Thursday, October 23, 2008
It is never too wise to harbor
preconceived ideas about
how the unknown is going to be, but I have them nonetheless. Kobuk
is a river boat, designed to operate on
waters that are more protected from the wind, where the hazards below
the
surface are often more serious than the ones on it.
For the past few thousand miles, Kobuk has
coped with open water conditions for which she is only marginally
suited. Now, though, her small size and
shallow draft
should give her an advantage over most other vessels.
In other words, I am brimming with
(over)confidence.
But wait--I'm getting us ahead of
ourselves here. We still have to do this
last stretch of open
water on the
We are out of the
We don't continue at that pace,
though. In mid-afternoon I get nervous
that we might
not get to the Poquoson until after sunset and so to avoid looking for
an
unfamiliar dock in the dark I fire up the yellow beast and we surge and
slog
south for a couple hours, surfing whenever we catch a wave and
struggling to
move at
all when pushing into the lifting back of one.
Last weekend, I drove down to
In the evening Kobuk lies in placid
stillness, her bow
pointing off towards the Meekins kitchen, while I make Thai noodles for
dinner
on the Coleman Stove aft. Wine, and more
wine, remind me of the many evenings in seasons past when Kobuk and I
have
spent time together in this sort of peaceful solitude.
It is a pity that Kobuk could not
make it here before the
Meekins left. They are lifelong
boaters--up and down the eastern seaboard and back and forth across the
Atlantic--and their zest for civilized adventure would have, I feel
sure,
fortified Kobuk's already
well-developed sense of mission.
Depart
Arrive Meekins',
Distance:
50 miles
Total
Distance:
7,154 miles
Friday, October 24, 2008
This is one of those days when it
would be prudent and
proper to stay in port, but a month of labor and delay getting Kobuk
ready for
service has left me less patient than usual. The
forecast is for easterly winds all day at ten to
twenty knots. This is brisk and is sure to
roil the waters
a bit, but the forecast for tomorrow is far, far worse and only 20-25
miles
separate us from the protection of
The scene has “November” written
all over it: industrial
grade overcast blots out the sky and a chill breeze in port means that
out on
the Bay the ruckus already has started. Out
we go, past the ragged string of estuary
estates, out past the
occasional mid-channel egret post, weaving around the red nuns and
green cans,
until finally the estuary opens wide and we reach the bay itself. We
slog our
way out far enough to cross the Poquoson Flats then turn right to cross
it in a
zone where the electronic chart indicates minimum depths of six feet.
But this is a mistake.
We are trying to cut the corner to save a few miles
but by crossing here
where the water is this shallow the easterly waves of the bay are
bumping into
each other in their hurry to get at us. There’s
little risk of taking on water or suffering
significant damage,
but the ride leaves a lot to be desired. Besides,
I forgot how hard it is to stay on course
when the Remote Troll
and the little Yamaha are confronted with so much opposition. We muddle through, of course, but it requires
constant attention. Every wave threatens 
to
knock us off course and the
combination of low engine power and
sluggish
steering means that failure to anticipate an impending deviation will
result in
comical efforts to get back on bearing—rather like a novice driver
trying to
steer his first car down a bumpy road.
The perverse thing is that the
waves keep coming at
us. Even after turning the corner and
heading
south, the wind and waves are still only about thirty degrees off the
port
bow. The more we come around to the
south, the more the wind blows out of the south. It seems that I have
failed to
account for the natural deflection of wind that occurs when it angles
against a
coastline.
rs:
if I drop the
spring we
will be port bound until at least Tuesday waiting for a replacement to
be
shipped. I unthread the snarled cable
and stow it before securing the outboard by tying it off in a
fixed
position. Then the main engine roars to
life and we proceed under “backup” power. This
does make things easier since the Mazda has the
power to drive us
more forcefully into the naughty slop. In
little over half hour we make it to the
strait that separates
Chesapeake Bay from
Waterside
Distance:
37 miles
Total
Distance:
7,191 miles
Saturday, October
25, 2008
In the minds of most,
Imposing are the
ports where shipping is the lifeblood, but for most of them the cut of
the
ships and the look of the harbor facilities are . . . well . . . rather
less
striking than in a harbor dominated by the navy. Of
course the ships are different. In
commercial ports, the mammoth beasts
designed for transport have a prehistoric appeara
nce whereas a
naval
center
like
After successfully
replacing the broken spring on the Remote Troll and completing a list
of other small
tasks about the boat, I take advantage of a break in the rain to pedal
over to
Nauticus, a large maritime museum that combines one floor sponsored by
the navy
with a top floor civilian exhibit dedicated to oceanography. Up there on that top floor is a screening
room that happens to be presenting an excellent documentary entitled The
Living Sea. I shuffle in and spend
forty minutes appreciating its stunning cinematography, but the biggest
surprise comes at the end when the final credits roll and the huge,
slightly
curved screen slides back from left to right to
reveal about
an acre of picture windows overlooking the Norfolk Harbor.
Sitting in a darkened movie theatre looking
out on a broad sweep of the open water between
After this, I move on
down to the second floor to take the flying catwalk that runs over to
the deck
of the battleship that the navy has made a part of its museum exhibit. Its guns are big, of course.
An exhibit within the Nauticus building makes
this obvious by suspending a VW Bug in midair and pointing out that a
battleship can send ordinance of this weight some twenty miles distant. What most fascinates me, however is that,
just to keep the below decks from getting too warm in the sun, the entire deck area of the battleship (
Sunday, October 26,
2008
This would be a good
day for heading south on the Intracoastal, but I opt to stay put and
spend most
of the sunny hours sitting in the back of Kobuk and working on my
online
courses. Late in the
after
noon, however, I
take a break and pedal a few blocks into the city
to visit the
Douglas MacArthur Memorial. In a park
like setting on a small block in downtown Norfolk, the memorial is
housed in
two separate buildings. The more
substantial of the two—the one with the general assuming a pose in
bronze at
the foot of the imposing stone steps leading up to the entry—contains
all sorts
of memorabilia and personal effects that belonged to our heroic soldier. The exhibits are thoughtful and manage to
attach meaningful narrative to various collections of what would
otherwise be
trivial artifacts.
The other building,
set off to one side, is clearly intended to play an ancillary role. It is architecturally consistent but lacks
the external grandiosity so evident in the main building.
In this respect, the main exhibit hall
captures well the nature of the man who inspired it: a serene
contentment in
the role of diva. The secondary building
is used to screen a short film on the life of the general.
MacArthur was indeed
a heroic figure—courageous in the field, inspirational to his men, and
tactically brilliant. But we all know
that he was also rather controversial. It
is a pity is that the memorial does so little to
capitalize on the
inherent tensions residing in a man who viewed his own greatness with
no hint of humility. The brief film about
his life is particularly one-dimensional. Done
in black and white, with the smug certitude of
a 1940’s newsreel,
it presents MacArthur as utterly flawless. Such
perfection always leaves one feeling a little
empty. All those highs, with every high
higher than
the last one, with not a single low—how can one stay interested in that? Indeed, how can it be believed?
Poor MacArthur gets
caught in what I think of as the George Washington Syndrome. Hardly anyone can think of a derogatory thing
to say about our first president because nearly all our sources of
information portray
him as monotonously good. That’s why
Thomas Jefferson is so much more interesting: his penchant for petty
behavior
and his addiction to Sally Hemmings make him a much more intriguing
hero than
George. Only someone so simplistic as to
like Superman better than Batman could ever prefer George to Thomas. The pity is that Douglas MacArthur was such a
ripe fruit waiting to be plucked: we
like seeing his remarkable accomplishments, but, please, show us his
dark side
as well.
Monday, October 27,
2008
What is going on with
the price of gas? When I got to Virginia
in late September, gas was selling for about $3.70 per gallon. Now when I check out the prices I see that it
has dropped to around $2.40. This rather
undermines the widely held notion that a shortage of refining capacity
was
causing an excess of demand over supply, does it not?
As far as I am aware, no new refineries have
recently come on line or dramatically upped their productive capacity. One might argue that the high prices have
greatly suppressed the demand for the product and that this is the
reason for
the decline in prices, but such an argument is not persuasive since the
sudden
surge in prices that happened last year was too abrupt to be accounted
for by expanding
world demand—admittedly growing, but only at a steady pace and not in a
manner
resembling quantum packets. No, the
price of gas must be tied to less rational forces, such things as
uninformed
perceptions regarding the availability of the product or manipulations
of the
market by big players.
These are the
thoughts going through my mind as I take gas at a marina over on the
Portsmouth
side of the estuary. From here, the
estuary narrows down and wriggles southward for a half dozen miles
before a
turn off to the right leads into the Dismal Swamp.
The passage through the swamp itself is along
a shallow, straight cut that runs for roughly twenty miles and connects
a small
tributary creek of the Norfolk estuary with the headwaters of the
Pasquotank
River. The estuary that is straddled by
Norfolk and Portsmouth is actually the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth
River.
In this region,
rivers are not exactly what you might think. The
Elizabeth River, for example is nothing but a
very small creek that
originates about ten miles inland and runs no more than two or three
miles
before flaring out to become its own brackish estuary. Not
just any old estuary but a great humungous
one, big enough to be the home port for America’s mighty navy. The Elizabeth River is not exceptional in
this regard; here in this coastal lowland where post-Pleistocene sea
levels
have been rising relative to the land, lots of insignificant creeks
perform a
similar miracle.
When I go to the
marina office to pay for the gas, I learn from the man behind the cash
register
that Deep Creek Lock, the entrance for the Dismal Swamp Canal, only
opens a few
times each day and that the next scheduled opening is at 1:30 pm, which
is
about an hour from now. Ten miles lie
between us and the lock, so as soon as Kobuk works her way far enough
up the
estuary to escape from the “No Wake” zone, we shift over to the Mazda
and fly
along on a sinuous slick of calm water. There
is actually a strong and blustery wind about,
but here the waterway
is too narrow for any chop to build. We
arrive precisely at the appointed hour and line ourselves up behind the
half
dozen boats already waiting to enter Deep Creek Lock.
This is
exciting. Here I am in the lock with two
sailboat singlehanders and also a fellow on a Nordic Tug who is single
handing. Not only that, the sailboat
slightly forward of me and on the other side is a large Wharram
catamaran with
a woman on board who has no trouble getting us all into a round table
conversation as we stand on our decks handling the lines that secure us
to the
sides of the lock. It turns out that her
name is Ann. She and her husband Neville
built their boat in England and brought it across the Atlantic in order
to make
the seasonal migration up and down the east coast.
She asks me about Kobuk and compliments me on
her looks, and when I reply that I am fascinated by her boat because I
once
built a Wharram cat, she encourages me to stay here by the lock tonight
and
take a look through their craft. This is
an offer I cannot refuse, and once through the lock make way to the
spacious
(and free) public dock no more than a hundred yards distant.
Deep Creek
Lock:
36* 44.761’ N / 76*
20.457’ W
Distance:
11 miles
Total
Distance:
7,202 miles
Tuesday, October
28, 2008
A Wharram cat!
This is it for me. So
far on this trip I have been faithful to Kobuk, but the temptation of a
Wharram catamaran is a real test of my
fidelity. Of course it is not rational,
but infidelity
often isn’t. I already have a boat and a
plan, and we have proven ourselves to be compatible.
I am delighted with this voyage and I think
Kobuk is pretty much the ideal
companion. So
what am I doing lusting after a different boat?
Well, a Wharram cat
is special. A Wharram cat is what got my
juices flowing in the first place. I was
set to build one that I could live on and use to sail
around the world. I let practical affairs
get in the way and
even though I built a smaller Wharram cat and used her to learn to
sail, I
never carried through with the plan to build a bigger one.
I never got to the global cruising. Kobuk and this trip are a mutant
manifestation of that original dream, but seeing real people on a real
Wharram
cat, doing what I had originally had in mind—well, it tempts me to park
Kobuk
and start work on a new boatbuilding project.
After I tied off
yesterday afternoon, Ann and Neville invited me aboard for a tour of
their
boat, and then encouraged me to stick around for dinner as well. The two of them were the first to have
constructed this particular Wharram design and so naturally they know
all about
what to do and what not to do when building a Wharram.
They also are experienced sailors: they have
put over 35,000 miles on Peace IV and
can talk authoritatively about how she sails. Their
enthusiasm was palpable, and I just couldn’t
help myself—I wanted
to build another one of these things.
It turns out that Ann
and Neville sell plans for Wharram designs. When
Ann saw how hot I was to build one, she tried
to discourage me,
pointing out that at my age I might be better served to buy a used one
and spend
more of my (remaining) time sailing. This
was excellent advice but of course I couldn’t
yet take it to
heart. I wanted to build.
She made another logical appeal. She
reminded me that I already have a
marvelous boat and an exciting plan, and that there is no good reason
to
“change horses in midstream.” I respected
her arguments, but she could see that they weren’t making much headway,
so
finally she had little choice but to recommend what she thought would
be the
most appropriate design. In the end, we
resolved together that a Tiki 30’ would best fit my needs.
It is the smallest reasonable design for world
cruising and has lines so sweet as to keep me awake at night.
So now today I am
staying here at the dock next to Deep Creek Lock. It
is cold and rainy, but the real reason for
staying put is to keep myself close to the Wharram dream for just a
little
longer. It happens that Ann and Neville
know the lockmaster here, a good hearted man named Robert who makes it
a habit
to prepare coffee and provide breakfast for all the boaters tied up
overnight. As you can imagine, all the old
hands know
Robert and look eagerly forward to seeing him again when they pass his
way. Evidently, Ann and Neville have a
sort of arrangement with Robert that whenever they come through Deep
Creek Lock
they will assume the morning cooking duties and prepare rum &
raisin
pancakes for everybody. Thus it is that
I attend a sort of breakfast party—and even end up getting to cook
pancakes as
well as eat them.
The day passes
quickly. I get to know others along the
dock and for the first time I feel as if I am part of a grand shared
adventure. All these people are headed
south—off to the Bahamas, for the most part—and they all are buzzed by
the
excitement of what they are doing. None,
it seems, is so wealthy as to take it all for granted.
