shore, that the dredger captain seemed to know nothing about. They may not be the ones in charge of moving the markers, but they could certainly suggest the change. We’ll pass dredgers at a snails pace from now on.
Piper was looking very depressed and not talking to me. I felt selfish about wanting to buy a boat and pushing her toward this dream which was actually her idea of retirement. I told her I was sorry. This created a dialog which was, of course, about house flipping. I guess that’s gonna be her way of paying me back. We both agree that living on a boat sucks. TV is where it’s at. It’s sad to think about what all we are giving up to live on the water with a bunch of single alcoholic men. Don’t get me wrong, when we get to the warm air of Florida, we will be much happier and we will always love sailing. It seems that everyday life on the boat is just too much. The worry, the stress and especially, the maintenance. Despite all of this, we will continue to push for this next trip to Key West and the Bahamas. We will maintain a positive attitude because we are anxious to see all of our friends in St. Aug, Daytona, Titusville, Melbourne, Ft. Lauderdale and Key West.
In Wilmington, we anchored in a large empty harbor for three days. We hung out with Piper’s cousin, Nick. He drove us around to get supplies and we watched the tube at his house. It was a nice break, though every night we had a curfew issued by the city because they detest cruisers. There was a horrible thunderstorm with a lot of lightning and high winds gusting to 50mph. At abot midnight I heard a strange sound and realized our cockpit drains were clogged and we had about twenty gallons of water filled up like a tub. It was just about to overflow into the quarterberths. Lucky us.
My birthday occurred. We all went out to a mexican restaurant. We had a great time with Nick. We tried to convince him that since he had quit his job, he should come with us to Charleston. We had already complained too much for him to bite. He made the right choice. It was very cold.
Nick told us how to make spinach artichoke dip the day before, so I broke out the mini food processor and whipped it up. For two days we were able to forget about the weather because of this incredible dip. We were indeed going insane. Giddy and silly behavior was becoming more frequent.
We made it to Bucksport, SC in the Waccamaw River. There are swamp trees and stumps lining the shore here. We tied up to the dock at the marina hoping to score a free overnight stay. We had indeed lost our minds at this point. While talking to the locals they told us how lately there are large submerged trees that float around in the 30 foot deep black water. The trees had been moving lately with the tide into the ICW and then back into the lagoon. We had anchored in the lagoon last summer. It is eerie. There is no room for scope. You can’t really dig in an anchor. Just like the trees, you could drift about. We didn’t want that. We opted to pay the dollar per foot ($30) to relieve us of worry. There was a man looking at a Grampian 26 sailboat for sale on ebay there. He was from NC. We talked for about an hour or so. I showed him my art and he bought a lizard which made the stay easier on our wallets. I hung out on the dock with two fishermen telling stories on the night the lunar eclipse occurred.
The next morning we headed down the Waccamaw, a deep river with black water and swamp trees lining the shore. The fishermen were all out with their nets blocking the entire river. Luckily, they knew they needed to guide us around their net buoys. It was cold and eventually started raining. We anchored in a creek that had a huge fetch of shallow water leading to the Atlantic. This offered no wind protection and we had wind 15-20 mph that night. The motor stut off while anchoring and we immediately thought we had run out of deisel. We checked with our dipstick and we releived that we still had about three inches. We added more from a can before restarted. Running out of deisel out in the middle of a marsh would be a huge blow. Luckily, we were fine.
The next day we made it to Charleston, SC. On our way across the harbor we suddenly heard the depth sounder go off and powered down.... then deeper water came and we looked to port and saw a huge freighter coming into the channel. Where did that come from! Instantly a thick fog rolled in. And then some rain came. We could barly see anything and I rounded up all the gps, binolculars and horn preparing for the worst. Then, over the VHF radio, we were being hailed by the captain of the freighter. We answered him and he told us to head towards the fort so that we would be out of his way. We could barely see anything and we were worried about the shallow water over there and there was also supposed to be a submerged dredging pipeline. Uhh.. Everything went well. It was just a frantic "OK let's get it together" moment.
Our friend Caleb had been there a few months ago. We called him and got the scoop on the anchorage. We were excited to have a sort of nice day for the first time. In the morning we dingied to the Free dingy dock which they were aparently now charging $5 a day for. We blew the city municipal marina off and docked without paying knowing they were too big to notice us. It was called the MegaDock. There were a lot of huge yachts.
