Anchor in the Alligator

Morning Fog

Simple Life pulled away from the dock around 6:20AM. I was drifting in the river while I stowed my lines and fenders. Once stowed I pointed the boat south through the morning’s fog. MV Effervescence IV had also pulled away from the dock and had taken up my stern .I captured a few seconds of the morning’s fog on my phone.

Morning Fog on the Elizabeth River in Virginia

Sound Signals

As we moved through the fog I had my airhorns blasting on long every two minutes.

Great Bridge Lock

We had left the dock because just a mile or two down the river is the Great Bridge Lock. We wanted to get through the lock as quick as possible so that we could maximize the nautical miles we could put behind us by using all of the daylight. When we arrived at the lock we had to wait about 30 minutes for the next opening. Once inside the lock, we tied to the rubber numbered East wall so we did not have to set our fenders.

Great Bridge Lock

As I leave the lock I pass a steaming barge of dirt.

Great Bridge

You can see at the end of the above video that as soon as you exit the Great Bridge Lock you must stop and wait for the Great Bridge to open for you. I always remember the lock and the bridge being sync’d in time. When one let boats through the other was ready to let them through as well. Today however, we had to wait. More time spent not moving toward our nights proposed anchorage in the Alligator River.

Eventually the Great Bridge opened for us and we slipped beneath it’s large raised spans to find AYB (Atlantic Yacht Basin) on just the other side.

Encountering Barges

When you travel down a river the deepest part of the river is often the visual center. As you get away from the center and near the banks or edges of the river it can often shallow quickly. The ICW is a federal waterway which is responsible for moving goods up & down the US East Coast safe from storms on the Atlantic. Wide tug and barge combos will need that depth found in the center. If you need to pass a tug pushing a barge you need to give them the center. This often pushes you uncomfortably close to the shallow banks. Some boats will stop while the barge passes but most will communicate the pass over the VHF. The tugboat captain will usually say something like “I’d like a one-whistle pass” or “I’ll meet you on the one”. This jargon comes from the fact that boats use sound signals or either one or two short blasts of the horn to indicate what side of your boat they intend to pass on.

Tug, Gold Coast, pushing a barge north past recreational boaters going south

As the tug passes I check my AIS for information about the tug.

Crossing State Lines

When transiting the East coast I always enjoy the moments when I cross state lines. Some states I come and go in the day, ex. RI. Other states I can spend weeks in, ex. FL.

North Carolina

Below are some of the sights as I approach North Carolina.

Who Doesn’t Love a Cuck?

Now passing through Coinjock, NC I spy a Chevy El Camino on the shore. I don’t know why but I feel like that car is perfect for Coinjock.

Get up an Go

This large yacht passed me at an amazing speed for such a large yacht. They were outside the channel while performing the pass. Their wake was not that bad as much of their hull is out of the water as they plane on top at high speed.

Wow that is fast for such a large boat

Daylight Fading

At this point in the day’s journey, we are about to cross Albemarle Sound. During the night before’s captain’s briefing, we had planned to cross Albemarle Sound and anchor just before the Alligator River Swing Bridge. Delays we encountered at the Great Bridge Lock have made it so the sun will set before we arrive at our anchorage. MV Effervescence IV has asked me if we could increase our speed so as to arrive while there is still light? The sun is setting at 5:03PM and the last quarter moon will not rise till 11:50PM. No moon makes for a dark night and nobody wants to hit a day marker piling or run over a crab pot float and get a line wrapped around your prop.

I agree to increase the speed from 6.5kts to 8.5kts.

Fuel Economy

Trawlers like most boats can get great fuel milage at a slow speed. However, for every 1/10 of a knot you go above that speed the MPG starts to plummet fast. At 6.5 kts I get 3NM/gal. At 8.5kts I get 1NM/gal. If you have to increase your speed to close to your top speed you will very quickly spike your dollars paid per mile. It is better to realize the needed increase early so you don’t have to do the worst case of increasing to near max. Planning and flexibility is the key to getting down the coast and still having $ for beer 😉

Albemarle Crossing

Today’s crossing of Albemarle Sound is one of the smoothest I’ve had.

Albemarle Sound is Flat

Scanning the Horizon

Wake

I find a boat’s wake hypnotizing to watch up close.

Today’s 71NM journey looked something like this…

Miss Dixie

We awoke this morning around 5AM. Still dark, our Adams Creek Anchorage was flat calm. I snapped a photo in time to catch both the red buoy & green can illuminated.

We stopped here in Adam’s Creek about 20 NM short of Beaufort, NC. It was a nice 60 degree day and the Patriots game was about to start @1PM. GO PATS!

However, let me take you back to how yesterday started. We weighed anchor in Campbell Creek and made our way @5kts out the 8 ft shallows.