People socialize with an abandon I haven’t
seen since the sixties. Nobody is very
young, however, so the hippie formula of sex, drugs, and rock and roll
is not pursued
with the vigor of that bygone era.
Wednesday, October
29, 2008
The frost is on the
pumpkin. Sleep last night was
occasionally interrupted by a draft of frigid air sneaking in under the
hem of
the sleeping bag. I have been using it
as a duvet because of the misguided presumption that I am too far south
to need a body bag. Robert’s morning
coffee helps to get the chill out, but there is now little doubt that I
have
underestimated the potential for cold weather in coastal Dixie. My cold weather gear is limited so today I
plan to transit the canal with all curtains zipped on and the cabin top
dogged
down.
lans on
wintering in Florida). Pretty much all
his possessions are now “on board,” so he has successfully fitted his
life into
a nifty little powerboat that keeps him on the move.
We decide to follow each other down
through
the Dismal Swamp Canal.
The canal is rifle
bore straight, except for a single abrupt bend of about thirty degrees
part way
along its course. Because the waters
associated with Chesapeake Bay have a different tidal regime than those
in the
Pasquotank’s Albemarle Sound, the Dismal Swamp Canal has a lock at each
end,
making it possible to pass along a waterway that has no current (and
also, I
suppose, elevating the water level a foot or two in order to diminish
the
amount of excavation that had to be done during construction).
There is no swamp
here. It must be off to the right since
the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge occupies a large chunk
of
territory that terminates here on the west bank of the canal. But really, all I ever see during the passage
along the canal is tall trees hanging out over the low banks. It is a lovely passage down a bowered
waterway, but nothing do I see of swampiness. Every
once in a while an excavated channel joins the
canal at a right
angle from the Dismal Swamp side, but these do little more than
accentuate the
fact that the interstices are high and dry.
I have been thinking
of stopping at the Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center just long enough
to see
what it is all about, but when Kobuk
approaches the dock, the jet drive
clogs
with debris. I get Kobuk to slide over
to the bank of the canal, past the mooring dock, and then attach her to
shore
with an anchor and a line to a post. The
required swim for clearing the jet drive grating cools my ardor for
carrying on
today, so instead Fred and I take a short ride into South Mills on our
bicycles.
Dismal Swamp Welcome
Center, NC: 36* 30.339’ N /
76*
21.318’ W
Distance:
17 miles
Total
Distance:
7,219 miles
Thursday, October
30,
2008
There is good reason
to get an early start today. South Mills
Lock is located only a few miles farther along and like Deep Creek Lock
at the
other end of the canal it only opens four times a day.
The first opening is at 8:30 am, so boats
from here hoping to pass through need to depart around 7:30. I am up well before that, in the gray light
of early morning, and start to organize for an early departure. When I unzip the canvas and step out onto the
side deck, however, my foot slips off and I find myself straddling the
carling. It is a very cold morning, but
only now do I realize that not just the windows but the entire topsides
are
reamed in ice—not frost but a thin layer of ice.
It is impossible to stand
anywhere on the exterior topsides, and this greatly slows
the process of preparing for departure. By the time the stern
anchor and the forward mooring line are
retrieved, we are a good ten minutes
behind all
the other boats. Well,
ten minutes tardiness
should be easy enough to make up. But wait, as I power Kobuk away from
shore
the jet drive fouls once again. This
means we will have to travel at a slower pace than all the other boats
and that
sooner or later I am going to have to take another swim. The
morning
frost is so thick that nothing can be seen through the windows.
As a
result, I have to contemplate the frigid prospect of clearing the
jet
drive while steering along the canal with the cabin top open and
a
cold breeze blowing.
I decide to motor
down to the lock, chasing after everybody else, and then tie off to do
the
dirty deed. Immediately before the lock
there is a low bridge and then after that a long wall to which boats
can tie
when the lock is not open. The lock
keeper first opens the bridge to let waiting boats through. Then he closes it and drives down to the lock
to open its gate for the boats to enter. I
figure Kobuk and I will be
too late to get past
the bridge to the
tie-up wall, but the lock keeper sees us in the distance and keeps the
bridge
open as Kobuk putts along at
her six miles per hour. Meanwhile, the
entire town of South Mills
appears to be waiting for the bridge to close. I
feel anxious, but carry on and then sidle up to
the long wall. It is now 8:30, but I think
I’ll postpone
locking through until the next opening at 11:00. That
way, the sun will have a chance to melt
the ice off Kobuk before I do
the obligatory swim.
This is one of those
times when things go right. I wander off
to have breakfast on this frosty morning and by the time I return the
sun has
swept the deck clean. Then, before
getting in the water I start the Mazda to see how badly the jet intake
is
clogged, only to discover that in fact it now works fine.
Whatever was up in there must have
dropped
away when the hull stood still for a while. No
swim!
Now in a much better
state of mind, and with the thermometer on the rise, we lock through,
make the
passage along Turner’s Cut, and snake on down the
Pasquotank River. All the way to Elizabeth
City the river banks
are crowded with undersized deciduous trees with a thinning palate of
pastel autumn leaves. Many trees along the
banks are
actually in the water and have wet blackened bases from which the roots
splay. A following breeze occasionally
ripples the
narrow estuary which has water the dark blue color of the deeps. The day is sunny and clear, but the blue and
yellow of the sky are upstaged by the striking tints of the trees and
water down below.
When Kobuk rounds the
last turn before Elizabeth City, there are a few boats already waiting
for a
bridge to rise so that they can get to the free downtown docks for
which this
town is so famous. Just as we approach
the other boats and have to throttle back, the bridge lifts and we all
troop
through. Everyone is scrambling to find
a vacant slip, of course, but for Kobuk
there is no problem because
Fred and
his friend Steve (who is mayor of the city) are there waving to us and
motioning us
in to a
narrow slot between some pilings. I make
a mess of the "landing," but eventually manage to loop lines around the
four pilings to which Kobuk
must be secured. I needn’t have worried
about finding a slip—this one
is too narrow for
most boats hereabouts.
Elizabeth
City:
36* 17.929 N / 76*
13.100’ W
Distance:
23 miles
Total
Distance:
7,242 miles
Friday, October 31, 2001
Elizabeth City has turned its attention to the boaters who pass by here in such numbers. The downtown is close to the waterfront but the surge of recent commercial development has swept out along the main highway leading in and out of town. In an effort to keep the old city viable, there has been a real effort to cater to the boaters. Here are some examples. Over a dozen slips have been created out from the waterside city park, and they are free to any passing boater on a first-come, first-served basis. If three or more boats arrive on a given day to tie off overnight, the city organizes a 4:30 pm wine and cheese party to which all new arrivers are invited. At this social event, the mayor appears and briefs everyone on what the town has to offer. He touches on most everything a boater would be interested in--things like grocery stores, laundry facilities, restaurants, museums, and hardware supplies. He solicits questions from everybody present and answers the questions with what appears to be upbeat frankness. I do not know if all this is the brainchild of Steve, the current mayor, but in any event it mightily pleases the boaters who not only get to know each other but also learn how to get their shoreside tasks done quickly and easily. (And of course the free party immediately puts them
in
high spirits.) I doubt there will ever be any going back: this
established arrangement is so pleasing to the boaters that they seem to
immediately fan out around town to take
advantage of all the things
they have just been told about. Grocery shopping happens to be
inconveniently distant from the waterfront, so an arrangement has been
made with one grocery store to provide a car and driver to anybody
who
wants to shop there. There is no minimum purchase required.
In addition to all these concrete ways of catering to the boaters,
there is a community pride associated with being hospitable.
Numerous people go out of their way to help the boaters and the
result is a surprisingly healthy relationship between the visitors and
the locals.I have spent a lot of time around places that have come to specialize in the visitor industry, and in virtually all of them there tends to develop a certain friction between the locals and the visitors--a friction whose roots can be traced to the inequality of the relationship. When outsiders with money come to town and locals needing money cater to them, it is almost impossible for there not to emerge a certain low-grade resentment on the part of the locals. Once the resentment becomes sufficiently obvious, the visitors begin to resent it and then return the feeling in kind. By this time, the place is such a well-established visitor destination that the travelers are too brainwashed to go elsewhere (unless things are really bad) and the locals are too dependent to reasonably contemplate shifting the economic base of the town. It is a poison chalice of sorts: at first it is intoxicating but eventually it proves to be outright toxic.
Elizabeth City is not anywhere near being a visitor destination of note. It is situated near the south end of the Dismal Swamp Canal and all transiting boaters pass by, but the Dismal Swamp Canal is actually an alternative side route of the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) that only boats with relatively shallow draft can negotiate. This has an interesting consequence: the filthy rich don't make it here much, only those voyaging on boats drawing a mere five feet or less. There are lots of pretty handsome boats out there that can cope with water this thin, but the mega-yachts can't--the ones measuring, say, 50+ feet. The result is a crowd of boaters who, although generally much better off than the average American, are not so rich that they are desperately searching for ways to dispose of their rapidly acruing wealth. The boaters arriving in Elizabeth City are people on a budget--granted the budget may be quite handsome but it is a budget nonetheless. All this makes the gulf between the visitors and the locals rather less extreme than might otherwise be the case, and there is a good chance the situation will not change in the near future. Perhaps this means Elizabeth City will not succumb to the usual forces operating in a destination resort. I wouldn't count on it, though.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
The wind and the cold are gone. Starting yesterday, the cold temperatures ameliorated, as well as the strong breezes. This is an issue since immediately south of here is Albemarle Sound where, according to virtually anybody with experience, wave action often is vicious. When you are inexperienced, it is hard to judge the accuracy of such reports, but there really is no sensible alternative to taking them seriously. In any event, today would be a perfect day to cross the sound. Yesterday would have
been too.
Since the
forecast is for equally benign conditions tomorrow, I have decided to
put off departure
until then. In the morning there is a farmers market here in the park next to Kobuk. It is an eclectic mix of crafts and garden produce and baked goods, each seller operating in the shade of a small, white, canvas pavilion. The fire department has its truck close by at the ready and a light but steady stream of shoppers passes through looking at everything being offered. It is not a huge attraction, but the scale of each separate seller is sufficiently small that many do what must for them be a respectable amount of business.
So often, the life of a boater is reduced to mundane practicalities once shorebound. Today I must do some of those practical things--laundry, haircut, Internet work. All goes well, and uneventfully, although the time at the barber's ends up being a little out of the ordinary. I find a barber shop in the part of town where only Blacks seem to live. It is called Keystone Barbers, and so when I walk in the scene is very much different from what I am used to. It is different first because everybody in the place is well-dressed and well-groomed. In fact, the Black men and boys who come here to have haircuts appear to me to be already so well trimmed that I would expect them to be exiting, not entering. The barber shops I am used to have the kind of group interaction one might expect in a dentist's office, but here everybody seems to know somebody else in the room and people who don't know each other seem to make a point of greeting the strangers as well as the friends. It is a much more socially engaging place than I am used to. I also get the feeling that most of the people here are completely removed from all that goes on along the waterfront. It is as if this neighborhood, only about four blocks removed from Kobuk, is an entirely different world from the one in which Kobuk is now residing.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
When the wind is down and a broad sweep of water lies mottled under a kindly sky, the surface ripples on a bay seem to creep and crawl in contrary directions, moving at a slow walz pace. This is what it is like in the morning when Fred Beechler and I depart from Elizabeth City and head down the last few miles of the Elizabeth River estuary. Here near the mouth of the estuary, the opposing banks of low lying land are drawn apart from each other to leave a channel that is a couple miles wide. North Star has started off ahead and Kobuk is trailing some distance behind. Fred pilots his boat at a slower pace than most ICW cruisers, but when his Cummings diesel is set at a thousand rpm's--his preferred operating level for long distance cruising--North Star slides along at a slightly faster pace than Kobuk under Yamaha power. The black silhouette of North Star slowly shrinks as a half-hour, and then an hour, and then an hour and a half, slip by. The still conditions are like a hypnotic spell, interrupted occasionally by a passing cruiser trailing a wake.
As we approach the mouth of the Elizabeth to enter Albemarle Sound, I decide to run on ahead of Fred using the Mazda. Conditions are calm now, but there is never a guarantee that they will stay that way. I'll get ahead now and he can catch up later. Kobuk gradually gets up to speed and drops her nose. Then we fly along with the gentle porposing that happens sometimes when Kobuk is carrying speed.
When you exit the Elizabeth River heading south, it takes about a dozen miles to cross Albemarle Sound and reach the broad mouth of the Alligator River. The Albemarle is where wind and shallow water so often hex the passage of small boats, but today is not like those many other days and we are able to carry on quickly for a few miles until it looks as if we have the right amount of head start on North Star. Once back on Yamaha time, the retreating shore recedes at an impreceptible rate and the far shore off the bow seems immobilized in time. Slow and steady, slow and steady the time and miles tick away until at last we are weaving around the extensive shallows at the broad mouth of the Alligator River. there in the distance is the two mile bridge over the estuary, but Fred and I have decided to anchor in East Lake, a turtle shaped inlet off to port. North Star has caught up to Kobuk now, so together we pass through the narrows that afford access and motor across to the far east end of the lake. There Fred anchors in mid-afternoon and I ferry him and his bicycle to shore.
There is a tiny inlet and boat ramp at the eastern extremity of the lake, and we find in there a place to tie Kobuk out of traffic's way--with bow tethered to a post near the launch ramp and stern tied to a bush on the other side of a small drainage ditch. Kobuk rests straddling the ditch and we go off for a bicycle ride. I have ideas about pedaling over to Roanoke Island which appears on a road map to be only a few miles distant, but the afternoon is getting on, sunset will arrive early (clocks were set back last night), and the distance proves to be rather more than either of us cares to cover. We reach the bridge that crosses to Roanoke and off on its southern side is a small and isolated fishing port with a lack of activity but with a fellow sitting there on the tailgate of his pickup. He turns out to be a state employee who does nothing more than drive around from place to place to weigh and measure the fish that people catch. He is mighty pleased with his job since it entails limited hours and requires no significant exertion on his part. He claims that there is only a handful of men along the coast of the state doing what he is doing, and that the job is so desirable that hardly ever does anyone quit and a position come available. He does recall, however, an employee who was caught making up his numbers. There happened to be a supervisor check at a site where he claimed to have been doing his measurements. Naturally, he was fired and a slot opened up. Sometimes it seems as if the less demanding a job the more likely it is that employees will cheat it. A fishing boat appears in the boat channel so the talkative North Carolinian eases himself off the tailgate and prepares to go to work.
