Shoals, Groundings and Engine Failures

After staying the night in the middle of the subdivision, we left on a beautiful morning expecting a good day. This day, however, turned out to be a rough one. After Morehead City the ICW is quite windy with cuts out to the ocean that provide for constantly changing current. We would be going 8 knots before a cut, and then 5 after without changing the engine RPM (i.e. not giving any less "gas"). The currents in the inlets also cause shoals or sandbanks to build into the channel. These shoals can be very shallow, and they are usually only marked with a buoy when they have become really bad. Most are not a concern for a shallow-draft boat like ours, but they do get the heart racing as the depth suddenly starts to decrease dramatically on the depth sounder. So we were already a bit on edge on this day. To add to this, we had just come across a sailboat that had run aground in an area that was very confusing in terms of the buoys that were there. A power boat had gone the wrong way, and then the sailboat had followed and gone aground.

We had planned on anchoring for the night, however, the anchorage we had picked didn't look great and we were shaken up by the day so we decided to stop at the Swan Point Marina. We drove past the marina to take a look, then turned around to head into their harbour just off the ICW. Just as we were headed in, Geoff reversed the engine to slow down a bit and "BANG!" the outdrive kicked up and the outdrive line wrapped itself around the propeller. (The outdrive on Geru is built such that when you are sailing you can pull the propeller out of the water to reduce drag. This is done with a set of lines, which normally are fine except when the locking mechanism fails and the prop is allowed to move backwards and up into these lines). After some very stressful moments, dropping the anchor in mid-channel to help slow us down and then raising it again to stop the boat from spinning around, running about and shouting to shore, we were able to drift the boat to the marina's fuel dock in what turned out to be one of the best docking maneuvers yet (no kidding)! We had some help from a fellow boater on shore and a marina attendant who came running to soften the landing, but we placed her starboard side perfectly onto the dock.

This past spring Geoff had modified the locking mechanism that holds the outdrive down when the engine is put in reverse as we had problems with this before. It turns out that the modification worked just fine. We think that the engine kicked up this time because we bumped the control mechanism in the cockpit so that the outdrive was no longer locked down.

Shortly after we settled down at the fuel dock (and Ruth's knees stopped shaking), the sailboat that had run aground earlier showed up and docked as well - the skipper had decided that he'd had enough for the day, too.


A heron on the dock piling


Things you don't expect to see on the ICW...


Travelling in company


Our first palm trees (planted)


Sandbanks along the ICW


Untangling our outdrive by marina staff

Fog, Groundings and Dolphins

On our way to Oriental, North Carolina, on Monday we encountered quite a bit of fog. At first this fog was just light, but, as we got closer to Oriental, it formed a thick line along the coast. Once again we were happy to have our GPS telling us exactly where we were. We did worry about other boats in the fog, but there wasn't much traffic, and we could see well enough at a shorter distance to stay safe.

We stayed at a marina in Oriental overnight after almost running aground on an unmarked shoal in the harbour (it's bad when we in our shallow-draft catamaran almost hit bottom!). Oriental is a small old coastal town with friendly people.

Just after leaving Oriental on Tuesday we came across a sailboat that had not followed the buoys leading it to stray from the channel and then to run aground. Having a much shallower draft, we tried to pull the boat off - we were successful in doing so, however, it very shortly afterwards ran aground again! After checking with the skipper left we left him this time as it was clear he needed more help than we could provide (he ended up calling Towboat US).

Later on that day we had a momentous moment as we saw our first dolphins of the trip in Beaufort harbour - a few dorsal fins appeared and quickly disappeared again in a smooth rounded motion just as Ruth was negotiating strong currents underneath a set of two bridges. She yelled "Dolphins!" and became teary-eyed as she had been looking forward to encountering these wonderful animals since we started talking about this trip. Our evening was spent anchored in an affluent subdivision of Morehead City. Beautiful large homes were backing onto the creek we were anchored in. It felt like we were living on land again because of the morning rush-hour traffic noise, which was a sound we hadn't heard for a while, especially not on the boat.