We were a headin’ for the “Dog Ear”. That’s not an official term but if you look at the bathymetric charts long enough you’ll see it in the depth contour line.

We had slipped past a still sleeping Canadian sailboat who was properly displaying the US flag above their homeland flag while in our waters.

We were back in Goose Creek and heading South past the USCG station and RE Mayo Seafood with their docks full of shrimp boats and ‘snowbirds’ as we ICW Travellers are often called.

Shrimp Boats

RE Mayo Seafood & Docks

Soon we were turning to port to enter Adam’s Creek where we would drop anchor just feet off the ICW. We sat in the pilothouse watching the parade of boats heading South go by.

The Verizon cell service is 3G (not the faster LTE) so it would be like the internet of the 80’s.

We setup the OTA (Over The Air) TV antenna with hopes of getting the Patriots game in HD. However, North Carolina was only giving us Gospel TV and the PBS “Remembering Miss Dixie” bluegrass tribute concert.

PBS Remembering Miss Dixie tribute concert

Miss Dixie Hall was a prolific song writer who wrote more bluegrass songs than anyone else, some 500 songs. Many sung by country hit-makers from Johnny Cash to Miranda Lambert.

Miss Dixie will be remembered as a kind soul who devoted her life to animal rights as much as bluegrass music.

Yesterday’s short leg looked something like this.

Prince of Tides

Beaufort, North Carolina is your quintessential small southern town. It is the 3rd oldest town in North Carolina and as you walk through this quaint small town, you can’t help be taken a back by it’s charm.

As we came ashore there were two monuments to local heroes within feet of where we landed. The first was Michael John Smith who gave his life for the pursuit of space exploration. Michael was a NASA space astronaut. Like so many, I believe that every human owes a great debt to astronauts who risk their lives so that the human race may have a better chance at surviving this hostile universe. They take risks that many of us might think too great. Michael was aboard the Challenger space shuttle when it exploded only 73 seconds after launch. The entire nation stood in horror at that moment, Like so many of you, I recall the shock and disbelief of this tragedy. The whole nation was forced to mourn the loss of these 7 heroes.

The second memorial stone was dedicated to a local oceanographer named John G Newton who discovered the U.S.S. Monitor using side scan sonar technology. Side scan sonar is an improvement on the DSM (Depth Sounder Module) that MV Simple Life uses to determine our depth as we came into Beaufort.

Leaving Beaufort was as tricky as getting in. The currents here in Beaufort are swift. When we arrived, I had to swing MV Simple Life into a narrow fairway with an extra strong 3 knot current directly on our beam. Simple Life’s full keel gives that current a flat surface to push her down-current quickly. With some fast movements at the helm and some help from the thrusters we landed her gently into our assigned slip. The trip out of the slip was made easier by the fact the strong current was on our bow. I nudged her out of the slip and simply swung the bow a few degrees off the current and she quickly pointed out of the fairway.

The currents can be seen pulling this green can under as we were exiting Beaufort and rounding the Southern point of Radio Island.

Currents are brought on by the tides and our friend Rebecca informed us the the movie “Prince of Tides” was filmed on location here in Beaufort. Knowing now that the movie was fillmed in Beaufort, maybe it’ll make a good first-time watch while on anchor?

Youtube link to 1991 Prince of Tides trailer

Our last night in Beaufort was a late one and the morning’s light was unwelcomed. We had a long trip ahead of us if we were to make Sloop Point anchorage by sunset.

We needed to make up time so we used the fast currents to our advantage and raced westward through Bouge Sound.

Bouge Sound is an East-West body of water trapped between main land North Carolina and a set of barrier islands. The sound has a narrow channel and marshy islands that abound. While the ocean was lumpy, Bouge Sound was a flat and reflective, like a mirror.

The only boat traffic we passed was a tiny little tug and barge with a piece of heavy equipment on it as well as one of those awkward looking front-loaded boats where you drive from the bow.

A little further South and we were reminded that Camp Legune is around us. Signs along the river warn of possible live fire events.

This picture of a shelled APC (I’m just guessing this was an armored personnel carrier, military expertise needed here) reminds me of a Monet or maybe a watercolor painting. The marshy grasses in the foreground simply mush together while the island and threatening clouds in the background appear to bleed and wash out the watercolors on a canvas.

With sunset approaching we had to race to make it through the restricted Onslow Beach swing bridge.

Every morning we research where the shoals are along the ICW. It seems the ICW’s bottom is in a constant state of evolution. You need to use sites like activecaptain.com/livemap/ to be able to use the knowledge other ICW boaters have posted to avoid running aground like this poor sailboat did.

We anchored in Sloop Point behind green daymark 15 and it was a peaceful night as we listed to the rain pitter-patter on the boat. The perfect background noise as we whisked off to the master stateroom.