As the sun is setting, we get back to the boat ramp and motor out to North Star. Kobuk is rafted onto one side and in the reds and purples of a dying day we each retreat to our separate quarters.. The landscape hereabouts is a ragged, bedraggled wilderness, flatlands on which a mixture of marsh grasses and scrubby trees stand in disarray. It is not ugly because it has the quality of a true wilderness, but neither is it particularly inviting. Now with darkness coming on, however, the blackened shorelines look pretty good since throughout a full 360 degrees there is not a light to be seen.
East Lake: 35* 55.619' N / 75* 49.398' W
Distance: 43 miles
Total Distance: 7,285 miles
Monday, November 3, 2008
In gray light we set off, headed for the Alligator River and the Pungo Canal. Once out of East Lake, it is only a few miles farther on to the long bridge. It is opening when Kobuk arrives so we join the parade and pass through at the end of the line. Now for the first time, we are in a buoyed section of the ICW and the first thing that strikes me is the traffic. Here we are in an area that is devoid of towns and that has virtually no development along the shores--and yet the traffic here on the water is remarkably steady. Kobuk was the last to pass through when the bridge last opened, and now all those other boats are gradually pulling farther and farther ahead. No more than half an hour passes and the bridge opens again and another small fleet of vessels makes the transit. I can see them in the distance a few miles back, but the fastest of them catch us in very little time while the slowest do so only after a couple hours have lapsed. Pretty much everybody catches up and passes sooner or later, though, and by the time a couple hours have passed the surges of traffic associated with the periodic bridge openings has smoothed itself out into a steady stream. After that, we are overtaken with terrible regularity. Some of the vessels passing by are large luxury yachts that cruise at twice the speed of Kobuk, but there are also numerous craft that travel only slightly faster than we do and thus creep up on us, creep by, and then creep on ahead.
It is a curious sensation this voyaging down the ICW. Everybody is going in the same direction--south for the winter. The traffic coming toward us is virtually nonexistent, but the flow of which we are a part is so constant that there is almost no time all day long when Kobuk and I do not have at least one boat in view, either approaching from the rear or moving on ahead. Fred is ahead in his Nordic Tug, but his pace is more or less the same as ours and so the gulf between remains more or less constant hour after hour. All this is going on in what is really a wilderness area. I suppose this will be the normal pattern for the next 700 miles--although the combination of our slow speed and the lateness of the migratory season may mean that in another week or two we will be more on our own.
It takes half a day to get up the Alligator River estuary and then another half day to transit the Pungo Canal. Both are admirably wide so the tenuous stream of passing traffic need do little more than move over a bit to pass us by. The Dismal Swamp Canal was so narrow that passing was considered to be unacceptable behavior, but down here nobody thinks twice about it. Of course there is lots of radio chatter. Whenever a boat is about to overtake another one, the person operating the radio will "request permission" to make the pass and the boat about to be overtaken will graciously grant the request. More often than not, some discussion then takes place regarding speed, wakes, and the like, and then a final set of exchanges occurs in which each boat wishes the other a successful voyage. It is all initiated in the formal radio jargon: "Nice Butt, Nice Butt, Nice Butt, this is Aces Wild coming up behind you on the starboard side. We'd like to pass you on . . ." and so on and so forth, with plenty of "Roger" this and "Roger" that.
Even though I hear so many radio exchanges of this sort, nobody ever seems to make this kind of request before passing Kobuk. It is as if our small size makes such formalities unnecessary. I do indeed view them as unnecessary, but one would think that they would be even more appropriate when passing a smaller boat than when passing a bigger one. It is not a question of yachts thinking that Kobuk lacks a radio; our antenna is much more obvious than it is on most other boats because for us it is the only thing that sticks up higher than the cabin. It must sound as if I am miffed at being snubbed but in fact I am grateful to not have to use the radio. It just seems puzzling that Kobuk is never called, that's all. Of course, callers may be deterred by the fact that Kobuk no longer carries her name anywhere on the hull. Maybe nobody knows how to page us.
By the time we exit the Pungo Canal, the day is fading. Fred knows of a good embayment off to the right once out of the canal and so we decide to spend the night there. The bay is moderately large but already there are a half dozen boats anchored. Fred drops the hook out some distance from shore since all the earlier arrivers have taken the space closer in, but I am able to push Kobuk up closer to land than any other boat dare go. We find a small indentation into the flat, grassy shoreline that is semicircular in shape and not much more than a hundred yard in diameter. I drop anchor in four feet of water and let out a hundred feet of rode. We have our own separate bay, it seems. The NOAA forecast warns of rising winds out of the northeast during the night, with rain likely, so properly setting the anchor is more of a concern than usual.
Pungo River: 35* 33.642' N / 76* 28.065' W
Distance: 55 miles
Total Distance: 7,340 miles
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Running down the Pungo on heavy weather day. The wind is behind us so there's no struggle involved, but the ten short miles to Belhaven open up an ever increasing fetch behind us and the chop becomes more pronounced with each passing mile. By the time we approach the breakwater guarding the entrance into Belhaven's estuary, the dip and roll of Kobuk is a ride in an amusement park.
This downstream run on the Pungo estuary is an east-to-west shot, and then the Pungo turns sharp left to head southeast towards the Pamlico River estuary. There at that turn, the embayment in which Belhaven is located appears as nothing more than a continuation of the east-west reach of the Pungo. To get a little protection, Belhaven has constructed a two-pronged breakwater, extending out from both shores and angled outward to create a larger harbor. The problem is that the the two breakwater walls don't seem to be as effective as one would like. In fact, they look like nothing more than closely spaced posts with a railing running along the top of them. They do keep the wave action down, but on a day like this when the wind is beating at the door, there is more than a little harbor chop. Immediately inside the breakwater on the northern, Belhaven side, River Forest Marina has a few docks close up by the breakwater but through the binoculars the placidity of the waters on which these facilities are located look a little suspect. We continue on in, penetrating as far as the Belhaven downtown.
Fred and I communicate on VHF and resolve that he will anchor off while I look for a place along the shore to tie a small boat. There is in this vicinity a small grassy field with a dinghy dock fronting water, and immediately off to its right a narrow inlet leading into a little basin the approximate size of a football field. Heading into here, I find a place to tie Kobuk on a wall and we are in the prime location with near perfect protection. Even so, the strengthening wind is occasionally bouncing Kobuk off the large round pilings that hold back the wall. Kobuk's oak rubrails trump these softwood pilings and so the potential for hull damage is minimal. Such occasional collisions do not make for a good night's sleep, however, so I spend some time trying to rig fender protection.
Belhaven had a couple inches of rain last night and there have been consequences. Along one side of our small basin a stretch of grassy terrain slopes down into the water, below which is a breakwater wall with cleats on it. I had thought of beaching Kobuk on that grassy ground. It's a good thing I didn't. One block away, at the intersection of this inlet with the main street of the town, an intersection is flooded. I discovered this when cruising around on Bike Friday to get some idea of what is here. The excursion also revealed a fund-raiser lunch--a seven dollar bag lunch that contained two large chicken legs, a great mound of shredded chicken meat with some extraordinarily flavorful spice mixed in, a handsome serving of cole slaw, as well as other odds and bits. I took it all back to Kobuk and with the curtains all zipped on to keep out the cold wind and occasional rain, proceeded to eat it all and then go catatonic.
Belhaven Dinghy Dock Basin: 35* 32.216' N / 76* 37.319' W
Distance: 12 miles
Total Distance: 7,352 miles
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Not until this morning did I discover the outcome of the presidential election. It is an historic event for America, it seems, one that at least has the potential to ameliorate our most debilitating domestic problem. For over 230 years, our country has been plagued by the enormous gulf between the idea of equality and the reality of inequality. The de facto segregation between Blacks and Whites in this country is too profound for us to reasonably expect that the election of a Black president will be sufficient to resolve something so longstanding and deep rooted. Blacks and Whites have always lived in two different geographic worlds--different neighborhoods, different schools, different churches, different social centers. This territorial partition has been the American "Iron Curtain" and just as with the Churchillian one it has encouraged negative attitudes about what lies on the other side.
The election of a president who is viewed by all as being Black may accelerate the process of desegregation. It is a process already under way, but it has been moving at such a glacially slow pace that the polar ice cap might well be gone before Blacks and Whites are one. I doubt there is much in the way of policy or executive action that any president could do to realize rapid desegregation, but the one real power of the president is, as Teddy Roosevelt called it, "the bully pulpet." Whatever his faults, Mr. Obama is one of the most articulate, thoughtful, and effective public speakers I have ever heard. If he can appeal to the natural goodness of most Americans, he might be the person who can persuade this country that a racially divided polity is not just disfunctional but downright morally wrong.
Of course, presidents are at the mercy of events and the great presidents are often, from my point of view, little more than the lucky ones whose particular personal strengths happened to have been just the right ones to meet the challenges that arose during their terms of office. Would Churchill have been so great, for example, if his major challenge had been the Great Depression? Possibly, but I suspect not. Of course, some individuals are endowed with a broader array of useful virtues than others and thus might be expected to perform better in a wider array of circumstances. This is undeniable. But if circumstances permit our country to pay attention to its most serious internal problem--that of racial schism--then Barak Obama at least has one trait that could serve him well: Blackness. For centuries, Blacks have been the disadvantaged group in American society and being a member of that group--even a relatively advantaged member--almost certainly develops a useful set of sensitivities and awarenesses. Now that we have a Black president, let us focus our energies on bridging the racial divide.
God forbid there are distractions. Another attack like 9/11, for example, could direct us towards a different sort of challenge--a sort, incidentally, that even some of Obama's staunchest supporters might ruefully admit could benefit from some of John McCain's strengths.
The racial problem as I see it cannot be vanquished as long as segregation of the two groups is the norm. I doubt that many people think this way. The usual view is that the problem requires a realignment of attitudes and values--an acceptance of the notion that both groups have equal rights before the law. Advocates claim that an attitudinal change of this sort would break down the walls of segregation and cause the sort of inexorable acculturation as has occurred for so many of the ethnic groups that arrived the United States during the past couple centuries. But if it has happened for those other groups why hasn't it already happened for Blacks? Whatever the cause, I think the fact that Blacks and Whites always have lived, and even now continue to live, in separate geographic worlds makes it ever so hard for either group to view the United States as one world.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Foul weather has blanketed this entire region and is not expected to depart until tomorrow. Neither Fred nor I have any desire to move on with wind and waves of this sort, so the day is spent roaming the streets of Belhaven and doing the things that get neglected while cruising.
Fred is a deceptive individual--as, I suppose, are many people. When I first met him, it was back at the entrance to the Dismal Swamp when both he and I ended up spending a few hours on Neville and Ann's Wharram cat. We were being more or less entertained by the two of them, but especially by Ann who finds talk to be the a sort of aphrodesiac. Ann held forth on most any topic that might arise while Fred and I sat by and listened. I was of course intrigued by much of what Ann had to say because she was spending much of her time talking about the construction of their boat. Fred did not have the same level of interest in the topic as I did, but he was flawlessly attentive to everything that was said and he always gave the impression that he was interested in both the people and the topic. He was, in short, perfectly polite.
Since then, I have gotten to know Fred much better. He impresses me as being a sort of model single-hander--cautious, attentive to detail, capable of functioning effectively irrespective of whether anyone is watching. He has reached retirement age and lives full-time on his boat. The transition from land lubber to old salt required him to make a giant leap by selling his home and using a very significant portion of his life savings to buy a Nordic Tug. In spite of his caution, he knew what he wanted and made the move. It would be easy for strangers to dismiss him as an unassuming nobody, but in fact his life choice proves to me that he is exactly the opposite of that.
Fred worked for over 35 years as a mechanic for two different dealerships of the Ford Motor Company. Now he has moved into the retirement years without losing his desire to live a dream. He has become a seasoned salt-water migrant. This is his fourth trip south, his fourth voyage down the ICW for the winter. Everything about him suggests that he is content with the life he has chosen. What makes this especially obvious is his unflagging good humor and his ready susceptibility to uncontrolled laughter. He likes where he is and he likes what he is doing. I will say, though, that the routine is beginning to unsettle him. He likes it but I think he is beginning to look for something new. In particular, he has mentioned that it would be nice to cruise in some other warm climate region besides Florida and the Bahamas. He even noted the possibility of a trip to Central America. I jumped on this immediately and have been pressing him to consider going to Cuba, hopping over to the Yucatan, and heading south from there. Fred can see that I am not a very practical person so he shows little sign of buying into such a project at this point. I refuse to believe, however, that he can't be gotten to. Here is a man who spent decades motorcycling all over the United States and Canada. That kind of person has got to be vulnerable to some new, grand adventure like a voyage to the Mosquito Coast.
Friday, November 7, 2008
The badl weather is gone and it is time to get farther on south. Next up is the little town of Oriental, about 45 miles from of Belhaven. Kobuk and North Star nose out of harbor and slide down the last few miles of the Pungo Estuary to where it intersects the Pamlico. Gentle winds from abaft the beam give us a sweet and silent ride across the open waters and up into Goose Creek where the next leg of the ICW ditch runs through to the Bay River.
Along the banks of the broad canal, pines tower upward and shelter us from whatever winds might be blowing. An occasional slot in the forest permits a road that comes to the canal and stops dead, as if constructed for no other purpose than to afford access for shore fishermen. Today there are a few anglers at these access points,each one standing or sitting and as stationary as the scenery--pole in hand, line in the water. The fish aren't biting, as far as I can see, and this only adds to the unreal sense of timelessness.
