Concrete Ships Float?

It felt wonderful waking up after a good five hours or so of sleep. The sun was peaking above the horizon and I realize that my life while underway is a cycle of sunrises and sunsets. It’s enjoyable to contemplate the start of each day.

Warmer as You Go

It’s almost 9AM now and as I cruise south down the Atlantic, I’m happy that my nights & days are getting warmer.

Back home in Foxboro the temp hit 70 but the nights are colder due to not being on the water

Flat Ocean is a Happy Ocean

My anchorage was flat water but even now out in the unprotected Atlantic I find it almost as flat.

Italian Yachts

I’m not the only one out here enjoying the flat sea. This sexy Azimut passed me like I was standing still.

Flat like a Bedsheet

As I cruise the sea gets ridiculously flat. I stop to make a video of just how calm it is.

The Atlantic coast of Virginia is looking the pool water

Fisherman’s Island

I’m now rounding Fisherman’s Island on the southern tip of Cape Charles. I glance up at my iPad to see my expected ETA is slipping. I’m fighting the tide which is exiting Chesapeake Channel.

I care about my ETA because I’d like to get on anchor before it’s dark.

I realize that in order to make last light I need to shorten my route or speed up. I decide to “cut the corner” a bit. Cutting the corner can get you in trouble with running aground if you are not careful as depths around inlets are often different than your charts. I cut the corner with a close eye on the trending depths displayed on my instruments.

Careful rounding too close to Fisherman’s Island. It’s low tide and there is a 3.9′ sounding

As I’m rounding the corner, Flipper & friends pay me a visit.

I no sooner round the corner and I’m passing under The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. It is a four-lane 20-mile-long vehicular toll crossing that provides direct access from Southeastern Virginia to the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware plus the Maryland and Virginia Eastern Shore).

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

Passing under the bridges you realize how much work went into their construction.

Concrete Ships Anchorage

The sun has set but my cutting the corner has resulting in Simple Life’s arrival at the Concrete Ships Anchorage before dark. I snap a few pictures of the ships before I lose last light.

As I cruise past, a USCG patrol boat is moving slowly alongside the concrete ships and shining their spotlight into the openings of the ships. I think to myself … “Are people living inside the ships?” Why else would they be so interested in looking inside?

Anchored Fast

I quickly chose a good anchor spot by studying the depths and drop anchor.

There is no wind at all so I backdown at a full 830 RPMs to set the anchor.

Cummins SmartCraft Display shows me my RPM Digitally

A check of my GPS SOG (Speed Over Ground) shows the anchor is not budging.

I snap a quick photo of the sunset over the concrete ships and settle in for the night.

W04L005 67NM route looked something like this…

Turtle Island Anchorage

We made it to Turtle Island Anchorage.

It’s a beautiful quiet spot just inside along the Atlantic Ocean.

While standing on the bow, Kelly snapped this picture of the dolphins who escorted us around Hilton Head and Daufuskie Island.

The small Haig Point ferry past us as Daufuskie Island has no bridge.

Haig Point Community Video

Once on anchor we saw only a single tugboat slip past us.

As the sun set Kelly made us BBQ chicken & apple on toasted flatbread, yum. Bellies full, we retired to bed before it was even dark.

We awoke around 4 AM and snapped this pic looking off the stern of the boat.

The underwater lights were on and the only sounds we could hear were dolphins coming to the surface to breathe.

This sound was all around us and quite peaceful.

Anchored in Somewhere South Carolina

We got a late start leaving St. James Plantation Marina in North Carolina. I think we were enjoying ourselves and were just slow getting moving in the AM. Kelly eventually woke and made an amazing breakfast on the griddle and I filled the water tanks, emptied the trash and pulled the boat over the pump-out and we were off.

Pulling out of the marina we were reminded how beautiful the houses are and what a great place this is.

As we exited into the ICW and headed South, we were reminded that this area has strong currents and tricky shoals that form around both Lockwood Folly Inlet and Shallotte’s Inlet. To offset the danger of running aground on a shoal we spent the wee hours downloading the US ACE (Army Corp of Engineering) navigation hydrologic maps of the inlets. What a great job the ACE does surveying these tricky inlets and making the sounding maps available for FREE to snowbirds like us. Thank you.

Current rip in the inlets. Each Division / District has its own website so you’ll have to spend some time finding the hydrologic maps from each ACE District. That’s a narrow drugged channel that you must stay inside of Stay to Port.

As we headed South we saw many beautiful sights.

We have no idea what species of bird this is but we are committed to learning more about the aquatic bird species that inhabit the ICW.

This lighthouse was somewhere around Myrtle Beach. It’s though to see but there were Christmas lights strung off the walkway around the light.

An Atlantic Ocean inlet. Maybe this was around Lockwood Folly Inlet?

