ICW South Bound (VA, NC, SC)

Location:  Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

 Since leaving Annapolis we have been making steady progress to the south, still hoping for warmer weather so we can put on our shorts.  We left Annapolis on Monday, November 5 and spent Monday night anchored near Solomons Island, MD.  Solomons Island is a very popular boating destination and is well known in the boating community.  We decided not to spend any time here this time since the weather was rainy and cold.  We weighed anchor the next morning, continued our trek down the Chesapeake Bay and spent Tuesday night anchored near Deltaville, MD.  Our destination for Wednesday was Norfolk, VA with plans to pick-up Dave’s friend, Bob, and to take on some fuel. To enter the Norfolk area, you must transit an area called Hampton Roads which is noted in the guidebooks as “one of the busiest shipping crossroads in the world”.   As we were entering the Hampton Roads area, we passed the Norwegian Tall Ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl as it was going out to sea.  The Norwegian Navy uses this tall ship to train their first year officer cadets and Norfolk is a normal stop for them on their training itinerary. 

Norwegian Tall Ship "Statsraad Lehmkuhl" Departing Norfolk, VA

 Norfolk is a major port for the US Navy and they have many ships and various vessels alongside the docks.  Here is a picture of two aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the Abraham Lincoln, side-by-side on the east side of Hampton Roads.

US Navy Aircraft Carriers "Enterprise" and "Abraham Lincoln"

 Norfolk is also the starting point “Mile 0” of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), also known as “The Ditch”.  We anchored at Hospital point, on the Portsmouth side of the Elizabeth River and dinghied over of the Norfolk side to meet Bob for dinner at a little Italian trattoria and then to bring him and his gear back to the boat for his weeklong cruise.  We delayed our departure the next morning to coincide with the first bridge opening of the day, the Gilmerton Bridge and Gilmerton RailRoad Bridge.  There are a lot of bridges on the ICW, most open only on the hour or half-hour and it is important to time your voyage to match the bridge schedules. 

Flotilla of Boats waiting for bridge opening, ICW Norfolk, VA

 Once thru the first bridge, we pulled into Top Rack Marina for fuel and a pump-out.  There are several apps and websites that let you check fuel prices at marinas along the way, and the Top Rack price of $3.59 per gallon was the best we have seen all summer.  We took on 500 gallons, pumped out the black water tank and got some barbeque sandwiches for our lunch.  The fuel stop was just before a bridge so we timed our exit from the dock accordingly. 

The fuel valve on our starboard forward fuel tank leaks and lets fuel into the tank, whether you want it to go there or not.  Because of this, after re-fueling, we ended up with more fuel than planned in that tank and had a noticeable starboard list after our fuel stop We cruised this way for the next two days (note: this section of the blog is in italics because we had a starboard list during this portion of our journey.  It is meant to give you the feeling of leaning to the right for two days), until Dave and Bob devised a way to move the fuel from that tank to the port side (more on that below).  After the bridge near Top Rack Marina, our next bit of excitement was the Great Bridge Lock followed by the Great Bridge.  The lock drops boats down about 2 feet of elevation before proceeding south down the ICW; the opening of the Great Bridge is timed for the lock vessel traffic.   This was our first time through a lock and we tied our lines to the lock cleats with a large bowline loop, helped by a lock worker.  Once the water in the lock dropped, we were on our own to get our lines off the cleats, and a bowline loop didn’t work very well.  Bob finally jumped from the boat to the lock wall, got the lines off the cleats and then jumped back aboard.  We learned later from some ICW veterans that it is better to loop the line around the cleat and keep the non-knotted end of the line aboard the boat so that when it is time to go you can let loose of the end and it slips freely from the cleat.

Great Lock, ICW

As we were waiting for the next bridge, another 4 miles downriver, a sailboat behind us radioed that a sail boat next to him was aground.  He didn’t think he had enough power to help so he asked if we could turn around and help pull the boat off the bottom.  We turned around and went to help.  The sailboat aground was being operated by one man, apparently with no radio on board.   He was on deck waving his arms around wildly, swinging a small rope that he wanted to throw to us.  Bob prepared one of our heavier lines to throw to the guy, but after yelling to him, decided that there was no place to tie it on his stern.  We navigated close enough so that he could throw us his line and we managed to pull him off the bottom.  He shouted that all was well and wanted Bob to throw his line back.  Bob shouted back that he should start his engine before letting go of the line, so he went below to do so.  During the whole process, the guy used a few choice words about missing the bridge opening and having to wait for the next one.  Interesting how he seemed more concerned about missing the bridge than he did about being aground.  Needless to say, we did miss the bridge and had to wait for the next one.  Between that and the fueling, we were behind schedule for the day and had quite a ways to go before reaching our destination, Coinjock, NC.  Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal as we would just drop the hook somewhere convenient before dark, but anchoring places in that stretch of the ICW were limited.  We called the Coinjock Marina to make sure they would still be there to help us with the lines when we arrived and they assured us they would be.  With sunset at 5:00 p.m. we had two hours of cruising in the dark before we would get to Coinjock.  With Bob working the spotlight, Dave steering and me picking up channel markers with the binoculars, we arrived dockside at 7:00 p.m.  The dockhands there are very experienced and know how to pack as many boats as possible into their available space.  There was about 120 feet of dockspace available when we arrived and they had another 70 foot boat coming in after us.  We pulled up as close as possible to the boat in front of us, tied the lines tight and headed to the restaurant for supper.  We got a seat by the window so that we could watch the 70 footer dock behind us.  To give you some perspective of how tight the fit was, here is a picture of the boat docked in front of us and of the 70 footer behind us (no zoom used for either picture).  All-in-all, a very exciting first day on the boat for Bob. 

