Month: June 2018

What a surprise to end our cruise today at a teeny-tiny-itsy “marina” in Columbia NC on the Alligator River and run into a couple we met in Knoxville, TN when we first bought Dot.Calm (which was named Dealership then). I put marina in quotes because this place is really a gas station with a some docks. The customer comments for it included “the chicken at the gas station is pretty good.” You get the idea.

 

At any rate, Tim and Debbie remembered the boat even with its new name — particularly our dinghy davit as they had come aboard in the spring of 2014 to get a closer look at it. This was during the time that Cliff and I made trips to Knoxville to visit the boat between my chemo sessions and we learned that Debbie is also a cancer survivor. Both of us are going strong!! Nice couple with a different boat than they had in Knoxville — they traded up from a Cruiser to an Ocean Alexander and it’s beautiful. They came over for a glass of wine and we pumped them with a zillion questions about crossing Albermarle Sound, a difficult piece of water that we face tomorrow.

 

Their advice is to stay put if the winds are 10mph or above. The sound is very shallow and even that little amount of wind kicks up pretty big waves. AND the waves also make it difficult to spot crab pots which apparently are plentiful.

Our trip to Alligator River was a bit tedious. Not much navigating and the straight-line canal we were in was, alas, filled with sail boats which we had to slow up for. What could have been a 15-16mph jaunt turned into a trip that alternated between getting up some speed (maybe to 10mph) and then slowing to nearly nothing as we passed sail boat after sail boat. Turns out this was a group on its annual week long cruise — 28 of them.

 

There was a big of navigating….these day marks have the tiny, postage-stamp-sized ICW decal that tells us “act like this red mark is a green mark” and “act like this green mark is a red mark.”

 

Off across the Albermarle tomorrow, I hope.

P.S. We didn’t take a chance on the chicken. Dinner aboard — lamb chops, rice pilaf and a green salad. Yum.

 

Trip from Oriental, NC to Dowry Creek was completely different than what we’ve experienced on the ICW so far. Instead of narrow channels and frequent daymarks across  wider spots where you had to watch the depth constantly, we were in wide, wide, wide open water with plenty of depth. Day marks were far apart and our destination at Dowry Creek required that we leave the ICW and head into the marina.

 

Often the cruise felt like we were on Lake Michigan — endless water to the horizon. Bit difference, of course, is that we could see land even if at a far distance for the entire trip. I’ve mentioned our electronic charts before and the “magic” magenta line that keeps track of where the ICW is. For today, it was less important to be “on the line” than to know what day marks, often placed at quite a distance away, you were passing.  And, of course, there were those tricky changes from Red Left Leaving to Red Right Return and a couple of day marks sporting both red and green. You gotta pay attention even when you’ve got plenty of water!

 

 

We took a dip in the marina’s salt water pool after we finished our cleaning chores. It is hot here and the cool water felt wonderful. This marina is relatively new and everything is in great shape. The marina store is fully stocked….including Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey ice cream. We’ve resisted (so far).

Dowry Creek Marina is VERY rural. It’s got the best wifi we’ve had so far….we guess that some millennial run the place. It’s quite nice.

It is near Belhaven. Lovely name. Skip it. We ended up dining (I use the word loosely) at a Chinese place in a grocery store mall.  The person at the counter seemed surprised that we didn’t want take-out and whose grasp of the English language was pretty iffy. C’est la vie.

 

Boat names are interesting (or not). Lots and lots of girl names (Laura Belle, Lady Gina, Anastasia Rose, etc. etc. etc.). One I really liked was “Winterlude” — on a 68 foot cruiser. I, alas, did not get a photo of it, but will be on the look out for clever ones to share on the blog!

 

And, of course, there are houses grand and quirky to look at along the way. In this stretch of the trip, we were pretty far away from shore. These were taken with Cliff’s telephoto lens.

So….a day off the cruising circuit also means a day to get stuff done. Like laundry. Like grocery shopping. Like cleaning the boat.

We went grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly (can you believe there is a grocery CHAIN named that??) about a mile from the marina where we are moored. Armed with our trusty canvas boat bags, we left the store fully loaded for the trudge back to the boat. And it started raining. And it was still hot. And putting on a plastic rain coat was painful. AND an angel pulled over and asked us “are you boaters?” We no sooner said yes, than offered us a ride back to the marina. A lovely lady….and we never got her name. I intend to send a letter to the local newspaper praising her and perhaps she’ll see it and our thanks.  Our other thought was that we should have bought more wine:-)

 

Oriental, NC is definitely friendly. I decided I desperately needed a haircut. So I walked to a salon that had a friendly “walk-ins welcome!” sign.  Have you ever watched a Paula Deen cooking show? I felt like I was getting a haircut from her. Every “move” was described along with the reason why…. the monologue included everything but “bless your heart.” Actually, I think it did include that phrase at least once. “They” say that the correction to a bad haircut is only 3 weeks away. My haircut isn’t really bad. It was the hair sprayed “big hair” look that she was going for that got me. I smushed my hair back onto my head a couple of blocks later and think that it is going to be okay.