Part way through this ICW cut, the little roadstead port of Hobucken lines the western bank. The aging wooden dock has tied to it a small fleet of commercial fishing boats, all of them looking exhausted and run down from many years of hard service out on the open ocean. With nobody in sight and nothing moving, the place has the abandoned look of a factory floor at lunch hour (well, maybe a factory floor a few decades ago before global competition forced continuous production). There are no pleasure boats here and all the facilities are tailored to the needs of working fishermen. Out in the canal, the yachts troop by. I imagine that on board each is someone like me staring at the scene and wondering whether Hobucken is on the verge of retirement.
A couple miles farther on, where the forest has drawn back and the flanks of the canal have turned to broad sweeps of marsh grass, I happen to notice the depth sounder on the GPS registering only 2.5 feet under the hull. Even before I can pull back on the throttle, the water depth begins to increase and within a few seconds it has returned to the normal range of 7-10 feet. Kobuk was only slightly to starboard of the middle of the channel when this happened, so either I received a faulty reading from the depth sounder or some unsuspecting yacht headed this way is going to be making a call to TowBoatUS.
When we come out of the canal the mouth of the Bay River estuary is in front of us, and then a large peninsula of land projecting eastward into Pamlico Sound. We curl around this and gradually head south by southwest to work our way up the Neuse Estuary. In a most uncharacteristic fashion, the wind cooperates by backing away from its easterly origins and coming from the north to help us on our way. In no time at all, Kobuk and North Star are running in past Oriental's breakwater.
The harbor is small and laden with boats, but just outside the marina is a space where Fred is able to anchor North Star. He finds a spot next to Peace IV so it seems we have caught up to Ann and Neville. I run Kobuk farther in to where the town dock is located and although it is already occupied with a Nordic Tug on one side and a large sailboat on the other, the dock extends out from a roadside seawall that has open space. The space is suitable only for dinghys, but that means Kobuk can use it. With only a foot of water under the hull, I tie her off in the heart of the village, with a coffee shop across the street, a marine supply store down at the corner, and a village pond with a wooden dragon in it on the other side of the road. We are shoulder to shoulder with a fish processing plant and to get up this narrow cut we had to pass a number of commercial fishing boats. We are at the center of all activity and it's a lively town.
Oriental Town Dock: 35* 01.500' N / 76* 41.758' W
Distance: 47 miles
Total Distance: 7,399 miles
.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Oriental is in a fortunate stage of life. Commercial fishing is still viable here, even as the seasonal boaters and the retirees are discovering the place. Money has been spent and the town looks spruce. It is not a large place--about a thousand residents, I'd say--but there is a surprising diversity nonetheless. The full array of marine services is available, of course, but so too are there a few bars and nice restaurants, coffee shops and specialty stores. There are not many of them, of course, but for such a small village to have even a few is quite remarkable.
I have heard from others that the coast of the Carolinas and Georgia is the only remaining stretch of the eastern seaboard where real estate can still be had at a reasonable price. As I see what is going on in Oriental, it seems clear that the buyers' market will not continue for much longer and that the towns like this will be the hot spots where the prices take off first. The current depression surely is delaying the process, but if the economy ever recovers then the land rush will be on in this part of the world.
Fred and I cycle around to do a little shopping and to see what there is to Oriental besides its waterfront. We happen across a boat ramp running into a small estuary a short distance
away
from the town
port and end up there for some time watching the action and talking
with people. In particular, there is a perfectly restored
mahogany inboard that a couple is sliding into the water for a little
afternoon cruising. It almost seems a pity to get her wet, but
after the baptism the couple carefully fends off from the dock
and brings to life her deep throated engine. Off she goes,
looking fast and classy--not extremely fast but fast enough for a boat
that prizes beauty above blue ribbons. Her nose shaves down
towards the light chop and as she accelerates she moves forward without
the usual squatting at the stern. Her bow slices through the
water with purpose, looking more like a destroyer than a
runabout. But, oh, that gleaming mahogany and that deep rumble
rolling out of the exhaust!After the departure of so elegant a vessel, we turn to see a beast of a different sort--here on dry ground is a fold-up trimaran sailboat sitting on her trailer waiting for launch. Her owner is more than happy to tell us all about her, and he lauds her virtues unabashedly. The connections between the main hull and the two outrigger ones are hinged so as to allow the three hulls to lie close up against each other while on the trailer. Once on the water with her outriggers extended, she has a beam of twenty feet. This is certainly not a pretty boat--and even less so when set in contrast to Miss Mahogany--but one would have to look for a long time to find a better example of diversity in the boating world.
Speaking of diversity, Fred and I end up having lunch in The Silos, a restaurant/bar located in a pair of galvanized metal silos Attached to each other at ground level by an enclosed passageway, the silos are two storys high and have the eating facilities on the second floor. Peanut shells litter the wooden floor and light is admitted limited entry via a couple small windows. The novelty would wear off quickly, but for beer and a sandwich it does just fine. On Friday and Saturday nights this is the place to be in Oriental. If you're going to eat dinner here you will have to have a reservation. As for the beer, I suspect that it tastes about the same as it would in any other bar you might enter.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
For me, the seas lie down. There can be no other explanation. Everybody, including Fred, has stories to tell about the brutish behavior of North Carolina bays and estuaries, but whenever I venture out the waters become a mill pond and the sun shines down. First it was the Albemarle, a long crossing that was done last Sunday when departing Elizabeth City. Boaters trade tales of woe about the terrors of the Albemarle, but when we crossed there was nothing but sweet sighs and gentle whispers. Then on departing from Belhaven it was necessary to cross the Pamlico, another notorious passage. All it did was wave demurely as we slipped by on Friday morning. And then later that same day after exiting the ICW canal and running out into the Pa
mlico sound we wore around to the
south-southwest and
headed up the Neuse Estuary. The Nasty Neuse, as some are wont to
call her, had no complaints when we ran up her mouth. Now, as we
leave behind the Oriental harbor, the open waters of the Neuse are a
magic carpet upon which we ride to far-shore safety as if floating on a
cloud. The Neuse is the last of the open water passages that must
be done in this region of eastern North Carolina where the ratio of
water to land is more or less fifty/fifty. People tell grisly
tales about struggling through each of the named stretches of open
water in this region, but we have crossed them all without ever seeing
a wave as big as that put up by a lightly loaded Boston Whaler.
It leaves one a little nervous, actually: the sea does not look kindly
on such unreasonable runs of good luck. At a different time and
in an unsuspected place the sea will take revenge for our having beaten
the house in a Vegas casino.But today it is nothing but fair weather cruising along channels that are lined with domesticated forests and elegant homes. The closer we get to Beaufort, the more refined become the landscapes. One may have a certain vision of rural landscapes in North Carolina, but if it includes any significant element of rusticity or disorder then it does not do justice to the outlying areas surrounding Beaufort. The piney glades look as if they have been managed by a European master forester and the homes nearly all seem fresh and new and perhaps even eligible for inclusion in a publication like Modern Living or Home and Garden.
This entire Inner Banks region of North Carolina has very flat lying land near sea level next to waterways that are subject to tidal ranges of just a few feet. If a sustained wind blows hard and strong from just the wrong direction, however, then flooding can be widespread along the thousands of miles of shoreline. As a result, a g
ood
percentage of all homes are built as raised platforms a few feet above
the ground. Usually, the construction is on a field of square
posts but sometimes it involves a concrete or
cinder block base.
In any event, for these houses the living starts a few feet above the
flat terrain. This has gotten people used to having an overlord
perspective. They view their
surroundings as if from a
tree-house, and the scenic advantages of such elevation has resulted in
a greater than usual number of porches and gazebos located high above
ground--sometimes as decks on the roofs of houses, sometimes as gazebos
suspended above boat docks.By early afternoon we have passed under the Beaufort Channel Bascule Bridge and rounded the bend that leads up into Taylor Creek. This is a spacious waterway separating the uninterrupted string of development that fronts the water in downtown Beaufort from the completely natural and undeveloped Carrot Island where wild horses roam. Because Beaufort has succumbed to the seductions of the visitor industry, the waterfront is a gay parade of upscale restaurants, spotlessly whitewashed homes, and one grand marina. On this rather windy day, the middle of the Taylor Creek channel is occupied by dozens of anchored boats, all hanging with their bows to the southwest. Fred runs up to the far end where the town is purely residential and anchors in a narrower slot of water, with Carrot Island only a stone's throw away. I spend an hour or so looking for a spot along Beaufort's shore where a small craft like Kobuk might tie off, but real estate here is too precious for that sort of nonsense and so I eventually opt to take a slip in the marina.
Beaufort Docks: 34* 43.002' N / 76* 39.963 W
Distance: 25 miles
Total Distance: 7,424 miles
Monday, November 10, 2008
Back in Virginia when Kobuk was being prepped for departure I discovered that the anode for the Yamaha would soon need to be replaced. Both then and many times thereafter I shopped unsuccessfully for this replacement anode. In spite of the large number of 9.9 horsepower Yamaha outboards that must be pushing dinghys everywhere from here to Australia, the Yamaha dealers claim that the specially shaped anode is rarely purchased and thus rarely stocked. I guess most of these little engines must be operated in the water for relatively few hours each year. Anyway, I've had a devil of a time finding the anode. Finally, up in Oriental the small West Marine store there tracked it down for me. A couple phone calls by the staff discovered that Moorhead Marine, about eight miles west of Beaufort, has two of them.
Beaufort Docks Marina, where Kobuk has a slip, owns a small fleet of 1970's Buick station wagons. There are at least three of these vehicles, all of them midnight blue with imitation wood trim and plush leather covered seats. Fred and I borrow one and head on over to Moorhead Marine to pick up the anodes. Such luxury, such a smooth ride--for the crew of a boat like Kobuk it is a level of comfort that surpasses all reason. Swiftly, silently, smoothly, we glide on over to Moorhead and do our shopping. Never mind that the electric window cranks do not always work. Never mind the splits in the leather. This is comfort with a capital C. With wheels like these, we hold onto the vehicle for as long as decently possible and make the rounds to a host of other stores. Finally, though, we have to return the car and settle back into our more common routines.
The appeal of Beaufort is its unswerving commitment to beautification and preservation. All the seemier sides of urban life appear to have been shunted away to Moorhead City, across the estuary a few miles to the West. There are few buildings here that look ungainly or disproportionately large. Architectural iconoclasm is rare. Not yet are there any condo highrises and so far the private PUD's have been kept away from the downtown. In spite of its, elongated and linear orientation paralleling Taylor Creek (a broad channel, really), the town has remained reasonably compact. It stands in pleasing contrast to the Outer Bank wildness of Carrot Island just across the way. Beaufort is a hive of human doing in a confined corner of Nature's preserve--at least that is the visual impression one gets.
The North Carolina coast has three major capes that jut their sandy headlands out into the Atlantic: Cape Hatteras, the largest and most notorious; Cape Lookout just a few miles southeast of here; and Cape Fear down near Wilmington. Although Hatteras is the one that rightfully receives the most attention as a hazard to navigation, the other two also boast impressive records as nautical graveyards. Fred and I consider running out to take a look at the Cape Lookout lighthouse and visitor's center, but before we know it the day was half over and with darkness descending at an early hour we decide to forgo the outing. Instead, I take Kobuk across the creek and throw the anchor ashore on Carrot Island so as to spend the night there. Fred comes over in his dinghy and we use the golden light of late afternoon to walk around the western end of the island. The wild horses are grazing in a marsh distant to the east, up to their haunches in tall grasses. The town of Beaufort is a glistening string of whitewashed buildings, occasionally visible between the junipers that are scattered around on the sandy soil--soil because it has been so vigorously fertilized by an incestuous band of wild horses.
Carrot Island: 34* 42.677' N / 76* 38.903' W
Distance: 1 mile
Total Distance: 7,425 miles
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
When you leave Beaufort to head south on the ICW, the first thing you have to do is cross the island-infested shoals of the Newport River Estuary. The route bends and twists to keep you in deep water, but the boat traffic here is plentiful and the buoyage is thorough so there is no problem finding your way. As we pass through in the early morning, crisp air and a stiff breeze give the feel of an autumnal coastal place a thousand miles farther north. As soon as we leave Taylor Creek, the sky becomes laden with sea gulls--many more than usual, hundreds of them dashing and darting with violent and frenzied unpredictablity. They are not purposefully jockeying for position as they normally do when trailing a fishing boat with dinner in mind. Besides, they are too numerous to be so confined to one small part of the sky. Their erratic behavior and seemingly preColumbian numbers makes their presence seem surreal and sinister. As quickly as they assembled, they dissolve and fade away, leaving one to wonder whether it really did happen.
A short time later dolphins surface, first out leading North Star and then off Kobuk's starboard bow. They have been a common sight ever since leaving Elizabeth City, but no matter how often you see them they continue to fascinate. Their backs and dorsal fins curl up out of the water with no sound and no effort. They make the water seem alive for it never gets displaced by their muscular torsos. Instead, the water parts for the dolphins like fine metal filings giving way to a magnetic field.
I have seen many faces of the natural world during my life, many divine faces so exquisite as to approach perfection. Whether it is the purple depths of the Grand Canyon or a golden sunrise over backlit Bora Bora or a haughty bull moose stepping out of an aspen forest or . . . any of a number of other such humbling sights--they all are perfect in their own way and cannot be improved on in any conceivable manner. And yet also have I seen remarkable works of art that have taken sights like these and captured some essential element of each one's perfection. The art does not outdo the original, but great art often pays tribute to it in a manner that somehow compliments the original. But so far I have not seen any work of art that fairly plumbs the mysterious essence of a dolphin. In short, dolphins defy description.