Spooner's Creek Anchorage (Morehead City)


The things you see on the water....

First Nights at Anchor

On Saturday we left Coinjock at the cold hour of 7 am and headed out to the Pamlico Sound. The crossing was very uneventful with the exception of seeing a tug pulling the longest load we've seen yet - he had at least 5 barges in tow, like a marine version of a train.

We had not tried anchoring yet so far on our trip, in part because the nights had been very cold, and we only had an electrical heater until we were finally able to find and buy a propane one in Annapolis (anchoring = no dock = no electrical connection from the dock to the boat). We were now finally ready to try anchoring, and the anchorage on the Alligator River looked promising. So we tried to anchor around 2:30pm; however, after numerous attempts we were not successful, which was very frustrating. We decided to continue on to the next marina. This was a difficult decision, because we now had to travel in the dark for a few hours. On getting to the head of the next canal we realized we did not want to go through that canal in the dark - it was unlit, narrow, and going through swampland with tree stumps along the shore. Luckily, there were two other boats that had caught up to us and were anchoring in a bay just beside the entrance to the canal, so we decided to try anchoring one more time near those boats. The first time we were once again not able to get the anchor to set (the anchor was not holding). So we called one of the other boats, which did not appear to have any problems anchoring, on the VHF radio and asked what they had done. It turns out that they used a different type of anchor than we were. Our spare anchor is of that type, so we switched anchors and had success the first time! What a great relief. For the sailors: our Fortress did not hold in soft muddy ground - even after a dozen tries or so, but, much to our surprise, our CQR held immediately.

Sunday was a cold, grey, drizzly day. We motored for about seven hours to the next anchorage we had picked. No problems anchoring this time. We spent our second night at anchor sitting in a field of small, colourful crab pot buoys, so we needed to be careful using our engine when we arrived and again when we left so we didn't snag a line with our propeller. The anchorage was beautiful, though - a marshy shoreline with trees in the background and (outside of the crab pot buoys and a couple of navigational markers) no signs of civilization.

On the offical ICW

Tuesday we started on the official ICW (Intra-Coastal Waterway) with mile marker zero in Norfolk/Portsmouth. It was a bit foggy in the morning, but luckily most of the fog was behind us out on the Chesapeake and not on the canals we were travelling on. We soon met up with other boats heading south as we all had to wait for numerous bridges to open. Some of the bridges would open when you arrived (on request), however, one of the bridges (Steel Bridge) only opens once an hour. We just missed an opening, so we waited with three other boats drifting back and forth for an hour.

We ended the day at Pungo Ferry Marina, which is a little store and and a dock on the side of the canal - the store clerk was very friendly and talked up a storm. We had a great sunset to accompany our wine bought at the store that evening.

Wednesday was an uneventful travel day which took us to Coinjock. We spent a few days there. Coinjock is a town which has two marinas with long docks along the ICW. The marinas are one of the last stops for a while to provision. The marina we stayed at didn't have much in the way of groceries, so we dropped by the marina office to ask about getting to a grocery store. The owner asked us to wait a minute while he cleaned out his truck. When he came back he told us the truck was out back and the keys were in it... so after checking that he was actually lending us his truck (rather than just giving us a drive), off we headed to the grocery store with another cruiser. What a luxury it was to have a vehicle to do groceries - we did a BIG shop that should keep us going for a while! We put our groceries into the back of the truck, where they shared space with a number of duck decoys - there is a lot of duck hunting in the area. We saw several small motorboats painted in camouflage colours for hunting.

In company down the ICW


We saw many jets as we passed a naval airbase


Pungo Ferry Sunset


Coinjock Sunset

Crab Pots, Company and Waves

We stayed in Annapolis for a few days waiting out some bad weather, resting and reprovisioning. Geoff rode his bike for the first time since his injury and he had no problems - a good thing as the grocery store was four miles away. We also met up with Ruth's friend Chris and had a great dinner out in downtown Annapolis.

Saturday we left Annapolis for Solomons Island. It was a cold but uneventful trip on the Chesapeake. When we left the Solomons Island inlet on Sunday, we had the company of six other sailboats! We are finally joining the stragglers that are heading south. The weather was good and we were making good progress, so we ended up making it to Deltaville that evening.