 

We had dinner tonight at M and M Inn. It was terrific. We were stunned about how many special appetizers and dinners were offered.  And completely happy about how delicious our meals were. I had soft shell crabs and Cliff had a Cajun meal of shrimp, andouille sausage, black beans and rice.  There are only 800+ people in Oriental….but we learned there are 1200 boats and apparently that combinations keeps this restaurant (and others) going. Our waitress was the owner’s daughter and she told us that her dad refuses to close the restaurant during non-tourist season so they depend (apparently somewhat successfully) on locals to keep them going. Amen to that.

This sign on a local business says way too much about Oriental, I think.

 

Off to Bellhaven, NC tomorrow. Staying at Dowry Creek Marina which is in a secluded area along the ICW. They have gas grills, so maybe we’ll go for the lamb chops that are in the freezer tomorrow night. Sounds yummy at the moment!

Started our morning as usual with study of charts. Complicated bit of navigation in Morehead City (a huge container shipping port) and across a wide body of water off the ICW into Oriental, NC.  But I think we are getting the hang of this. Except for a few missteps (right turn? Left turn? Slight? Acute?) we did just fine. I am only slightly exaggerating. These charts can be confusing.

Houses lined the waterway with only a few condos and trailer/RV parks along the way. You really get jaded…we’ve seen so many spectacular homes that it’s hard to get excited by many of them.

 

The scenery was different with wide expanses of water to the right (starboard in Boat-speak). The only problem was that the water depth was about one foot bordered by a narrow sand shoal . Beautiful, but dangerous. We saw a man “walking” his dog along the sandy stretch that separated the ICW from the shallows…he must have arrived in a flat bottomed Row Boat!

 

Oriental, NC for two days!

A beautiful day on the water.  Our route from Carolina Beach to Swansboro was pretty straightforward. We were alert to day mark numbering changes and checked that the entire route stuck to the “Red Left Leaving” rule. Of course, the powers that be can’t make it that simple, so they throw in some “other” markers just to make it interesting.

 

Do you know about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s theory of compensation? Well, we experienced it vis a vis “dining” in Carolina Beach. The ONLY restaurant even remotely close to us was described as a “burger place on the beach.” Sounds good….

Continue to see evidence of storm damage. Some of the wreckage looks old, so perhaps not Irma but some hurricane from the past. In Florida, there is an aggressive program of clearing abandoned boats. Not so much in South Carolina and North Carolina.

 

Rain seemed to threaten for the entire journey to our next destination to the ill-named Cape Fear, NC area. As it turned out, everything was pretty calm except for the massive currents at the ill-named Lockwood FOLLY inlet….which seemed determined to sweep us out to the Atlantic. We prevailed and continued northward. It was kinda nice to wear long pants and a long sleeve tee-shirt!

Beautiful scenery. Beautiful homes. Some seemed to be taking their cues from Rainbow Row in Charleston. Some seemed to have their brightness gauges set a bit high….Orange?  Lime green? Neon yellow? Really?

 

More geography changes. Deep banks of orange clay. Shoals of white sand. And the ICW route so near the ocean you could see the waves.

 

We were happy to get a spot on the head wall at Joyner Marina as the wind really pumped up as we entered the marina. The good news is that the wind foretells of rain….another lovely fresh water rinse for DotCalm (and no need for us to clean the boat today!!)

Don’t get your panties in a twist….I’m talking about our cruise route from to Myrtle Beach:-)

The water was mostly 25+ deep and about a quarter of a mile wide.  The last half of the trip was in what could only be called a “ditch” — a straight line cut between rivers. Other than slowing down for residential areas, fishing boats, pontoon boats, and especially for sail boats (we remember the rock and roll of passing power boats all too well!!), we were able to make the 57 mile trip in about 6 hours.

 

About two seconds after Cliff remarked that he hadn’t seen an osprey nest, we started seeing them on every day mark. On one, there were two baby ospreys being tended to by their parents (I have a photo….but the internet connection here hasn’t allowed me to download it.) I was grateful that Cliff did not remark about the F-L-I-E-S. And happily, they did NOT turn up at all.  A terrific day with the bonus of a pop-up thunderstorm that gave Dot Calm a lovely fresh water rinse.

The first hour or two included some stretches with “s” curves that were fun to take at the tremendous speed of 14+mph.

 

The change in geography was amazing. And as we approached Myrtle Beach, the invasion of kudzu vines was apparent.