Beyond
Moorhead City, the Carolina
coast bends westward and the large sounds of open water that separate
the barrier islands of the Outer Banks from the mainland
disappear. Instead, a narrow strait runs endlessly behind them,
snaking all the way down the coast to the Keys off Florida. The
barrier islands retain their character: elongated slivers on which
grasses and dwarf trees struggle to stabilize the restless sands, low
lying windbreaks whose ocean face absorbs the thundering Atlantic even
as the leeward face fronts on a protected lagoon and enters into it
with marshes. Here in the lee, we motor along in relative
protection. For twenty miles, we follow the inland edge of Bogue
Sound, a stretch of open water that gradually swells to a couple
miles breadth but then just as gradually shrinks back down to become a
slender thread once again. It is more or less the last open sound
of any real significance; the coastal charts indicate that for the rest
of the way to Florida the ICW will be following the thread with no
significant open water crossings. Much of the time the ICW will
be nothing more than a buoyed channel in this narrow strait, but
considerable mileage also gets covered in excavated channels and in the
final few miles of rivers just before they reach the sea. Once
out of Bogue Sound, North Star
and Kobuk follow the slender
thread.By midafternoon we reach Mile Hammock Bay, a small indentation on the inland side of the ICW, one that looks natural but that also appears to have been engineered to have a straighter shoreline and deeper waters. With a half dozen other cruising boats, North Star and Kobuk come to hang by their anchors in this protected retreat. The cruisers' world is not the only one occupying the bay, however. One stretch of its shore has a long pier, a boat launching ramp beside it, and a mock ship of war nearby. Shuttling back and forth between these sites are three very large Zodiacs outfitted for battle and with marines aboard. The Zodiacs are painted in the blotches of greens and browns that afford camoflage and the marines are dressed to match. The three boats maneuver slowly from place to place. It is, I gather, a field exercise, a set of maneuvers being executed on the water. But the boats are moving around at such a slow pace that they appear almost to be drifting. There is no sound coming across the water, just American marines silently moving these inflatable craft from place to place at slow motion. There is no way to fathom the intent of these "war games," but that they are happening is to be expected, I suppose, since this particular section of the ICW runs along a stretch of the coast that belongs to Camp Lejeune.
Mile Hammock Bay: 34* 33.077' N / 77* 19.428' W
Distance: 45 miles
Total Distance: 7,470 miles
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The tidal regime in the ICW is beginning to make some sense. The ICW runs along behind the barrier islands and the islands provide protection from the vagaries of the open ocean, but tides are masters at operating behind enemy lines. There are inlets between the barrier islands, narrow cuts often no wider than a few hundred yards that separate one island from the next. As a rule, a barrier island is quite long, many miles long, but sooner or later it comes to an end where an inlet separates it from the next barrier island in the chain. The inlets usually form where a river from the interior intersects the coast. But the sea level waterway running behind the barrier islands complicates the dynamic because any arriving river first empties itself into there before driving through the inlet between barrier islands so as to reach the open sea. A flooding tide rushes through the inlet from the ocean and then strikes off in all three directions: up the river that caused the inlet and along the two side branches of the narrow waterway behind the barrier islands. As the tide ebbs, the water flowing out through the inlet sucks current out of those same three waterways. The barrier islands vary a lot in length; the inlets are irregularly spaced. Some inlets are much larger than others. Some parts of the ICW channel are shallower than other parts. Some of the rivers that intersect at the inlets are large and some are small. All these variables mean that it is hard to estimate the direction and strength of the current in the ICW at any given time and it is nearly impossible to figure out when the direction of flow will switch. The least stressful course of action is to ignore the question of tides and currents and just live with the fact that, if the odds don't play favorites, it will all net to zero in the end. On the other hand, with hours each day behind the helm with little to do but steer the boat and think about things, it is often fun to do mental calculations regarding when the current will be favorable or unfavorable. Usually, at least for me, the calculations are wrong, but that only stimulates a little additional thought about how to adjust the model used to make the projection.
In early afternoon, we turn right after a bridge and follow the channel that leads to a narrow strait lying on the back side of Wrightsville Beach. Fred anchors North Star and I tie off Kobuk at a public dinghy dock. This location is more or less ground zero for the surfers and sun worshipers who congregate here during the warm summer months. Now that it is November, the crowds are gone, but the businesses that cater to them still keep their doors open and pray for a miracle.
If you walk two blocks east from the dinghy dock, you arrive at the Atlantic. Wrightsville Beach is a broad, straight strand before which the Atlantic rollers slowly heave themselves up before finally curling forward and breaking a small distance out from shore. Today, and I suppose most days, the waves come in at a slightly glancing angle so that short stretches of each breaking wave roll along parallel to the beach for a while. This is where the surfers are, and even now in cool November they ride the waves. They all have full body wetsuits and when they come ashore they peel them off down to the waist and frequent the coffee shops and restaurants bare chested and black tailed.
The skies are still clear, but the wind is starting to strengthen from the south. The weather forecast does not offer good news. The next three days are supposed to be filled with heavy rains and strong south winds. It happens that the upcoming section of the ICW includes a dozen or more miles running south on the Cape Fear River. In south winds this would be most uncomfortable so it looks as if we might not be going anywhere until Sunday when the dirty weather is expected to begin clearing out. But then there's the bright side of things. Fred has friends who live near here and they have invited us to dinner.
Their names are George and Beth Cameron and they do things in ways that I like. George has a large powerboat on which the two of them have cruised to the Bahamas and back, but now that they are more or less planted in the Wrightsville Beach area, George lives on the boat in a marina and Beth lives in a rented home. They treat each other with more respect than I usually see between two married people and according to Beth they have an ironclad rule that neither will call the other before nine in the morning. How cool is that?
Wrightsville Beach Dinghy Dock: 34* 12.509' N / 77* 47.814' W
Distance: 40 miles
Total Distance: 7,510
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Things have begun to settle down and the skies have cleared at last. The wind is shifting to the west and that should make manageable our passage down the Cape Fear River. To get there, we run down about ten miles of the ICW to a location where the harbor of Carolina Beach stands off the port bow and Snows Cut running over to the Cape Fear River lies directly off the starboard beam. We will not be stopping at Carolina Beach although Beth's admonitions about the place certainly piqued my interest. Yesterday, Fred and I discussed the possibility of running down this far to spend the night so as to be well positioned for an early morning transit of the Cape Fear River (conditionns usually are calmer at dawn). When Beth got wind of this she cautioned us about those Carolina Beach women. They are, she claimed, wild and highly demanding, and especially if they have tattoos. I was never sure whether she was discouraging--or encouraging--us to make a stop there. Beth's words made my mind conjure a rustic and ramshackle place, but that of course turned out to be completely off the mark. As we approached the outskirts of the town, there was a string of mansions on landscaped estates. For opulence and ostentation, they definitely make the finals. Maybe the heart of the town is a little seedy, but I suspect not.
The winds are definitely out of the west now. Snows Cut has chop on the nose and when we pass out into the open breadth of the Cape Fear River the slop is even bigger. Almost immediately, however, we are able to bear off downstream and take the assault abaft. This particular downstream stretch of the Cape Fear River has a channel that breaks off from the main channel and runs for a few miles close up against the right bank. It would be nice to take it and get some protection from the westerly wind, but it is out-of-bounds for ordinary people. The military has a base there and later I learn that it is one of the country's largest ordinance depots.
Cape Fear itself is situated at the mouth of the river, a sandy spit extending out on the river's eastern side. Tucked a short distance in from the mouth, the river is broad and has on its western side a peninsula on which the town of Southport is located. To carry on in the ICW, one rounds that peninsula and heads along a channel that parallels the coastline, which now will be running east-west. One has the most surprising things about this section of the eastern seaboard (at least to a geographer) is the way in which it runs nearly as much east-west as it does north-south. Somehow, when you look at a map of the country this is not as obvious as it is for Maine and the rest of New England. But really, all the way from Cape Hatteras to Savannah--a distance of about 500 miles--the shoreline behaves this way.
We round up northward into the little gut that defines the Southport Harbor and tie off at floating docks located next to a restaurant that is closed for the season. Here we are greeted by two men who take our lines, give us cleating advice, tell us about their town, and offer us beer. One is clean-cut and young; the other is a lean, crusty slip of a man with a bushy black beard and narrow face. The bushy bearded one owns the large fishing boat tied off next to us--battered but sturdy--and carrys on a running commentary about his boat and his town. He is extremely hospitable in spite of his curmudgeonly manner. Among the things that we learn from him is the fact that we can stay overnight at these docks for free. Since the busy season is over and the restaurant to which the docks belong is closed, there will be no problem with spending the night.
An hour or two of cycling around the town of Southport reveals it to be a treasure chest of well-preserved old homes lining residential streets shaded by a virtual forest of live oak trees. Their elephantine trunks sustain massive branches that spread out horizontally for impossible distances. You can pedal down the middle of one of these streets, and the live oaks to either side will be holding hands only a short distance above your head. It is a display of graceful strength that rivals that of Chinese gymnasts on the rings.
The main street itself is not so remarkable, but it was made remarkable to us when we stopped at Spike's Dairy Bar for an ice cream (I almost bought a T-shirt). While we were enjoying our treats, two middle aged women parked and came up to the pass-through window. One of them, a short, vivaceous firecracker with light hair and sparkling eyes, simply could not restrain herself from talking to total strangers. It was nothing about Fred and me, I don't think, it was just her compulsion to communicate during every waking moment. In a very thick but decipherable (Brazilian) accent, she told us all about her miserable, no-good, dead husband and flirted continually with us in that unusual manner that conveys the sense that ". . . this is nothing personal; I just like to flirt."
Southport Harbor: 33* 54.965' W / 78* 01.388' W
Distance: 28 miles
Total Distance: 7,538 miles
Monday, November 17, 2008
After an early morning sortie to the town coffee shop, Fred and I pack up and cast off for points south. As we begin to undo our lines, Bushy Beard comes lurching out of his cabin and onto the dock, looking more like someone trying to collect unpaid dock fees than a friendly neighbor hoping to give a helping hand. But help is all that is on his mind and he seems almost crestfallen that the only thing left to handle is Kobuk's bowline: North Star is already on the water and I have already gotten Kobuk's stern line in. He tosses the bowline to me as I jump aboard, and then he waves and wishes us well and urges us to return to Southport.
No longer is there wind and rain to complicate our passages--it all cleared away yesterday afternoon and the weather forecast promises bright, still days through until the weekend. A high pressure cell has moved in but it must have come from far north in Canada. Last night the temperature dropped down to the thirties and the expectation is that it will get even colder in the next couple days. I keep Kobuk's curtains zipped on all the time these days and only when I want to take a photo or clearly see nearby hazards do I crack the cabin top and allow the frigid air to blow. In just a few seconds it sucks away the greenhouse warmth that so gradually builds when everything is battened.
Pretty much all of North Carolina's coastal zone is a warren of meandering river channels bounded by very low lying land. Along river channels, and even in many stretches of the ICW canal, the banks are swaths of marsh grass extending great distances back from the water. Pines and other trees stand beyond the marsh grass, presumably at the point where the land begins to rise a foot or two higher above high water. Much of the marsh grass exists on flat land that is only inches above normal high tides, but whenever there is a storm surge or a run of days with a consistent wind pushing the tides higher than usual, these marsh lands become flooded. This often has the potential to double or triple the breadth of the waterway. The waterway itself usually has extensive shallow zones with only a narrow winding causeway of deep water where a river channel is situated or a straight-running and dredged slot where engineers have positioned the ICW. In either event, what you see is not what you get since a large part of the open water is dangerously shallow for boating and all the flat tables of marsh grass are too susceptible to flooding for people to occupy them.
Much of this coastal region has no development visible from the water, but there are also many areas where homes line both shores for mile after mile. By necessity, those homes are set back from shore, sheltered under the trees. Even there, the threat of occasional flooding has persuaded many to build above ground level. Indeed, my understanding is that nowadays building codes generally require elevated living spaces and electrical wiring that is run at the top of the walls with projections down to outlets and switches.
For me, a most startling aspect of these waterfront developments is the way in which houses on shore gain access to the open water. Out across the marsh grass, often extending for well over a hundred yards, a wooden dock will extend. It continues on past the high water mark out to where the low water level leaves at least a few feet of depth. Only that way can one keep a boat in the water on a continuous basis. The docks are stupendously long and commonly built with posts that look like telephone poles that must be at least thirty feet long each. Ten to fifteen feet are driven into the ground; four or five feet elevate the dock above the marsh grass; four to six feet often are left standing above the level of the dock. These posts are driven in pairs, spaced at 6-8 foot intervals and then the dock is hung from them. As I said before, a dock 100 yards long is not unusual and that means around a hundred telephone poles had to be driven for its construction. This strikes me as a major project. After all, once the telephone poles have finally been set, there still remains the task of constructing a boardwalk that is at least four feet wide. Furthermore, most dock builders want to make good use of the final stretch of dock--the part that is out on the water--so they commonly build an inflated square end on the dock and put a second level about seven feet above the first. This is hot country in the summer time so that second level needs to have a roof on it to keep out the sun. Now it is time to build about a tenth of a mile of railings so that one can safely use the structure. Since most everyone who owns a home along the waterfront has paid a premium for it, the idea of not having a dock is almost inconceivable. Virtually every one has one, and this means that when you motor on by you see as many of these long docks as you see homes. The docks run more or less parallel to each other, of course, and they are so close together as to appear about as widely spaced as the tines in a fork. It is a colossal repetition that sometimes goes on for house after house, mile after mile. One may have faith in the capitalist system's ability to find efficient methods of production, but it doesn't seem to have the ability to achieve similar economies when it comes to private consumption patterns. On a given day, Kobuk may pass many hundreds of these docks. Most will have boats tied off at the end. But not one in a hundred will have someone out there enjoying the view or fishing over the railing or fiddling with the boat.
By mid-afternoon, North Star and Kobuk reach Calabash Creek where Skipper Bob says the anchorages are reasonably good (if you don't know who Skipper Bob is, then you definitely haven't run the ICW). North Star drops anchor right away, but I cruise on up about a mile to the town of Calabash and discover a rustic port facility that is crammed with commercial fishing boats, tour boats, and deep sea charter boats. From the water at least, the town of Calabash is virtually nonexistent. A few buildings are visible and that's about it. I can find no free dock space so I give up on the idea of checking out the town and return to an anchorage not far from North Star.
This Calabash Creek meanders back and forth across the border between North and South Carolina. Here where we are anchored we have just crossed over into South Carolina but up around the next bend the little town of Calabash is back in North Carolina. Anyway, this crossing into South Carolina makes Kobuk a visitor to 26 of the 50 states--a clear majority.
