offshore – MV Simple Life

Before leaving Osprey Marina I figured I ought to get some Simple Life maintenance done.

I pulled back the rug and removed the teak & holly access panel to expose my Cummins 5.9L QSB diesel. You can see the hose dropped down into the engine room so that I can clean the bilge.

Teak & Holly floor covered since new with carpet and pad

Sitting in the engine room doing maintenance was hot so I decided that I would use up any non-IPA beers in the bottom of my fridge.

Simple Life carries 340 gallons of potable water. Depending on use, that should last a month but might as well fill the tanks while I’m at the dock. When I fill my water tanks I like to use a portable water filter from Home Depot. I also overfill the tanks so that water is pushed out the breather tube. Any tank that you fill must have a breather to allow the air being replaced to escape and on boats that tube exits on the outside of the boat high enough so that when the boat heals over you don’t have seawater intrusion. Little flying things can attempt to enter the breathers so flushing them with each fill is a good idea even though multiple filters catch anything in the tanks.

Flush out your water tank breather lines

Along with boat maintenance I was upgrading my MacBook Air to Big Sur. If you are a Apple Mac fan you know Apple just announced their new line of Macs that run on their new Apple silicon processors. This is big news for apple and will align their Mac computers with iPhone and iPad which already run Apple silicon. Why is this important? Well for starters iPhone and iPad apps which were written to run on Apple silicon can now be run on Mac computers to make Mac users like me happy that we can use similar apps across the three different platforms.

Before taking off I sat down to plot my next leg of the trip. I generally plan for 50NM each day. That is a very conservative estimate as I often run 80NM / day or more.

I decide to anchor in Georgetown, SC. I have always wanted to visit Georgetown. A quick check of the harbor shows several anchorages in very shallow water.

Red is a no-go and I stay out of orange areas if I can help it.

I untie my lines, jump aboard and put her in gear as I say my goodbye to Osprey Marina. Traveling south down the Waccamaw River, I pass marinas as well as people just pulling up to the banks to party.

The Waccamaw River is deep and the current (seen pushing over the no wake buoy above) is pushing me along at 7.8 knots. It’s raining but I enjoying the day in the pilothouse.

As I pass under Ocean Highway Bridge the entrance to Georgetown will be on my starboard side.

Near Georgetown, South Carolina

You can see the position of the sun in the video above and there is still more time in the day. I start thinking… Maybe I’ll push on and find an anchorage further south down the ICW?

I push on through Winyah Bay until the sun sets.

I settle on an anchorage just before the ICW takes a 90 degree turn leaving Winyah Bay. The anchorage is protected by a small, low island called Middle Ground and ithas plenty of water and swing room.

This anchorage is large for the ICW and several sailboats have already dropped anchor.

My plan was to anchor here for the night before heading on to Charleston, South Carolina. However, plans are made to be broken. I instead do a quick check of the weather offshore and decide to make a 36 hour run offshore to St. Augustine, FL. This long voyage will skip over the rest of South Carolina as well as Georgia and the very northern part of Florida. Georgia passed an anchoring law last year with draconian rules about where you can anchor. Some people just don’t like boats anchoring anywhere near their waterfront homes. Skipping Georgia has the side-effect of avoiding all their confusing anchoring laws.

I prepare my route for the next day. I add a lay line run straight from Winyah Bay, SC to St. Augustine, FL. I notice the sea is expected to be 3-4′ waves and increasing to 5′ over time. I add a second direct route to Saint Mary’s Inlet right at the GA/FL line. If it’s nasty I’ll know it pretty quickly and I’ll divert to this shorter route. I also plot out routes going in each navigable inlet as premade bailout routes incase anything goes wrong. Doing long solo offshore runs you need to be prepared incase I injure myself underway and need to get back inland quick.

St. Mary’s Inlet route breaks off around even with Charleston, SC

The math for the St. Augustine’s run looks like this.

I do a check of the currents leaving the Winyah Bay Inlet and find that if I don’t want to fight the 7:14AM Max flood current getting out I better leave soon after the 4:38AM start to flood.

We just had a new moon tonight so navigating tomorrow morning, you won’t get any help from the moon.

I settle on a 5AM weigh anchor time and decide to navigating the inlet in the dark is better than waiting till first light and fighting the current to get out.

I’ll be out of the inlet before first light

This leg of the journey looked something like this…

We departed Port Washington and perfectly timed our arrival to the east end of the East River. We had a fair current giving us a strong push on our stern all the way through the East River and into NYC Harbor.

East River

Once in the East River you come upon Laguardia airport and Rikers Island.

Just past Rikers Island you’ll find the “The Boat” or as it’s more formally known, the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center.

A wee bit further down the East River and you come to an infamous location known as Hell’s Gate. This is where the Harlem River dumps into the East River. Our planning placed us here at max ebb current because it’s a great feeling being pushed in such a strong current.

