Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Charleston, SC
We’ve taken a break and traveled back to Asheville, NC. Our timing for an old-fashioned family Thanksgiving is perfect and Vanessa’s parents drove down to Charleston to pick us up. Big deal right? Well, it is. This is the first time in twelve years I’ve had a Thanksgiving dinner, with family and all the trimmings, on the actual Thanksgiving Day. Usually, I’m at work and a holiday is just like any other day. Not this year. Not only are we getting to take this great trip, we get to have a real family holiday. We’ll have a lot to be thankful for.
It took a lot of effort to getting down here. The five days to Charleston, SC from Beaufort, NC were not exactly what we’d hoped. There were a couple of notable events, but mostly we stuck to the ICW. The result, there is not much to report.
Its official name is the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway, AIWW for short per the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. ICW to the rest of us. “The Ditch” to some. No matter what you call it, it is a pretty cool thing: a network of rivers, bays, sounds, inlets, and canals connected together from Norfolk, VA to Miami, FL. A “Ditch” allowing boats to travel all the way south with out going outside into the Atlantic. For many boaters it is a true marvel of engineering. We hate it!
Not that it is a bad thing. After all, it allows us to travel every day no matter the weather conditions. We’d prefer to go outside, but the weather hasn’t cooperated. Sticking to the ditch means we motor most of the time, have to deal with lots of boat traffic, and risk running aground due to all the shoaling. We’ve only managed to run aground five times, so far. Thanks to the new super power of Big Red, we’ve managed to plow off without the help of others, so we are doing better than many. The problem we are having with the ICW is two fold: First there is the ever-present, inconsiderate, waterway traffic which is always congested around important areas, like bridges and bottlenecks, making driving maddening, just like in the big city. Plus, traveling the ditch is boring. I can’t hardly believe I am saying it, but I find the open ocean much more beautiful and scenic and exciting than traveling down the sometimes pretty, sometimes ugly, sometimes crowded waterway.
Patriot Missle Launcher? Camp Lejeune
Camp Lejeune Exercise Left Overs
I kind of don’t feel like writing about it, as traveling the ditch isn’t anything I’m particularly proud of. We had hoped to go outside from Beaufort/Moorehead City, NC and travel down to Wrightsville Beach, NC. But the weather was blowing up bigger seas than we wanted to travel in, not that the boat would have had a problem, we just weren’t in the mood to battle winds 25-35 knots and seas to 12 feet. We took the ditch, crossing Camp Lejeune, and continued south in our quest for warmer weather on Saturday (11/13).
We motored along, greeted by a pod of dolphins, and tried to stay warm in the cold wind and rain. As stated, we’d planned on going outside to Wrightsville, but because of the weather, we headed south with an eye on an anchorage in Top Sail Sound. We arrived just after sunset and promptly ran aground. Running aground in a Westsail isn’t really a dangerous thing as the hull is so sturdy, just a real inconvenience.
There is a process to going aground. Here’s the way it usually works for us: Consider first, we have Big Red, our new 44 horsepower diesel that pushes our boat along as fast as it can go with out even warming up. So here we are, the bow pushing water rapidly aside as be cruise along . . . until we hit bottom. The bow crashes into the bottom with a huge thud and sudden stop before rising sharply out of the water. Of course, I don’t have instant reflexes, so Big Red keeps pushing the boat right up onto the shoal before I’m able to reach for the throttle and stop us. There we sit, keel firmly planted in the sand, nearly high and dry. Next, to help intensify the seriousness of the situation, I stand on deck and swear all the obscenities I can think of at the top of my lungs while Vanessa drops down below, embarrassed to be on the same boat with me, first because we’re aground, second because I’m a screaming idiot. After the maelstrom of water caused by the hull-bottom impact and prop wash calms, the engine revs down, and I stop swearing, things quiet and we access the situation. We try to determine the closes direction of deeper water, turn the huge Westsail rudder over, and throttle up Big Red to maximum revs and let it push the 25,000 pound hulk of our boat around and off into deeper water. That night, there was a lot of swearing and revving as we ran aground multiple times trying to get this anchorage just right. We gave up on the anchorage and motored on to a Wrightsville marina, arriving late. At least we won’t have to worry about barnacles on our bottom.
The next morning, we headed out for a short day, again down the ICW. This was a planned trip on the ICW, as this section takes us inside of Cape Fear, helping us to avoid a potentially nasty cape while saving miles. It ended up being a really fun ride. The ICW turns through Snow’s Cut and into the Cape Fear River. What a ride! Traveling down the Cape Fear was like white water rafting in a Westsail. The current down the river is so strong and fast, it almost doubled our speed. At one point, we were traveling at 11.2 knots speed over ground! We’ve never gone so fast before!
Our First Palm Tree Sighting
Finally, we got our outside time on Monday (11/15) for the most perfect sailing day you could ever imagine. Calm seas, steady winds, and a perfect beam reach for the entire thirty-five miles to Little River, SC, where we returned to the ICW and promptly ran aground again. This time, we were so hard aground, we had to wait twenty minutes for the flooding tide to help us power off. It gave me plenty of extra time for creative cussing, trying to invent new swear words from parts of others. We motored on down to Myrtle Beach and tied to a dock (a free one, of course) for the night – this ICW anchoring thing is becoming a big chore.
From here, the weather looked light, so we took to the ditch again on Tuesday. We’d read somewhere this portion of the ICW was incredibly beautiful. We were disappointed. From Myrtle Beach, there was nothing. No towns, no marinas, no nothing the whole way down to Charleston. Just miles and miles of South Carolina low country.
South Carolina “Low Country”
We passed (or were passed) by a total of four boats the whole day. The only thing we saw was grass and dolphins. Dolphins are so prevalent around here, they aren’t even a big deal anymore. But this low land of tidal waters goes on and on and on . . . and on, etc. You can look for miles and see nothing but water and grass. After a full day, we failed to make it all the way to Charleston and had to drop the anchor in Hamlin sound – this time in plenty of deep water. Finally, in early at a good anchorage, just us, secure without swearing. I think the dolphins appreciated the quiet as they came into the sound with us and were there to welcome us the following morning.
Bing helping catch up on boat work
With only ten miles to go to Charleston, we slept in and had a leisurely run down the rest of the ICW, past some of Charleston’s fabulous waterfront properties and into Charleston Harbor. We dropped the hook in the city’s anchorage and promptly set to getting some needed work done on the boat. We had two days to kill before Vanessa’s parents arrived to collect us, so out came some sandpaper, varnish, soap, and water. We still have a ways to go getting everything back in shape, but we did put a dent in the project. Anybody tells you you’ll take care of all this maintenance stuff underway has never sailed on a small boat.
So we’re off for a week. We’ll have our family time and holiday before heading back to the boat next week end. By then, we will be ready to truly move and put even more miles under the keel. Florida and warm water, here we come! Until then, the crew of Nereus wishes you the warmest and happiest of Thanksgivings. See you next week.
– Steve
 Grand Southern Architechure . . . |
 Overlooking the Harbor . . . |
 In Charleston, SC |