Calabash Creek Anchorage, SC: 33* 52.527' N / 78* 34.263' W
Distance: 37 miles
Total Distance: 7,575 miles
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Last night a small cruising sloop with all the right lines for crossing oceans grounded in shallows no more than a couple hundred yards from Kobuk and North Star. As the tide ebbed, the broad hull came to rest on her port chine, tipped over to an angle of about 35 degrees. The mast and rigging looked peculiar in their cant and the occupants of the vessel must have been as uncomfortable with the blatancy of their predicament as they were with the ardors of surviving on such a slope. Standing or sitting would have been out of the question; the only option must have been to lie down on a leeward bunk until the middle of the night when the tide came back in. Of course they were gone in the morning.
The cold is really quite remarkable. It came very close to freezing last night and this morning I had to will myself out of bed. It was reasonably warm under the sleeping bag, but getting up and getting dressed was more or less in the same category with going for a swim in Nova Scotia. I was eager to fire up the little Coleman stove to make coffee and take the edge off the chill, but the preceding evening had drained it of fuel. There was no Coleman fuel left so I had to fill it with gasoline from one of the large jerry cans. Spillage was inevitable, especially with my hands numb from the cold. I wiped it up as best I could, turned on the blower, and lit the Coleman stove. There was no explosion and eventually a cup of warm coffee made its way into my system.
It was hardly enough to keep me warm, though. Fred and I pulled anchor just as the morning sun came above the trees, but the task of taking in the wet anchor gear turned my hands numb. As I was finishing the job, Fred noticed that there was no jet of water coming from the Yamaha so I had to drop anchor again to sort out the problem. It turned out to be nothing more than a clogged aperture that came clean when poked with a length of wire, so the discomfort of pulling anchor twice was a small price to pay for an outboard malfunction that could be so easily solved. For the next three hours as we motored along in the ICW, Kobuk's cabin gradually captured enough heat to remove the chill from my bones. I warmed my hands by sticking them in my armpits--uncomfortable at first but quite successful after a few minutes. But the feet, even though not particularly cold to start with, took hours to thaw. It was almost noon before I stopped exercising my toes to generate heat. The forecast says that tonight the temperature is expected to drop to the mid-twenties.
This part of the South Carolina coast is known as the Grand Strand. On account of its beaches it has become a highly developed region. Golf courses are all over the place as we make our way along the back side of North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach. Homes abutting the ICW are opulent to a degree that I did not notice in North Carolina. At one point I started counting the total number of homes along one side of the channel and noting how many of them had neoclassical columns in their architecture. Nearly half of them did. You can get away with Grecian columns only if the structure is pretty large so that should give you some idea of the level of opulence hereabouts.
This particular area is also somewhat unusual because of its elevation. For the first time since Virginia, the land rises up out of the water as much as a few tens of feet. The ICW engineers cut a straight channel through this "upland" and in one place they hit bedrock. Guides to the waterway refer to this section as The Rock Pile. For about four miles, the channel of the ICW is bordered on both sides by sharks teeth rocks that only break the surface at low tide and that can easily tear the bottom out of any boat. It is considered to be a significant hazard along this route, but it really is not so hard to navigate: all one has to do is stay in the middle of the narrow but straight running channel. The only complication is if a commercial tug happens to be pushing barges through it from the other direction, but the very fact that broad beamed barges pass through here shows how manageable the passage should be for yachts, even the largest of which are much smaller in size. As for the risk of entering The Rock Pile unaware of an oncoming barge--well, that is minimal if you have a VHF radio (like virtually every boat passing through). The chatter on the radio is almost constant. If something so manageable as a modest branch makes its way out into the middle of the channel, boat after boat will send out a message about it, pinpointing its location and forewarning anyone coming up from behind. I should imagine that the presence of a barge in The Rock Pile would set off an avalanche of radio messages that even someone as inattentive as I am would not fail to notice.
Finally around midday we emerge from this overdeveloped causeway and enter the winding Waccamaw River which passes through wilderness swamp lands overrun by a forest of leafless deciduous trees. Small creeks come in from either side and pretty soon every bend in the river and every side creek begins to look like every other one. Once again, the land is very flat and right at water level. The river bank trees have their black roots exposed whenever the tide is out, just like on the Pasquotank River coming out of the Dismal Swamp.
In the heart of this "dreadful" country we come to the tiny hamlet of Bucksport where, according to Fred, there is a little store next to the water that sells especially good sausage. As we approach the dock to tie up, a nearly toothless old man, thin as a scarecrow and black as night, comes out in the harsh cold wind to help us tie off. He beams with pleasure and talks to us in a sort of non-stop fashion. The only problem is, neither Fred nor I can understand anything he says. This doesn't deter him, however, and neither does it diminish his cheer. He comes into the store with us where we shop for sausage. The store is tended by a young woman whose manner of speaking is a whole lot more intelligible to us. She is white and does have teeth, and this combination makes her accented speech seem merely quaint instead of totally foreign. She's well endowed, this young lady, and she manages her domain with good-natured confidence. When Fred and I are back on the water, I cannot help thinking about the nature of Bucksport, this little outpost in the middle of nowhere inhabited by what appears to be no more than two distinctive individuals. There must be other people in town, but you wouldn't know it from the emptiness that engulfs the one little street and the few buildings that we can see. There is a marina with lots of expensive boats nearby, so Bucksport has more to it than I could ever see, but my brief encounter with it will always be tied to the memory of those two--the Black man and the White woman.
By late in the day we reach Thoroughfare Creek coming in on the starboard side. We turn up it to find anchorage. The water is deep; the banks are wilderness; the sun is setting. The second bend up runs against an embankment on its outside and there an exposed slope of sand drops down to the water. At its base, even though it is now high tide, the steepness terminates and a small strand of beach invites Kobuk to come in and tie off. The water is plenty deep all the way to shore so the ebbing tide would not leave us stranded, I think. But then I realize that the wind is blowing strongly on our beam and that could end up dragging Kobuk's stern anchor to put us sideways on the shore. Reluctantly, I back Kobuk away and anchor over in the shallows on the inside of the bend.
Thoroughfare Creek Anchorage: 33* 30.856' N / 79* 08.670 W
Distance: 52 miles
Total Distance: 7,627 miles
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
We leave the anchorage on Thoroughfare Creek and reenter the Waccamaw River. It was already becoming an estuary when we drove the last few miles yesterday, but now that it is augmented by the waters of Thoroughfare Creek it is beginning to look more like a long, skinny lake. Thoroughfare creek is deceptive, actually, because it is not really a separate small stream. It is a distributary from the Great Pee Dee River which has its source way up in the interior of North Carolina. A short distance downstream from here the Great Pee Dee and the Waccamaw join, so this Thoroughfare Creek robs the Pee Dee to pay the Waccamaw in advance of their final reckoning. A little piece of trivia that might interest you is that when Steven Foster first wrote Swannee River he had it singing praises to the Pee Dee. He evidently came to feel that the river name didn't do justice to the song, however, and ended up borrowing the name Swannee from a Florida river (the Suwannee). It was nothing personal, though: he actually never visited either river.
It only takes a few hours to reach Georgetown. This is a small city situated just downstream from the confluence of the Pee Dee and the Waccamaw. It lies protected within a horseshoe of water that is deep all around and that surrounds a small and undeveloped island. Georgetown rings the outer shore with a girdle of docks and piers. Many yachts are moored in the middle of the narrow horseshoe strait. Over on the inside, along the banks of the island, a number of derelict boats are lying canted in the shallows or carelessly tied to a long abandoned dock.
Commercial shrimping is important to the town, but the revitalized downtown and the large amount of dock space dedicated to slips for yachts clearly indicate that retirement condos and visiting yachts are the wave of the future. Close by the city center a paper mill spews billows of white smoke`that curl up into the blue sky. On this day, at least, there is no foul odor hanging in the air so either we are upwind or paper mill operations are not as noxious as they used to be. In spite of the large number of boats in town, not many of them are on the move, so when I find the town dinghy dock its relative emptiness convinces me that it will be ok to tie up Kobuk there overnight. There is a sign saying "No Overnight Docking" but with the busy season over I doubt anyone will notice.
The afternoon is dedicated to errands and obligations--finding the library for Internet, shuttling gas from a distant service station, that sort of thing. At one point Fred and I take a walk for groceries and discover a NAPA store on the way. Last week I replaced the spark plugs in the Mazda engine, and ever since then I have been on the lookout for spare plugs. It is always a little painful to buy them because the engine requires ones that are unconscionably expensive. Furthermore, few stores carry them. This NAPA is no exception, but the man behind the counter tells me he can get them in by 7:30 tomorrow morning. When I ask him the price he says he'll sell them to me at the wholesale price instead of at retail: $7.50 each. Since a single plug usually costs $17-18, I order in enough to last for a few seasons and leave the NAPA store in a remarkably good mood.
Georgetown Dinghy Dock: 33* 21.902' N / 79* 16.978' W
Distance: 17 miles
Total Distance: 7,644 miles
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Last night after dark I strolled the boardwalk that runs along the Georgetown waterfront and turned in at the back entrance to Big Tuna, a bar that caters to the local crowd. While sitting there a lanky, balding loner named Rory started talking politics to me. It seems he is a democrat in a republican stronghold. For thirty odd years he has worked for a cable company installing connections and he has two sons who are reaching the age of total independence. His wife died some years back and he has been raising the boys on his own. One son has excelled in community college and the other has washed out at university. I don't know if Rory ever attended college but I suspect not since he lacks confidence in his own opinions. In spite of the fact that he has succeeded as a single father, he looks with awe at his community college son and seems to defer to the judgments of this young man who may be smart but who obviously has not had much life experience. Rory leaves me at a complete loss. How can a man who has no problem revealing his political persuasion to a total stranger give deference to the opinions of a man-child? At one point, Rory said to me that his republican boss had recently discovered his democratic leanings but didn't appear to be upset by them. Then, to my astonishment, he went on to say that of course if his boss insisted he would vote republican. After all, mused Rory, he wasn't so ungrateful as to bite the hand that has fed him for all these years. These were not his actual words; this is just my interpretation of what he said. I think I understood him correctly, and I am dumbfounded by a good-hearted man who has struggled with life and yet could express such an attitude.
After an early morning trip to the NAPA store to collect my discount spark plugs, I release Kobuk from the dinghy dock and we motor off towards the ICW. At the start, North Star follows a short distance behind, but after a few miles Fred adds a few rpm's and takes the lead. Today's run south takes us through a zone that is mostly marshland. Dead flat islands covered with tall grass lie off to port and sinuous strands of open water separate the islands one from another. Beyond the islands is the Atlantic. The starboard side is the mainland, but even over there the low, flat grasslands often extend a good distance with wooded country rather remote. Much of this region is set aside as public lands that cannot be developed. To the left is the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge; to the right the Francis Marion National Forest.
It doesn't take us long to reach the little town of McClellanville where an abandoned pier extending out next to a launch ramp has enough space for Kobuk to be tied off. Fred takes North Star out to one of the side channels in the marshlands to anchor, but I snug Kobuk up next to this town pier. McClellanville is a very small town and its flavor is thoroughly southern. Each of the few stre
ets is lined with
live
oaks draping Spanish moss and the homes do not so much compete with
them as nestle under their outstretched arms like chicks in the care of
their mother. The channel that serves as a waterfront for the
town branches to the inland from the ICW. Its banks are a ragged
mixture of grassy marshlands, commercial shrimping docks, and
individual homesites with waterfront improvements like retaining walls
and small boat docks. There is also a marina, but it is very
rustic indeed with sagging docks, a gas pump of the old mechanical
type, and a singular lack of personnel to handle whatever
business there might be. A stillness pervades the place and the
little activity that does occur is at a slow pace.Two young men notice Kobuk tied to the decrepit pier and walk out to get a better look at her. One of the men is greatly interested in her design and construction because he is in the process of building a boat himself. He is a lawyer up in Georgetown and he stands here on the dock dressed in a pin striped suit with a white shirt and red tie. His name is Sam _____ and his face is so unlined and freshly scrubbed that it is a little hard to believe that he is out of high school. On the other hand, his knowledge of boats and his clearly formed opinions and his penetrating questions about Kobuk quickly convince me that he is no child. His friend is also very young looking and has the sort of sleek, lean physique that rarely lasts beyond adolescence. He, however, is a highly successful contractor who is building megahomes near town for wealthy clients coming from elsewhere. He has just finished a waterfront home only a few hundred yards away and suggests that if I would like I might tie Kobuk at its floating dock. The owners are Belgian and are not yet here in town to take possession of their retirement home. It seems that Kobuk's presence on their property would help to strengthen the illusion that the property is not unoccupied. This contractor may be young, but he certainly has little left to learn about how to extend southern hospitality. I accept his gracious offer and move Kobuk over to the floating dock in front of the mansion with the swimming pool. After sunset, while sitting in the dark drinking tea with the Coleman stove running, I hear breathing in the water beside the boat and the occasional sound of splashing. Dolphins, it seems.
McClellanville Launch Ramp Pier: 33* 04.840' N / 79* 27.600' W
Distance: 29 miles
Total Distance: 7,673 miles
Friday, November 21, 2008
Since leaving Norfolk a few weeks back we have seen nothing of big city life. The passage has been one of isolated anchorages and visits to towns and very small cities, but today that should all change. Charleston is the destination and it qualifies as big by my standards. For most purposes, small urban settlements are easier for Kobuk to deal with because needed facilities are more likely to be near at hand and because prices are almost certain to be lower. But a visit to the big city always portends a little excitement and all the good press that Charleston has garnered over the years has of course raised my expectations.