Buddy was at the helm calmly making helm corrections as quickly as possible to keep the pointy end of the boat pointing in the right direction.

Roosevelt Island was off to port.

Past Roosevelt Island it can feel like a war zone as helicopters and water-taxis buzz all around you.

NYC Harbor

At this point you are nearing The Battery or the southern tip of Manhattan. The skyline looms above you.

Next up is Ellis and Liberty Island and that famous tall green lady of liberty.

The famous Staten Island Ferry wizzed past us.

Weather Changes Plans in NYC

We had planned on spending a couple days in NYC harbor and visiting Manhattan but our weather heading down the NJ coast looked great for the next 38 hours. We had a quick discussion at the helm and decided that we would go offshore. Stopping in NYC would have meant being trapped for the foreseeable forecast.

Offshore Voyage to Norfolk, VA

Going offshore to Norfolk would require a helm watch schedule. We like to call it a port & starboard watch meaning that there would be two teams. Team 1 = Buddy & Renee. Team 2 = Marty. When you’re on “helm watch” the other team is relieved of any responsibilities other than to rest up for when your watch starts.

Night watches means keeping an eye out the pilothouse windows for any lights. The moons phase was only a sliver of a crescent and it did not rise till 4AM. We chose a route between 2-3 NM off the coast and that allowed us to see the twinkling lights of shore as we made way south.

For those uninitiated in night watches you will have to become comfortable with staring intently at your radar screen while you push into the blackness. Looking forward out the pilothouse windows all you see is black and the few instrument lights that reflect off the inside of the glass. You’ll need to determine if any of those red, green or white lights are coming from a boat or a buoy. If the light blinks, it’s a buoy. If it’s solid, it’s a boat.

One night I come off watch and lit the underwater lights so I could stand on the stern as the propeller wash boils up from below as the lights of shore pass.

Here is a short video of a boat passing on our starboard side. You can clearly see the other vessel’s red-portside-light as well as it’s white-steaming light. When I zoom in the camera was able to pickup the white water wake in their stern light.

When I left my home port in Warwick, RI, a few fellow boaters, friends were also making the trip south for the winter. MV Ship Happens, a large sport-fishing boat, was heading south and we had been communicating thinking we’d cross paths eventually. I received a photo via text from Capt. Dan and to my surprise it was of MV Simple Life as they zoomed past us. Although MV Ship Happens left port days after us, she has a much faster cruise and eventually overtook us.

Capt. Dan snapped this pic of us on the way past us

During the day we were graced with the presence of whales. I captured a short video of a whale coming to the surface off our starboard side.

Whales off the Jersey Coast

While we were off the coast, our VHF crackled to life with the USCG issuing a securite broadcast about an overdue 43′ Benneteau sailing vessel out of Jamestown, RI called the “Carol K”. They had left before us and were somewhere along the coast with us. We attempted to hail the Carol K but got no response. We hoped that they would be found safe and several days later they were found 100 miles of Cape Henry, VA.

As we approached Cape Charles in Virginia we thought it best to tuck under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and find a quick place to anchor for the night.

The trip down the busy channel into Norfolk, VA is best done in the daylight. I could tell you a story about nearly getting run over by a warship a few years back but that story is best told over a few beers. 😉

We searched our Aqua Maps charting app for an Active Captain anchorage and found one called “Concrete Ships”. The wind was out of the east but the forecast predicted the wind would clock around to the south and strengthen. This particular anchorage offered the best lee from the wind within the distance we were willing to travel.

My website/blog has a button that you can click to see the real-time location of MV Simple Life. Here are some pics of that my Garmin InReach Satellite communications device makes available to you.

Days past, I have made the trip south from Cape May, NJ to Norfolk, VA by going outside along the coast before. Those times, I had chosen to anchor nightly along the coast. There are few decent anchorages along this stretch of coast. One anchorage I have used before was inside the Great Machipongo Inlet. I recall how tricky getting through the shifting shoals dotting the inlet was. As we passed, I could not help but notice that the latest update of the NOAA charts shows a similar sized vessel to MV Simple Life wrecked on those same shoals. (Me thinks…) I’m happy I bailed on my inlet entry that stormy night.

Ghost Ships

When it comes to ship building there are many hull materials to select from. One such material/method is ferrocement construction. It’s a cheap way to build a hull/boat but has fallen out of favor with the advent of materials such as FRP (Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic).

We had arrived at our anchorage with plenty daylight left. We shot some video and snapped a few pics of the ships as we arrived.

Standing on the bow at night in the breeze we were flanked by ghost ships with their ghostly pale white shapes faintly materializing though the inky black of night.

Next up Norfolk Navy Yard …

Tag: offshore

Run to Georgetown SC

NYC – Norfolk VA