 

 

We think some Miami architects have moved north….you’ll see why (why we believe this…not necessarily why they actually moved!!)

 

Oue mooring in Myrtle Beach isn’t anything like I’d imagined. It is rather modest and quaint. I expected something more like Panama City in Florida. The restaurant at the marina is, alas, closed. It’s Monday after all.  Another restaurant was recommended and turned out to be terrific.

 

Early dinner. Cubs game. Bed.

A pretty perfect day.

A 70 mile haul from Charleston to Georgetown, SC meant a long day on the water. Happily, the weather was good with a nice bunch of clouds providing an overcast shelter from the sun.

 

Along the way, we saw dolphin (we’ve seen at least one dolphin every day of our trip), a singleton roseate spoonbill (close enough to see the spoonbill, but not quick enough to get a picture), lots of blue herons, a green heron, crowds of egrets, lesser terns making their vertical dives into the water, osprey, pelicans, and, amazingly/alarmingly, two alligators swimming across the ICW channel. And, alas, those pesky green flies. I have no photos of any of them except the alligator and you’ll have to use your imagination!

 

The scenery was gorgeous — sort of a combination of the low country marshes and lusher forests. There is a starkness and silence that is commanding.

 

The houses along this part of the ICW are few and far between once you get a few miles north of Charleston. There are some gigantic ones, but these seem less astounding and attention getting than the ones we saw in Florida. The architecture changed dramatically too.

 

We are eating dinner aboard tonight. Not because we are tired of going out…..but the best restaurant in town isn’t open on Sunday and the next best one closes as 5pm:-)

Off to Myrtle Beach tomor

We awoke to the sound of rain. Ugh! I usually brightly say “a nice freshwater rinse for the boat,” but not today as I considered the likely condition of streets in the city. We skipped a choral concert and a dinner reservation at Eli’s Table last night because we didn’t want to deal with it after it took nearly an hour to make what was usually a 10 minute trip.

Another choral concert beckoned us into the city and so off we went and glad of it. The concert featured a choir, a piano and a string quartet and was terrific. We were even more impressed with it when we learned that the choir is a non-audition group from the small town of Sumter, SC (not to be confused with Fort Sumter). This was their 9th invitation to the Spoleto Festival. The conductor invited all of the audience to drop by their rehearsals (7pm, every Wednesday, Trinity Methodist Church) if we ever found ourselves in Sumter. Sounds like a plan.

Our last day in Charleston deserved a good food send off so we headed to McCrady’s Tavern which is located on a small alleyway off East Bay Street. You’d miss it if you were relying on Google Maps….fortunately McCrady’s has great signage! A very leisurely late lunch found us to be the last customers in the place as the staff started to get the restaurant ready for dinner service. They didn’t even shoo us out…..perhaps our splurge on a caviar appetizer made a difference.

 

Walking back to the boat, we happened to pass Mac’s Place (you remember, don’t you?1), the Chicago sports headquarters in Charleston. The Cubs were playing, so we stopped in, grabbed a glass of wine….and couldn’t resist ordering the Irish nachos (groan). Let’s just say that brisket is better than ground beef. We ate it all.

 

Think we “wasted” a perfectly lovely day on Thursday after the Andersons departed doing laundry and cleaning the boat.  We had a super time with them, especially enjoying Brahms German Requiem, but needed a little down time.

 

On Friday we managed (barely!) to get in a walking tour by the Charleston Preservation Society (the last stop was rained out) that focused on Catfish Row….the setting for Porgy and Bess. The tour guide literally walked us through the history of the creation of DuBose Heyward’s novel, the subsequent play and Gershwin opera.

 

There wasn’t a hint of rain in the weather forecast for Friday. Weather Bug showed sunny skies for the whole day. One of Cliff’s weather apps said there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms, but they would be very intermittent. I skipped bringing my newly purchased raincoat — which was very unfortunate.  It started raining at the end of our walking tour — around noon — and was still coming down in buckets an hour and a half later. We finally got a ride back to the marina and were happy to to make the quarter mile trek to the boat in “just” a light rain. We were soaked through by the time we got to the boat.

 

Thursday night we went to a local theater group’s comedy (The Bible: The Complete Word of God— Abridged). The humor was hit and miss, but one of the three characters had an absolutely first rate voice (they needed to have more songs!!) and another had great comedic timing. But, a lot of the jokes were lame and the audience participation part (playing animals on Noah’s ark) was lamer. And….do water pistols aimed at the audience really add to the flood experience?

 

Flood experience was REAL on Friday. We learned that Charleston does, indeed, flood rather easily. It was a lot of rain, but the chaos it created in flooded streets and traffic seemed out of proportion. The driver of the marina’s courtesy van assured me that it gets a lot worse.