The cold continues, and now the wind has kicked up from the west. It is rather strong, but for the most part this section of the ICW is narrow enough to discourage the development of choppy conditions. Occasionally, a stretch of it runs in alignment with the wind direction or an estuary joins from the west, and then the waters get riled up a little, but it never amounts to much and it never lasts for more than a few minutes. All that changes when we move out into the open waters surrounding the city of Charleston. It is a singularly bright and sunny day, and so the city waterfront appears as a glistening parade of mostly white buildings all along the distant shore. It is not so distant, really--only about three miles away--but they
are upwind miles and the open
bay where the Cooper and
Ashley Rivers meet is alive with small breakers and frantic little
whitecaps. It is force five conditions on the Beaufort scale,
although the limited fetch and shallow waters mean that the waves do
not build to any significant height (but also leave no room
between themselves). It is an abrupt transition and as soon as we
start the crossing Kobuk
begins to buck and plunge, throwing sheets of spray high in the air.I become focused on steering with the cranky Remote Troll which hasn't sufficient agility to keep us easily pointed into the stuff. A great metallic crashing sound issues forth from behind me and when I look around I am suddenly reminded that the Coleman stove was still set up on the engine box. It lies now on its side, down on the floor next to the Bike Friday suitcase. The gas canister with its long stem has been flung free and sits amidships behind the front seat. The rollicking ride continues non-stop, but eventually I get a five second window in which to retrieve the pieces and stow them up in the cabin.
A half an hour is about all it takes to close with the waterfront of Charleston and that takes the spirit out of all the thrashing around--rather like a wild bronc that after launching and twisting and changing direction finally gets tired and settles into a predictable routine of bucking. Kobuk and North Star work their way up the Ashley river, close by the peninsula between the two rivers. Fred looks for an anchorage while I scan the shoreline for a place to tie off. Upstream we go, passing under a high bridge and then a side-by-side pair of low bascule bridges, but still there is no sign of a good place to park. A marina crowds the shore immediately upstream from the bascule bridges, but then all development disappears as a waterfront park comes into view. It has a couple long docks that extend out and the second of them appears to have the double advantage of standing in a state of disrepair and having at its end a ramp running down to a floating dock. I can see nobody in the park and the pier looks abandoned. The wind is coursing down the river at a furious pace, but a neck of marshland immediately upstream cuts the fetch of open water down to only a few hundred yards and so the floating dock has no waves splashing against it. Through the binoculars, the floating dock appears to be mottled in bird shit, but that's alright: it looks like the kind of place where people don't venture much and the authorities don't check much. Of course, with temperatures as cold as this not many people are likely to be out, but even at the best of times I think this little stretch of parkland probably gets underutilized. I steer Kobuk in and tie off there. Good news: it's not bird shit--its snails.
Brittlebank Park Pier: 32* 47.299' N / 79* 57.798' W
Distance: 43 miles
Total Distance: 7,716 miles
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Charleston is the kind of place where you're nobody if your house only dates back to the 1800's. Down in the historic core, it is street after street of restored homes from the colonial era. We're not talking antebellum mansions here; the scene is bourgeois clapboard or brick--two- or maybe three-story buildings of a size and style that whisper "prosperity."
There's nothing nouveau riche
about these
houses, nothing intended to make a grand proclamation. They're
substantial and handsome and eminently practical. Most have deep
porches along the side and many have enclosed gardens with broadly
spreading shade trees.There are many more modest homes too, of course, but here in Charleston they have all been restored and all look perfectly charming. If I had to live in a city and the gods had decreed that it must be in a house that is chosen at random, I would beg for the city to be Charleston. There just don't appear to be any run-down houses left to be renovated. The whole place has been given a new coat of paint. Every brick wall is scrubbed clean. Wrought iron fences and gates are all fully rustproofed and most likely painted black. Most astonishing of all is the fact that the relatively few buildings of recent construct do not stand out; they have varied architecture but it always seems to fit right in.
Of course I am talking here about historic Charleston, everything down near the end of the peninsula that separates the Cooper and the Ashley. Go north of Calhoun Street and things change fast. I only ventured across the tracks a few times, and each time I did the telltale signs of urban blight quickly appeared to chase me away. But there's a lot to Charleston south of Calhoun--plenty to do and plenty to see.
One thing you see a lot of is coeds. The College of Charleston is located downtown and has the sort of urban campus that is more common overseas than it is in the United States. Instead of a fixed campus on a single block of land, the college appears to be splintered into many fragments--a majority of the buildings in the two or three blocks where it is most concentrated and then a few buildings in the immediately surrounding blocks. Businesses, residences, and the college intermingle. In this particular part of the city, young people rule the streets. Most noticeable to me is the young women, who, to put it bluntly, are never fat and never ugly. I never saw a place with such a high percentage of good looking women. One immediately thinks of Vegas, of course, but even in Vegas the undeniable bevy of beauty is occasionally adulterated, so to speak, with plain Janes from out of town. One can hardly deny that some sort of dictatorial authority governs architecture south of Calhoun, but even more surprising is the evidence of a similar power governing the appearance of the women who live here.
I should be fair about this, however--there are some very fine places to visit north of Calhoun. One of them is the Charleston Visitors' Center. It is housed in a long, brick building, a restored structure of course that used to be a railroad shed. The place is full of a lot more than brochures. Longer than a football field, the interior space has planked floors and a post & beam roof construction. The vast space is artfully partitioned into separate zones by various exhibits and one can do everything from buying local crafts or viewing light show videos to enquiting after directions or making reservations. Everywhere you look are museum-like wall exhibits designed to stimulate your appreciation of the remarkable history of this city. Of all the visitors I have ever visited, nothing compares to this. It is to visitors' centers what the Beijing Olympics was to Olympics.
I remain at the bar in the The Kickin' Chicken until late in the evening. The beer was good, but far, far better is the news repeatedly being broadcast by the television on the wall behind the bartender: the University of Utah football team has just slapped around BYU to complete an undefeated season. On this upbeat note, I bicycle back to Kobuk in the dark. The strong winds have died away now, but the temperature is going to slide down into the twenties again tonight so there is no time to waste getting undressed and into the sleeping bag.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Have you ever heard of "the stone fleet"? I never had. I'm in the process of reading a book by Eric Jay Dolin entitled Leviathan (a history of American whaling) and in it there is a discussion of an event that occurred here in Charleston during the Civil War. The Union was anxious to make effective the blocade that it was trying to impose on the Confederacy.
To this end, the idea was
conceived that sunken ships at the entrance into Savannah and
Charleston harbors could accomplish through engineering what was
proving to be a difficult task when performed by naval personnel in
off-shore ships. Why not sink a bunch of ships at the entrance to
the harbors, thereby obstructing all passage in and out? Over a
dozen ships were purchased for the task, the bulk of them whaling
vessels that had seen better days. A big effort was made to load
them all up with stones. Farmers were paid fifty cents per ton
for rocks to fill them and some New England villages engaged in "stone
drives" whereby rocks were collected. Although supposedly a
secret maneuver, the stone fleet idea was so grand in scale that many
came to know about it and some newspapers even reported on the
preparations. When at last the ships were ready, skeleton crews
sailed them down to Georgia and South Carolina and attempted to execute
the plan. When the confederates saw the arrival of the fleet,
they were sure an invasion was under way. In order to forestall
such a calamity they began
sinking ships at the entrance to
Charleston harbor. Such is the absurdity of war.Charleston was fortunate to have been left relatively undamaged by the Civil War, which is of course a major reason why the city now in the twenty-first century can display to the world such a fabulous collection of restored buildings dating back to before that event. Of all the ports in the American South before the Civil War, Charleston was the one most involved in importing and auctioning slaves. This black history exists now only in the abstract. The local museums must articulate this unfortunate aspect of Charleston's past, but none of the public monuments do. There are numerous memorials in public spaces scattered throughout the city, but they generally honor those who have fallen in battle. A few glorify powerful politicians but I didn't happen to come across any designed to preserve the memory of injustice done to Blacks in those darker days. Perhaps I just happened to miss them, but if I didn't it might not be a bad idea for the city to undertake the construction of such a memorial. I do not wish to berate Charleston for having mistreated Blacks. There's blame enough for everybody, Northerners too. It is just that Charleston's intimate history means that such a memorial in such a place would have the potential to be particularly meaningful.
After dark when I return to Kobuk in Brittlebank Park, there is nobody about and no indication that anyone has visited the pier in the last couple days. I have been a little nervous about leaving Kobuk unattended but it seems the concern is unfounded. Even though the park is within the city it does not attract much use at this time of year. Although it remains quite cold, the wind has laid down. I have a cup of coffee before going to bed. The Coleman stove takes the chill out of the tented air. In the dark, I sip the coffee and absorb the sort of solitude that usually can only be found when beyond the range of city lights.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Leaving Charleston is like leaving any big city: you have to work your way out past the suburbs. But a boat navigating waterways will find that the suburbs are hardly ever seedy and almost always upscale. Waterfront property is expensive and those who can afford to buy it are generally able to develop it in a rather grand way. As we leave Charleston behind and make our way up the Stono River, the homes along both banks sing to each other in C-notes.
What is this craving nearly all of us seem to have? This insatiable desire to accumulate more and ever more? No matter what our material circumstance we always seem to behave as if we do not have enough. We all tend to believe that we do not have enough, that for others richer than us the accumulated wealth is sufficient to meet any reasonable contingency but for us personally it is not. We can, therefore, understand the needy attitude of those less fortunate but we often find it mysterious that those with greater wealth still pursue it.
But the telling thing is not what people say, or even think. It is what they do, and only rarely does a person give up the struggle to get richer. It is something that does occasionally happen among those who are wealthy but even within this group a very large proportion continue to accumulate. They do so either out of personal desire or because their circumstance causes it to happen with no effort on their part. The former calls into question the rationality of human behavior; the latter casts doubt on the equity of the economic system. In either event, something is disfunctional.
If one were suspended above the ICW, high enough to see the wriggling waterways and islands and marshes but low enough to see the individual homes and boats and docks and even people, then the sight down below would consist of wealth manifest in many forms. All those estates are of course physical sign of great affluence, but so to is that parade of yachts making its way southward along the waterway. Even a superficial familiarity with life in the United States would make it clear that one cannot venture into this particular domain and feel perfectly at ease unless one is accustomed to an above average level of wealth. I would contend, however, that there is a small difference between the boat owners and the home owners. A significant minority of the boat owners have taken the money and run. They have chosen to plateau at a certain level of wealth and then use what they have to live in a way that turns its back on ambition. I suspect that few of the home owners have done such a thing.
Of course, fotr the boaters, the choice often was made easier by the spectre of old age. If one were to do a demographic study of the transient yachting subculture, there would surely reveal the fact that most of us are no longer young. Retirement, or the prospect of it, forces recognition of the fact that the pursuit of wealth cannot go on forever. What we have here is a group of people who see death coming along in not too many years and who thus conclude that now is the only time left to do the things always dreamed of. Not all these people are nice people, but a surprisingly large proportion of them are happy. Although it is hard to do much boating without a certain modicum of wealth, I would say that boating is a far more reliable indicator of happiness than raw affluence ever will be.
Once Kobuk moves beyond the reach of Charleston, beyond its suburbs and signs of development, the domain is one in which wooded isles and marshes float by on either side. No more homes , no more docks, just reclusive nature trying to survive in one of her remaining niches. The yachts pass through but do not tarry. Small outboard-driven skiffs appear at times, either still in the water as one or two sportsmen cast their lines, or racing down the channel between home and a favored fishing site.
When North Star and Kobuk reach the Ashepoo River, Fred and I direct them a couple miles out of the ICW and into Allegator Creek where a very small settlement lines the outside of a bend. It is on a low embankment and looks across the narrow creek to a sea of marsh grass with wooded isles in the distance. Up past the shrimp boats and the handful of houses, at the edge of town where the water gets shallower, we drop anchor and wonder whether we will remain afloat when the tide ebbs.
Mosquito Creek Anchorage: 32* 33.422' N / 80* 27.014' W
Distance: 48 miles
Total Distance: 7,764 miles
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
No, we didn't stay afloat. Low tide put Kobuk's stern in the mud. I awoke in the middle of the night to discover this, but because of her hull shape Kobuk had come to rest contentedly in an upright position. I had no trouble going back to sleep. It was rather less comfortable for Fred who found himself trying to sleep with North Star tipped over onto one chine. No harm done, however, and in the morning when it is time to leave the tide is up and all is well.
In preceding days, we have been fortunate to catch the tide at favorable times and run with the current more often than against it. But today our luck runs out and we spend most of the voyage pushing against the flow. It matters little since Beaufort, our destination, is only 25 miles away. We chug along at barely more than five miles per hour and the slow motion passage of scenery is even more amenable to examination than usual.
When up in the region of the Grand Strand--the northeastern end of the South Carolina shore--I described the ICW as a channel that parallels the coast and takes advantage of natural lagoons lying behind long,skinny coastal barrier islands. That description no longer adheres. Here in the southern parts of the state--and evidently through coastal Georgia as well--there are myriad rivers, short, fat, curly rivers that meander senselessly from the inland to the sea. They twist and bend into fully formed oxbows. They bump into each other, joining waters and then separating again. They grow fat or skinny at a whim. They traverse a flat lowland with no sense of direction, seeming to reach the sea more by chance than by design. It is almost as if emptying into the ocean is no more desirable for them than a ball dropping out of play might be for someone playing a pinball machine.
Here the engineering of the ICW must have been a less predictable task. Which stretch of which rivers to use and which rivers to merely get across? These must have been the pressing questions since each river runs parallel with the coast only for short sections and then the route must deviate from the intended route until such time as a different river swings by close and a short canal can be dug to connect them. This state of affairs causes the ICW to weave and dodge in its journey from A to B. Georgia, for example, has a hundred miles of Atlantic coast but the ICW takes a hundred and forty miles to cover the distance.
After slogging up against a current and a headwind in a ten-mile stretch of broadwaters on the Coosaw River, we bear left and run down the last few miles to Beaufort. After passing under the bridge the town waterfront is off the right side and sweeps around like the warm embrace of a single arm. First after the bridge is the town's waterfront park; then comes the marina; after that the town dock; and finally a broad belly of open water in which boats can anchor. North Star goes to anchor and Kobuk sneaks in to the town dock.
This is a town with a reputation for beauty and, just as with women, beauty can shape the personality. Beaufort expects to be treated well--by which I mean one is supposed to spend money here. The marina has leased its waterfront from the city, but with a proviso that any passing boater can get fresh water free of charge and can use use the showers for just one dollar. Of course the marina doesn't advertise this fact and has water available only on the docks where there are signs cautioning that only slip holders and their guests will not be prosecuted for trespassing. Another sign that Beaufort is a "high maintneance" city is the slightly inflated prices in the restaurants and stores. But now let me say that the Chamber of Commerce mentality is completely divorced from the human reality: Every person I met--every one--treated me with the kind of hospitality that mocks the meaning of the word "cordial."