Boat in front of Seabiscuit's Bow, Coinjock, NC
 (you can see our bow rail at the bottom of the picture)

 

Boat at Seabiscuit's Stern, Coinjock, NC

 The next day was not nearly as exciting.  There were several good anchorages available on the Alligator River less than 50 miles from Coinjock, so we pulled away later than usual and made a short day of it.  (Note:  at an average speed of 7 knots, 50 nautical miles takes 7 hours).  We anchored up, watched the sunset and Bob cooked a gourmet dinner.

Chef Bob in Seabiscuit's galley

Our destination the next day was Belhaven, NC.  Belhaven is a sleepy little town with most of the buildings on Main Street either for sale or lease.  They did have a hardware store, and Dave and Bob had figured out a way to move fuel out of the starboard forward tank if they could get about 20 feet of 1” hose.  The hardware store had hose that would work, so we bought 20 feet and a couple of hose clamps and then walked across the street for lunch at the local burger joint.  Finally, the weather had warmed up and we ate lunch at the picnic tables outside in our shirt sleeves.  Then it was back out to the boat to move some fuel.  They hooked up one end of the hose to the foot valve (sludge valve) on the port forward tank and the other end to the drain valve on the fuel polishing filter, upstream of the fuel transfer pumps.  This allowed them to use the onboard fuel transfer pumps to move fuel from the starboard forward tank to the port forward tank.  They were unable to transfer fuel normally because the leaking valve is part of the fuel fill manifold.  If they tried to transfer fuel between any of the tanks other than the day tanks, most of the fuel ended up back in the forward starboard tank as it leaked back through the bad valve.

Bob during the fuel transfer process
Sitting near the port forward tank sludge valve

 

Dave during the fuel transfer process
sitting near the fuel polishing filter

After the fuel transfer, the boat was back level and much more comfortable.  The guys had showers and we headed back into town for a walk around town and some supper.  We wandered up to the main drag and heard a bunch of high revving engines so we had to walk over and see what was happening.  It was the Saturday night tractor races.  The tractors were various models of converted lawn tractors.  They hooked up to a weighted sled and pulled down the track as far as they could go, WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!  We had a nice seafood dinner at Fish Hooks and then dinghied back out to the boat.

Belhaven, NC Tractor Pull

Here is another interesting North Carolina picture from Belhaven...

NC Tug Boat

From Belhaven, we traveled to Oriental, another small NC town, and dinghied into town for a walk and dinner.  The next day, Monday, we traveled to Swansboro and docked at Casper’s for two nights.  We wandered to the Ice House for supper… very fresh seafood and my vote for the best meal on the ICW so far.  Tuesday morning was Bob’s day to depart the boat and head back home to Texas.  We got up early and went to Yana’s for breakfast.  Yana’s is a local café with Elvis Presley/Marilyn Monroe/James Dean decorations and is noted for their fruit fritters.  We passed on the fruit fritters but had a good feed of blueberry pancakes and omelets.  We had a rental car delivered to us at the marina at 9 and then drove Bob to Greenville (about 2 hours by car) for his flight home.  We used the rest of the time with the rental car to do laundry and get groceries and then headed back to the boat for a quiet night aboard. 

Traveling the ICW you tend to see the same boats traveling each day, so by staying here an extra day, we separated from the boats we started with at Mile 0 and joined up with a new pack of boats traveling south.   It is very helpful to get to know the boats in your pack as everyone is good about advising of shoal (shallow) areas and giving advice of places to anchor or dock.  We anchored out last night near Carolina Beach and are planning to dock near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina tonight.  The weather while Bob was on board was mostly sunny and warmer but it turned cold again on Tuesday when he left and we are motoring in the rain and cold today.  We’re are back to wearing our hoodies and slippers, waiting for the next burst of sun.

As I was finishing this blog, we were still in route to Myrtle Beach, about 2 hours from our destination.  As they say in many of the cruising guides, when you are cruising the ICW it’s not if you go aground, it’s when.  Sure enough we had our when today.  We were cruising by the Little River Inlet, near the North Carolina / South Carolina border and we found ourselves without enough water under the keel, stuck fast.  We checked the tide tables and found out that it was about 10 minutes until low tide.  One of the boats who had been following us all day came around the corner so we advised them that it was best to come around our port side where there seemed to be more water.  We warned off a few more boats and talked to TowBoat US and SeaTow (two of the most common boating tow companies) about the possibility of towing us off.  SeaTow, who we have a membership with, didn’t have a boat in the area.  The TowBoat US operator was nearby and offered to tow us off, but because of the weight of the boat didn’t feel comfortable doing so since we weren’t members.  By that time the tide was starting to come in and the boat was starting to swing in the tide and the wind.  We waited another 30 minutes and as the tide came up we swung free, fired up the engines and got back under way.  We cleared two more swing bridges and arrived at our marina for the night at about 6:00 p.m., so we didn’t have to do too much cruising after dark.  After securing the boat at the dock, we walked up the street for a well-deserved happy hour.