Oriental at last

We’ve finally left beautiful Annapolis (aka: Velcro anchorage). It seemed like we were there forever, although it was only 2 weeks, but when you’ve been on the move for 3 months non stop, 2 weeks in one place feels like a very long time. However….off we went. Our next destination was the Solomon Islands in Virginia, about a 50 mile sail. 50 miles usually isn’t a big deal to us, but the days are getting shorter and that means we have to have the anchor down a lot earlier now. We made it and were there for 3 days as the weather was blowing in the wrong direction for us to keep moving (and blowing 25 knots in the wrong direction). So we stayed and enjoyed this small fishing town, but were axious to keep moving. We then made our way down Chesapeake bay to Deltaville which was another 55 miles and luckily the current was in our favor and we had anchor down just as the sun was setting, only after pulling Meggie off the ground. That’s right…we went aground in Deltaville…which is not hard to do. However….they say “If you haven’t been aground, you haven’t been around”. The channel to get into the anchorage is actually quite amazing. It is a natural channel that winds itself right to left and the right again, but with high winds the sand is constantly shifting causing shoaling on either side of the channel. Our friends from Maddy came out as we were coming in the channel and just as Mike (from Maddy) was saying “Stay close to the red…” I was already too close to the green and before I knew it our depth sounder was reading 3.9 feet….oops! Luckily it was a very soft bottom and Mike and Debbie (from Maddy), pulled us off with their dinghy no problem. Funny how it was Maddy to the rescue again! I have come to the conclusion that they are some kind of guardian angels, always helping us out, when we need helping out. We were stuck in Deltaville for 3 days…noaa weather was sending out gale warnings (which is 35+ knot winds), so needless to say we just stayed and enjoyed Deltaville. We also secretly enjoyed watching 4 other boats run aground after trying to warn them on the radio of the shoaling. We hooked up with Jim and Amanda from Adventure Bound that we had met in Annapolis and had drinks with them aboard Adventure Bound one night. This is the first guy I’ve met and probably ever will that has a sub woofer on his boat….it was hilarious. We’ll know where they are in the anchorages just by the booming coming from their boat! (sub woofer; for those of you who don’t know….you know that boom…boom…boom sound you hear from that car that is driving down the main street and it is that teenager that must of JUST got his licence drinving????? Well….that boom, boom is a sub woofer).
We were anxious to leave Deltaville. We listened for weather and the next day they were calling 15 -20 knot winds from the NW…perfect. Well we woke up that morning and they had changed to 20-25 knots gusting 30+…but it was calm when we woke up and we thought….lets go. (Note to self….DON’T go when they’re calling 30+ gusts!) To top it off we had a foul current the whole way from Deltaville to Hamptom, which means that we didn’t have the current going with us at all, instead it was going against us for the whole day…which doesn’t help, however the 25 knot winds from the NW seemed to counter balance things. On the way to Hampton from Deltaville you pass a section called Mobjack bay, which is a series of beautiful rivers and creeks that all flow into the bay. When you have a stiff NW wind, all the rivers that start in the NW have a chance to build on the flow down into the bay, so needless to say the waves can build quite a lot…..BUT…to top that off, if you have a flood current (which is what we had) coming into the bay….that current runs right into the NW waves which creates, what they call stand up waves. Basically the two (current and waves) collide making BIG, BIG waves. This is what we encountered as we passed Mobjack bay to our starboard. Through that section we had an average of 8 foot waves that were confused and nasty…..old Jack gave us a run for our money.
That day I realized that Mike was truly the captain of our ship. He was great…this was my least favorite sail. We should’ve waited another day, but you live and learn and we made it to Hampton just fine and Meggie was a star in our eyes once again. Hampton was exciting to get to cause we were meeting up with L’Attitude again. They were preparing for the Caribbean 1500 (Norfolk to BVI’s), so we were excited to see them before they left. Mike helped Doug with some things for a couple of days and we just hung out with them and enjoyed our time with them as we wouldn’t be seeing them for a long time. Unfortunately the time came when we had to get moving. The wind was right and we were again anxious to get on the move. We said our goodbyes and were on our way.
We sailed through Norfolk (the navy capitol), which was quite interesting. We were sharing a narrow channel with HUGE navy battle ships and plane carriers, it’s quite a sight. We got to Portsmouth and officially entered the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), and just as we were, we heard an awful loud BANG. Oh %$#& we hit something.
Engine in neautral, up with the floor boards, tear apart the v-berth, up with the engine hatch…phew…no water coming in, engine in forward…phew…engine works. We looked at the depth…45 feet.
We don’t know what it was (probably a submerged log), but it sounded bad, but when you hit even something small it usually sounds worse that it really is, needless to say we were a bit freaked out. Good to know our reaction time is fast.
Next our big decision was to do the dismal swamp or the Virginia cut. We had been ready to do the dismal swamp, but after the hit, we weren’t sure if we wanted to do the dismal. The dismal swamp is a narrow channel that connects the Elizabeth river in VA to the Pasquotank river in NC and is the oldest continually operating canal in the United States.
It was basically a ditch dug to transport logs from one river to the next. It is now only used for recreational purposes but supposedly only has a continual depth of 6 feet. We didn’t want the hassle of worrying about hitting something again, but just as we were at the crossroads we saw 2 larger sailboats turn in to the dismal swamp and we thought they’ve got to draw more than us…we’re doing it.
We never saw 6 feet…the shallowest part was about 7.5 feet and it’s a beautiful canal, which brought us into Elizabeth City. We pulled into a PACKED Elizabeth city. Every dock and empty spot was taken up by sailboats. A lot of the boats were from Canada….a lot! We managed to sneak into the last available spot (probably cause it was only 10 feet wide and no one else could fit into it as all the other boats were way too BIG).

Meggie is always the smallest, and we’re always the youngest and if we have to motor…we’re always last, but if we can sail…we give those big boats a run for their money!
From Elizabeth city we made our way across the Ablemarle sonnd and into the Alligator river.
No…we didn’t see any alligators but they say that the river used to be traversed by different wildlife suchas wolves and bears until the alligators got them…hense the name. We anchored in the alligator river and at one point Mike turned to me and said “Like…where are we right now????” It’s pretty remote and we felt a long way from home…also Mike doesn’t do any of the navigation so he really didn’t know where we were other than in NC.

So…We’ve gone down a couple of different rivers and have had some great sails, and some long motors, but we’re in Oriental now where we plan to haul the boat to get some work done on her. It’s very cold now in the evenings when a NW cold front is coming through, but we keep our little heater going and we bundle up and it’s not too bad, having said that…we’re anxious to get south to the warmth. You must know that when we’re listening to the weather on the VHS radio, anytime a cold front is coming though it’s always from Canada….so all the american boaters are probably cursing Canada for sending the cold fronts…never do they say a cold front from the Artic!
Sorry for the long blog, but it’s hard to keep it short. Please keep the comments coming, it’s what makes me want to write the blogs.
Keep warm and until next time….
Kylie and Mike