Charleston had a very large outdoor covered city market with crafts, jewelry and more. We inquired about what the market was like with one the vendors. She told us of the original slave market that was owned by some family and given to the city under the condition that they would never charge rent to the artists and vendors. I told her that of course she pays rent and she said "yes". (I am not your typical American – a song by the goats came to mind) They now charge $22 per day. Do the math. That's the kind of local government I don't care for. She also said the spaces are permanently rented to specific vendors and that no one has ever left. Meaning, you can go to Charleston to sell. Sorry, fellow artists. Aren't you glad I shipped you to Key West? I keep thinking about how our sailing adventure started off being a sailing getaway and has turned into a street artist adventure/protest/education endevour.
We left the next day because Charleston blows. I don't know why people say if you like Savannah, you'll love Charleston. Savannah is 1000 times better. As we left we did not heed the warnings about the strong currents through Elliot cut. We passed through against the current. Books said not to do this because there are rocks on boths sides and a pipeline crossing. If your motor stalls or cannot keep up with the current, you may turn sideways and crash and sink. It was extremely dangerous! We should have waited till slack tide. WARNING to any other boaters. We were going full throttle doing 1.5 knots. ( normally that would be six.) We will never do that again and have decided to examine each warning in the watewrway guides very seriously.
The Photo above is of Beaufort, SC. We took some great photos of this cute little town. We anchored here for the night. The weather was finally warmer. We were not miserable anymore.
We spent a day or two in some marshes until we hit the Savannah River. We had decided that even though it was out of the way, we were going to Savannah to have a little fun. As we pulled up to the towns floating dock, we were unsure about the cost of the dock and the rules. There was already another little sailboat about like ours. We tied up and a young girl about our age came to help from the other sailboat. Her name was Rachael. We were so excited to meet another young couple on a sailboat doing what we are doing. They were from the Boston/Cape Cod area and had left in November. Their trip was more miserable than ours and we were so happy to be able to share stories. She told us, her and her boyfriend, Dave, had been tied up to that dock for two months while Dave picked up a construction job. We asked about the cost of the dockage and she said," We stopped paying after a day or two because the attendents at the parking garage, where you pay, were shocked that we would come to pay them in the off season. "
No sailors seem to come to Savannah, because of all the intimidating freighters and the fact that all the cruising guides say you have to pay for the dock and that Savannah has no shopping. The dock really only has room for about five boats. The city is about eight miles out of the way as well. That's about two hours in a sailboaat.
Dave and Rachael are headed to Key West as well. They plan to do a crossing from there. For about two days however, we were all too busy to hang out. We felt as if we weren't going to hang out after all. Then on the third day, Dave borrowed a car and we all left for Spin City, to do our laundry. We had a great time and then went to their boat to talk for the rest of the night. The stories just started pouring out of all of us. They are the first couple our age we have ever met while living on Delphine. They told us we were the first young people they had met ever on a boat. Poor Dave had jumped in the water three times this winter in Delaware because the painter line from his dingy was caught in the prop. They met a guy in NC who was travelling in a canoe with outriggers. Apparently he was crazy and many people felt they had to help him along his way to wherever he was going. He was covered in mud and his canoe was stuck in marsh grass we they met him. He asked for a tow out of the mess. It was awesome meeting another couple on a sailboat. We hope to meet up all the way down the coast, but we know that our schedules will probably not mesh that well.
Savannah has grown. The businesses were thriving. Many clothing shops, coffeeshops. eceryone was flipping old houses. A new mall is opening in the spring right downtown. The fashion department of SCAD had twenty fashion students when Piper attended. Now they have 900. Piper wishes she was in school there now instead. But when she attended, all fashion students got to display their collection in a huge fashion show in the theatre with some celebrity fashion icons. Now only the top students get into the Runway show. her fashion degree is probably more appealing to the fashion industry now that it is a big fashion school.
I managed to fill an order for Mt. Dora, FL while is Savannah. I also made some lizards on River street. The locals adopted me right away and we played music and talked a lot about the ACLU helping to protect artist rights to selling and displaying art on city streets. These artists were being kicked off the streets and the ACLU helped them preserve their right to sell on the street. They were also supposed to be back a lot of money. That never happened but at least they are being left alone. The city still tries to issue permits to control horrible epidemic of artistry that is taking over our nations streets. But if you mention artist's rights and the ACLU, they may just leave you alone and let you pass under the radar. Free Speech ... still fighting for it. Remember, Art is a universal language. It says more than a picket sign and payment for art keeps the message coming, just like the newspapers.