On Monday morning we left for Norfolk/Portsmouth, and we saw our first pelicans flying a low circle around our boat on the way out of the harbour. There was a small craft advisory in effect and it was quite windy. This was the roughest day on the water we had seen yet in terms of waves. At one point we hit 12 knots of speed as we surfed down a wave! This was the first of what will likely be many days of training of the crew to deal with rougher weather - Geru did fine, but Geoff and Ruth were shaken up. The waves felt huge but in reality were probably about 5 feet high. Surfing or running with the waves was bad enough, but when we had to cross them at an angle to get into Norfolk it became somewhat scary. As we said, the crew needs to get used to it...

Entering Norfolk, we passed a portion of the US naval fleet, which is quite impressive when seen from waterlevel. We stayed the night at a familiar marina where we had Geru surveyed last summer before we bought her.

Annapolis Harbour


US Navy in Norfolk


US Navy in Norfolk

Chesapeake Bay Day 1

We left Chesapeake City early Tuesday morning with light rain, which seemed not to be a problem until we got out into the C&D Canal. From the time we left the dock until we got into the channel the rain had picked up and the visibility was reduced. The problem only got worse as we left the canal and entered Chesapeake Bay where we could only see the next buoy ahead of us. We were very happy that we have an electronic chart plotter which tells us our current position based on GPS data no matter what the visibility is like.

Around lunchtime the rain stopped and the visibility returned to something close to normal. I say "close to normal" because the sky was surreal with bands of purple and pink on the hazy horizon while the water was an oily calm. Everything on the water looked like a mirage (even the video camera had a hard time focusing!)

The final stretch into Annapolis was rather stressful as we were motoring with the sun directly in front of us causing lots of glare off the water. We had a hard time seeing the sea of crab pot buoys in the water all around us, which would have created havoc on our propeller had we ran one down. Luckily, we managed to get through without incident. We arrived in Annapolis Landing Marina just as the sun was setting, both of us very exhausted and happy to be at a dock.

C&D Canal


Our laptop chart plotter view


An old ship appeared out of the fog


A large freighter also appeared out of the fog




The Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Stripers and the Delaware

We spent three days in Cape May at Utsch's Marina, where we stocked up with food and did laundry while we waited out some strong winds. Cape May is a pretty seaside town with a surprising number of people there for this time of year. It has many neat Victorian-style homes, a beach promenade and many little gift shops. The marinas were filled with fleets of fishing boats, both charter and private - we were one of the few sailboats.

While wandering around the marina one day we saw a gentleman cleaning two large fish that he'd caught. Wanting to know more about the fishing, we wandered over and started talking to him and learned a few things that we're hoping to apply once we get farther south and try some fishing of our own. At the end of the conversation, he offered us two fillets from one of the Striped Sea Bass he'd caught - it made a great dinner that night !

We left Cape May at 6:30am on November 12th accompanied by a stream of fishing boats heading through the Cape May Canal. This was the busiest water we have been on yet - the fishing boats were lining up behind us as we were slower than them.

Delaware Bay is famous for getting rough in strong winds. Our crossing started out quite rough and bouncy (see Video looking forward and Video looking backward from the cockpit), but the wind died down and it was quite calm when we neared the top of the Bay. All in all the Delaware was nice to us. Another boat had left two days before us and, from what we heard, they had quite a rough trip on the Bay.

At the top of the Delaware Bay we entered the C&D Canal (Chesapeake and Delaware Canal) which was described in our cruising guide as being very busy, so we expected lots of commercial traffic. During our trip to Chesapeake City at the end of the canal we didn't see a single boat. Once we stopped for the night, we did see two freighters go through... still not that busy!

We spend a nice quiet night at the town dock in Chesapeake City. We arrived late and left early so we didn't go into town, but it seemed to be a quaint sleepy little place.





Utsch's Marina

Striper Dinner (Striped Sea Bass)

Cape May Canal

Cape May


C&D Canal