"Oh Carolina's"

Ok…I know, it’s been way too long! But to tell you the truth to have access coincide with time, has proven to be very difficult. I would like to start this blog off by thanking everyone who helped us out in Oriental. For those of you who don’t know…we hauled Meggie out of the water in Oriental and because we live on a budget now, we had limited time to get everything we needed done on Meggie. We were bombarded with the friendliest, most generous and ever thoughtful people while in Oriental. A big thank you to sail craft, our neighbours Doug and Ann, our fellow wood boat owners John from Whompoa and Don and D from Southern Cross, Mike and MaryJane from our next favourite boat Hans Christian and last but certainly not least our good friends from bird of passage, Glenn and Ulrike who helped us beyond words. They made sure we were fed, had ice and sourced material we needed like only a cruiser with a truck and local knowledge could do (not to mention having a best friend as a machinist really helped us out as well…so another special thank you to Manfred for the use of his shop, the steel brackets, and the wonderful gift). Thank you to all of you, we cannot express our gratitude enough.
Ok..enough of that. Since I last wrote, yes…we hauled Megs. There were plenty of things that we wanted to, and felt we had to do to her before he headed any further. I’m not going to bore y’all (that the south coming out of me) with all the details but our list included such things as:
-build new beddings for the engine (which included hauling the engine out of the boat, and once done, revealed 5 damaged ribs that had to be repaired) this was the biggy
-engine overhaul (including injectors, degreased, painted, a overall thorough cleaning-which was unfortunately my job)
-varnish transom and rudder
-have our prop resized
-antifoul (which is paint below the water line and some really harsh stuff, so nothing will grow on the bottom)
-plug the keel bolts (this was to ensure that we did not encounter any toredos…which are nasty worms that like to enter into the end grain of wood and then eat your boat…so we didn’t want that!)
-and we wanted to check our keel to see if there was any damage done when we hit in Portsmouth

So….the above including 4 coats of varnish on both the rudder and transom, new custom built wood beddings with 3 coats of sealer (built by Mike…of course) completed in 8 days AND…we lost 2 days to rain. So needless to say we were pretty pleased with ourselves. We both worked like dogs to get everything completed (especially Mike…you all know Mike!!!). Anyway…it worked out perfectly because Twice Loved ( a fellow boat from Thornbury) showed up the day before Meggie went back into the water, and we are all now successfully travelling south as we speak.
So we commenced our travels again heading into the ICW once more. About 2 hours into our first day something made a funny sound…”Oh no! What was that?” Then these HUGE fish appeared on either side of Meggie…yes…dolphins. Beside the bow, beside the stern, at amidships….everywhere…huge. It was soooo exciting, I was screaming so manically I think I may have scared them away. Anyway…it was pretty cool, but because the water is so dark you couldn’t see them swimming under the water and no pictures cause they’re way too fast. So that was a great start to our travels once again.
We sailed past Beaufort NC and were reintroduced to the currents and within ½ an hour we went from 7.3 knots to 3.7 knots…it’s crazy. Just when you think you have the tides and currents figured out you realize you have no idea what the hell is going on. Anyway, we anchored in a little placed called Spooner creek as foul weather was approaching for the next couple of days and we wanted to be anchored somewhere relatively safe. Well…we anchored and although it was relatively safe, we had a huge concrete wall that surrounded the anchorage…yikes. We put two anchors out and endured 40 knot winds for most of the afternoon and into the night. Meggie rode it out pretty good, and although we felt confident with our anchor set, we did not feel confident with “the wall’’ 60 feet off our stern. Gerry (from Twice Loved) decided he had had enough and asked a homeowner if him and Meggie could tie to their dock and pilings…”Sure…you can plug in and use the power too’’. Thank you Gerry! So Twice Loved and Meggie made our way to their dock and enjoyed a night full of sleep. We awoke the next morning only to discover that our dinghy was almost submerged and flood warnings all over the radio due to the amount of rain we received overnight. We also discovered that we had all been invited to Thanksgiving dinner that night! Yup…2nd Thanksgiving dinner this year. Let me just get something straight here. The dock we were at belonged to 84 foot motor yacht (Meggie is 30 feet) which was not there as it was at their house in Florida. And… the 84 foot yacht belonged to a million+ dollar home (which by the way was their 3rd home) and the neighbours flew in that afternoon on a helicopter…yup…a helicopter. We were thrilled. Wayne, Ellen and their family were wonderful hosts…super nice people who laid out a spread like you would not believe. So with our bellies full we said adios and were off again.
North Carolina along the coast is breathtaking. For the next few days we enjoyed calm weather, sunny days and warm temperatures. So you remember how we didn’t get any pictures of the dolphins? Well…we were just cruising along and “What was that noise?” And there they were…2 fun loving dolphins playing underneath Meggie’s belly. They would go down under and appear on one side and then do the same thing and a couple of seconds later would come up on the other side. This went on for about 10-15 minutes. They were right beside the cockpit of our boat…you could practically reach out and touch them. This time we got some great photos. Every time they would come up they would freak you out cause you didn’t know when or where they would pop up, and when they did…they met you with a spray of salt water. It was a really surreal moment and when it was over we both couldn’t believe that it had happened. Now…I’m sure those of you reading this that have experienced this and have done so many times can recall the first time it happened to you and remember how magical the moment felt. Soooo coool.
So our days have been filled with sunny, warm temperatures as we travel down the ICW. Pelicans meander above and around us and Mike has confirmed that the males remind him of that tall white haired guy from M*A*S*H (neither of us know his name), and the herons stand like statues in the marsh acting as if we cannot see them. Although we have the sails up most of the time, the poor engine does most of the work and we find ourselves wanting to sail. It’s a catch 22 because if you head into the ocean, you’ll have a great sail and cover a lot of miles, but on the other hand you miss all the scenery. If you stay inside you see all the scenery but you don’t get to sail, you rely on the motor and it’s generally slower. To stay inside or go out? That is the question…well the question we’re faced with. So right now we’re planning a 100 naut.mile jump from Savannah river (Georgia) to St. Mary’s inlet (Fernandina beach, Florida). If the weather is co-operating we’ll make the jump off shore and miss Georgia. Weather. It’s what our life aboard revolves around.
So we are now sitting in the harbour in Charleston South Carolina, planning on spending the day here tomorrow. We were fortunate enough to have a taste of this beautiful southern city, with it’s incredible homes with a mixture of moss draped trees and tall palm trees. You really get a sense that you’re deep in the south in Charleston. And the best thing is the southern charm and hospitality, and that great accent!
We plan to be in Savannah, Georgia on Monday and then either hop out and down to Florida via the Atlantic ocean or discover the windy marshy trail of the ICW through Georgia and then to Florida. Either way it will be an adventure that I’m sure we’ll both enjoy.
Thank you to all of you who keep the comments coming. For those of you that we’ve never met, I hope you keep reading and sending your comments. You never know…we could meet in an anchorage somewhere someday.
So until next time…
Kylie & Mike

Meggie's a star in Oriental

Something neat I thought some you would enjoy. Check out:
http://www.towndock.net/shipping/index.html

Kylie & Mike

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