We find the breaking waves beautiful. What a great beach for walking the dog or just contemplating life.I think the sign said something like Greg Norman’s Australian grilleWe love that this guy was taking his dog for a ride. Man’s best friend loves the boat says Happy & Chief Martin Brody. “Born 200 years too late” – Jimmy BuffettSomewhere Myrtle BeachClose Encounters or an airport building, you decide.Who wants to walk under this rack with high winds and a 10K lb boat resting 80′ over your head?

There are many dangers along the ICW..

Slow down and read the signs of life… they point toward safetyLogs are the bumps in road of life They thud your hull or fold your wheel (that’s a propeller for the un-initiated)We hate to see beautiful commercial fishing boats listing on the bottom. We joke that we’d love to pull her up drain her beige, gut her and rebuild her giving her a sexy teak makeover. Kelly reminds me that the stink of a fishing boat is not washed off with soap. Ouch!

Heart breaking.

Well, we anchored in a narrow creek tonight. It’s inky black and a bit windy but we buried the 90 pound and 3/8 chain anchor deep by backing down on it. We were forced to only let out a short scope of rode. Any more and when the tide reverses we’ll swing into the banks of this narrow creek. So we’ll call it a night and make our way to Georgetown, SC in the AM.

St. James Plantation with Friends

We are leaving St. James Plantation Marina in Southport, NC this morning but made a promise to come back and spend more time with our friends Jim & Wende. They were very gracious hosts while we were here and we got to share in the experience of being in a “private town”. So very interesting though I must say Kelly & I will have to investigate exactly what that means?

Thanks Jim & Wende, you showed us a great night off the boat and we promise to come back and spend more time.

The night before we had anchored in Sloop Point, NC and the trip down to Southport was an interesting one. We saw heavy equipment dredging around what looked like a new pier going in. I know what salt water does to steel and I still shudder at the thought of dipping an excavator’s arm into salty water. I’m sure the water in the ICW is brackish but still.

I was checking my ICW bridge list and realized that I would not make the Figure Eight Swing Bridge in time for their restricted opening time. This meant that I would be waiting for the next opening. However the bridge tender who I had hailed on the VHF asked me about my air-draft. Your “draft” is your vessels depth in the water and your “air-draft” is your vessel’s height above the water. I replied that I believed it was somewhere between 21-22 feet. The bridge tender remarked that he currently had 22′ of clearance. Every bridge along the ICW has a “height board” that is partially submerged under the water with height markers at the waterline. While all bridges on your nautical charts will list their height at an average high tide, the actual vertical clearance varies with the height of the water. The bridge tender offered to come out of his office and stand under the bridge to check my clearance if I wished to approach the bridge slowly. This can be a tricky maneuver as there was a current pushing Simple Life toward the bridge. I slowly edged the boat idling in reverse to the bridge and bridge tender assured me that I had a good 6″ of gap between the top of our boat and the bottom of the bridge. MV Simple Life’s air-draft is 21′ 6″.

Below is a stock photo of the Figure Eight Swing Bridge as I was too busy at the helm to snap pictures. You can see I circled the “height board” and at the time this picture was taken there was slightly less water under the bridge giving even more clearance than the 22′ we had the other day.

Just a few more miles down the ICW and we had to pass through the Wrightsville Beach Bascule Bridge located at statute mile 278 along the ICW. This is a restricted bridge that only opens on the top of the hour.

As we continued on to Cape Fear (Southport, NC) we were delighted at the scenery.

We passed many Atlantic Ocean inlets that had high sandy bluffs and marshy islands dotting the entrances. You could see and hear the surf breaking in the shallow inlets and it makes for nice scenery. The last of those 4 photos is one of a fixed dock that just barely exceeds the height of the water level. Interesting choice of fixed dock heights as this surely must be slightly submerged at times? Slightly submerged docks must be fun to walk along but just like submerged rock jetties that often protect many of the ports we enter they can be dangerous if boats come into contact with them.

As we got the point where the ICW connects with the Cape Fear River via “Snow’s Cut” we were passed by a US Army Corp of Engineers survey boat. These folks use sophisticated sonar to accurately probe the depths of these constantly changing waterways. He kindly slowed down as he passed and got back on plane once he was in front of us. However, just then the VHF crackled on channel 16, “Trawler in Snow’s Cut, are you OK?”. I quickly answered the hail with “comeback to the trawler in Snow’s Cut”. It was a boat in a marina that was hailing us stating that they “saw what had happened”. I replied, “If you are referring to the ACE boat that passed us, yes we are OK”. I found this communication amusing and I can only guess that the survey boat had passed the marina giving a large wake and making the marina boat unhappy and maybe this was her way of shaming the ACE boat publicly on the VHF?

It would seem the kids in Snow’s Cut like to party at this old bridge abutment. “Party on” Capt B.

Once in the Cape Fear River it became quickly apparent from the size of the docks that extend out into the river that this river is used by large ships. Passing these behemoths must be done at a distance.

A quick turn back onto the ICW, by a dilapidated building and we arrived at St. James Marina.

Time to push on to Georgetown, SC where we’ll update with a new post of what we saw along the way.