Beaufort Town Dock: 32* 25.851' N / 80* 40.526' W
Distance: 25 miles
Total Distance: 7,789 miles
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
It is surprisingly quiet here in Beaufort. It may be near the end of the migratory season for boaters heading south but I had expected more traffic than this. On the other hand, over a dozen boats are anchored out and I suppose most of them are here only temporarily. My situation is at the center of things, though, here at the town dock where all dinghys come to tie up whenever the anchored crowd wants to go ashore. There are usually a couple dinghys tied off here, but compared to Beaufort, North Carolina, the shuttle traffic seems meager. I would have expected virtually all those anchored boats to have dinghys ashore for much of the day.
The outer side of the town dock has a sign on it saying that no boats may be tied off between one and six in the morning. This sort of regulation often can be violated by a boat as small as Kobuk, but especially when the dockside traffic is light. Even though this outer side of the dock had no other visitors yesterday while Kobuk was tied here, I worried that the town might be aggressive about enforcing the rule. Late in the evening when the other anchored boats were dark silhouettes on glossy water, under a starry sky, I took Kobuk out away from the dock and dropped the hook.
Beaufort is pronounced as in beautiful, and rightly so. The town occupies a neck of land surrounded by an oxbow bend of the Beaufort River. The heavily forested town site is flat but stands a few feet above the level of the river. Between the land and the river lie marshes that in most places advance well out into the channel but that occasionally disappear altogether, allowing the low bluffs to drop directly into the water. The wooded nature of the town is a consequence of landscape design over a long period of time. Most of the trees are live oaks and many of them are draped in Spanish moss. In all the older parts of town, rows of them line the streets. Their limbs arch over the roads and snake their way across the yards of residences, sometimes extending impossible distances up between buildings. The branches of a live oak are octopus tentacles: they flex and weave themselves into spaces as if they have an independent will, separate and autonomous from the great trunk that supports them. The child's fantasy of great bowering and sheltering trees with trunks that cana be climbed and limbs sufficiently big and horizontal to walk out on--that is the live oak.
Live oaks are a regular feature of these southern coastal towns, but here in Beaufort they knit together into a near forest in the shade of which are streets and yards and even the low roofs of single story dwellings. Many of the homes are not single story, however, but instead antebellum estates comparable in scale and infinitely superior in taste to the megahomes that are springing up these days all across the country. Like Charleston, Beaufort has taken seriously the business of discouraging the destruction of these old homes and fostering their restoration. There appear to be only a few left that have not been, or are not being, revived. With their great broad porches and colonnaded entries, these manors of yesteryear are reminding all who see them of how charming life might be if we had not created for ourselves the megacities and planned commercial hubs that define contemporary life. Here in Beaufort, commerce is conducted along Bay Street which parallels the riverfront and maintains a proper respect for modesty of scale and style. Of course, a couple miles outside of town, strip mall development is as unconstrained as anywhere else in the United States. We Americans always seem to want it both ways: the convenience of cars and parking lots and megastores on the one hand and the reassurance of more natural living on the other. Will someone in this country please come along and prove that the two are not incompatible?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The _____ Church here in Beaufort provides a free Thanksgiving dinner for anybody who wishes to attend. This is not a glorified soup kitchen with the word "charity" written all over it: it is a banquet offered to everyone in a spirit of giving. A large church hall with room for hundreds of people fills to capacity as dozens of townsfolk wait on us at out round tables. These waiters and waitresses and waiters are most attentive. They do not interfere but they constantly watch to see who needs a plate cleared away, who needs more to drink, who might like seconds or thirds. If you are fussy, they cater to your fussiness. If you want to eat more than is reasonable, they encourage you to do it. If you would like thirds for dessert, they lullaby you with the choices. They are more attentive and yet far less obsequious than the staff in most gourmet restaurants who do their job primarily for the killer tips they expect to receive.
The feast is available between twelve thirty and three in the afternoon. If you want a meal but don't want to eat it here or during these hours, there is a separate room where you can simply pick up thanksgiving meals to go. It is all the same dishes, just packed up and ready to carry away. As if that is not enough, anyone who eats their Thanksgiving meal here is encouraged to go to that separate room if they would like to take home food for the evening. It is a bit overwhelming to be given as much as you can eat and then encouraged to take even more. Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh in my judgment of Beaufort yesterday: in spite of the signs of commercial avarice, there is rather more to the town than I realized.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Up goes the temperature but down comes the rain. At last we have a night that is not frigid and a day that may at least approach the norm for this time of year. The stiletto stars and cheery sun are gone, though, hidden away behind a dirty white spread of continuous cloud. The forecast is for a string of such days, each with a high chance of precipitation. Today we do have intermittent rain that taps the canvas and the forward deck with gentle persistence. But then it stops, only to begin again a while later. There is not a hint of thunderstorms, though, and only once does the drum of rainfall intensify to any sort of dramatic level.
It used to be that weather forecasts were firm predictions, but nowadays that is not true. When it comes to rain, even NOAA is given to assigning it odds: "There is a fifty percent chance of rain for Friday." That's a scientific way of saying "I don't know," but at least it doesn't give the impression of knowledge that in fact does not exist. NOAA has to be careful, of course, since its forecasts are used by boaters. What it amounts to is that on a good day even the greenest amateur in a leaky old boat probably will be able to muddle through but on a sufficiently bad day even the most seaworthy boat and most experienced captain are at risk. Every boater who goes beyond his own backyard must make a judgment about which conditions would be manageable and which would not. It's easy enough to misjudge the craft and the skills; even easier is it to anticipate the wrong weather conditions.
How much responsibility do weather forecasters have for providing accurate information about an unknown future? Even if a forecast is right about the general nature of things, weather conditions vary enormously from place to nearby place and no contemporary technology can reasonably address this problem. And as it happens, every single boat always operates in a very specific place. Given this reality, it is hard to see how a weather forecast can be held responsible for the misfortune of an overmatched boater. Nevertheless, I have been led to believe that NOAA has been sued by shipwrecked boaters who claimed the forecast was at fault. This has had the perverse effect that you might expect: many small boat captains believe that NOAA issues weather forecasts for stronger winds and bigger waves and more likely thunderstorms than actually are expected, and this in turn encourages those same captains to venture out when they might not if they actually believed NOAA.
At this time of year, daylight does not arrive until seven in the morning and twilight sets in around five. Given that the little Yamaha can only average about six miles per hour, the maximum range for a day is not much more than fifty miles. The actual distance covered can vary a lot depending on whether one catches favorable or adverse tidal currents. It would be unwise to plan on more than fifty miles in a day unless the big engine is going to be used for a while. I avoid this as much as possible because it consumes so much gas, but one of its great comforts is that whenever there is a need to reach protection quickly--before dark or before a storm--it will get me there. It makes no sense to plan on having to use it, though, at least not here in the ICW where anchorages abound and surface conditions are usually manageable for the little outboard.
Our plan for today is to reach Georgia. The Savannah River forms the border with South Carolina, but the city of Savannah is about an hour's cruising removed from the ICW. Neither Fred nor I are set on visiting Savannah, so we plan to stop at Thunderbolt, a small town not far from Savannah that is on the ICW. We reach Thunderbolt by around four in the afternoon. Fred anchors nearby and I take a slip at the Bahia Bleu Marina located right next to the downtown. From here to the Florida border, the ICW will pass through mostly undeveloped wilderness. There is no way of knowing whether I will be able to establish an Internet connection during the next two or three days, so I think it best to get my work completely caught up here at Bahia Bleu using their wifi hotspot.
Bahia Bleu Marina, Thunderbolt, GA: 32* 01.901' N / 81* 02.891' W
Distance: 46 miles
Total Distance: 7,835 miles
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Now we're into the wilder stretch of Georgia's coast. Not long after leaving Thunderbolt we curl around a hairpin bend with the little town of Isle of Hope strung along its outer perimeter. And that is it--for the next seventy miles or so there will be little sign of human presence. The ICW runs all over the place trying to connect up the crazy collection of streams and sloughs and estuaries hereabouts. Its wanders erratically like the frantic efforts of a novice shepherd struggling with a headstrong herd of sheep.
Everywhere you look there are but three elements to the landscape: waterways, marshes and hammocks. The waterways are numerous and course through the marshes all over the place. Although tiny at their marshland headwaters, these estuarine streams quickly flare out to become broad (but not very deep) swaths of open water. They occupy a significant proportion of the entire landscape--perhaps as much as a quarter of it. But their territory is much less than that of the marshes that often sweep away in all directions with their uniform swampgrass vegetation and their pancake profile. If the sun is shining at all, the marsh grasses glisten brilliantly golden with a hint of rust at their roots and a tinge of lime at their tips. By natural design, these marsh grasses grow to a uniform height of just a few feet. From my low position, sitting in Kobuk's cabin, I can barely see over the top of the marshland grasses, but in most any larger boat the vista would be across a sea of grass with a warren of waterways etched into it. Off in all directions, sometimes very nearby but often in the middle distance and occasionally far away, the hammocks will put a limit to the marshland sweep. These hammocks are thickly wooded islands where palmettos and other subtropical trees create emerald havens in a sea of gold. They are an archipelago containing everything from islets barely large enough to walk the dog to long strips of land that run for a few miles.
The hammocks are uplands, of course, but their elevation above the marshland is no more substantial than a coral atoll in the vast Pacific. Only their trees give them the illusion of substance. They also give the illusion of paradise. Each small island of green beckons to you and invites you to come ashore and stay a while. But alas they are so often unapproachable. At high the water will rise up into thek grasses and flood them at their roots, but only with a skim of water--insufficient to approach with an ordinary boat. And then when the tide ebbs so that the marshes are not inundated, the land will not have sufficient time to dry before the next flooding. Waterlogged and muddy, the marsh land would not be an easy place to tramp around. So the emerald isles remain out of easy reach, often tantalizingly close but not close enough to step ashore. Only for some of them does an estuary pass along side and make access by boat an easy matter.
Arching above this great horizontal land, the sky is half the world and clouds become passing landscape features, tantalizingly out of reach but hardly more so than the hammocks. Under the great blue dome, Kobuk and North Star creep by myriad obscure places with their names on the chart as the only signs that humans have taken an interest in them: Skidaway Narrows, Pigeon Island, Moon River, Petite Gauke Island, Ogeechee River, Florida Passage and Kilkenny Creek, St Catherines Sound and Walburg Island. Finally, we head down the narrow waters of Johnson Creek and, at mile mark 625 of the ICW, turn left to anchor in the quickly shoaling waters of Cattle Pen Creek. To the north and west and to the south, marshes run away to distant hammocks. Off to the east, the somewhat less distant perimeter of St Catherines Island consumes the sun's slanting afternoon rays.
Cattle Pen Creek Anchorage: 31* 38.675' N / 81* 27.579' W
Distance: 42 miles
Total Distance: 7,877 miles
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The clouds and rain have returned. In the early morning we depart from Cattle Pen Creek under a wooly gray cap and work our way southward against a contrary wind. At first, the ebbing tide assists us, but when we enter the Altamaha River and zag right to ascend it for a few miles, our forward progress dips to the pace of a brisk walk. North Star is holding back in order to match Kobuk's rate of speed and the two of us are sluggish little specks on this big, broad river.. A long, sleek launch named Mad Max passes by like a charger galloping into battle and as her murderous wake rolls inescapably nearer, I begin to think of joining the brigade. It takes a while to rationalize the use of Mazda power, but eventually I justify the change on the grounds that the long day will require use of the big engine sometime today anyway. First the blower goes on. Then the little Yamaha is throttled back and shifted into neutral, and then turned off. As always, Kobuk immediately veers off course to become broadside to the wind and I make my way aft to tilt the little engine out of the water. Off goes the blower and non with the ignition switch for the Mazda. She displays her usual cough and sputter at low rpm's, but as soon as the bucket is lifted and we are in forward gear I can raise the power of the engine to its comfortable level and steer Kobuk back on course. I run her up to 5200 rpm's and slowly Kobuk accelerates. Her nose rears into the air and hesitates there for nearly a minute before finally dropping down and flattening out to make her fast moves. We run along now with a real breeze blowing through the open clamshell top and swiftly make up the mile or two of distance between us and North Star. I radio Fred that I am going to run on ahead for a few miles until reaching a place where I expect the current to be more favorable. Kobuk gradually accelerates and her nose finally drops. Then we run down North Star who was far ahead of us and I throttle back to talk with Fred on the radio. I explain that I'm going up ahead for a few miles to get where the current might be a little less contrary and he urges me to show Mad Max what a turn of speed really is. I like the idea and Kobuk lights out after the yellow and white greyhound running far ahead. The distance between us narrows steadily until her stern is within Babe Ruth range, but then she suddenly settles differently a greater turmoil of of churning water issues from her stern. After that, the race is more even, but little Kobuk keeps nipping at her heels and closes the gap to an ungentlemanly distance. Mad Max knows it is only a matter of time, so after catching her Kobuk releases her and we switch back over to sedate cruising.
It is well past four and the sun will be setting in less than an hour. We are making our way along Jekyll Creek, slowly approaching the bridge that crosses to Jekyll Island. Progress is slow but it suits the circumstances: it is near low tide and the narrow, black waters of Jekyll Creek are uncomfortably shallow for North Star. To both port and starboard, sinister muc runs back from the edge of the water so flat and low that it can only be distinguished from the water itself by the fact that it supports no ripples or waves. We squeak through, though--Fred has been here before--and with a little daylight remaining we both tie off at a handsome floating dock next to a broad launch ramp just south of the bridge.
Fred is reluctant to engage in the sneaky practice of tieing off in places like this where there surely must be regulations against overnight docking. I do it with Kobuk all the time, but it is a lot easier to get away with when you have a boat that looks more like a dinghy than a liveaboard. Fred generally avoids