An Uneventful Day

Tuesday, 11-24-2015, 0800, NE wind moderate, sunny and warm.

Left Walberg Creek and St. Catherines Island, entered the North Newport River and, after a short distance, Johnson Creek and the ICW. Crossed into Sapelo Sound past Blackbeard’s Island and entered Front River on the other side. Passed into Old Teakettle Creek then Doboy Sound, into North River and eventually Little Mud River, notorious for shallow, shoaling water.

We made it through, crossed Altamah Sound, passed into the Buttermilk River, then the Mackay River and came to anchor in Wallys Leg with three other boats.

Uneventful, pleasant day.  

Off Shore

Monday, 11-23-2015, 0630. NNE wind 10 knots. 60 degrees F. Ebb tide. Partly sunny.

Big day. Forecast is for NNE 12 – 17 knot wind in Port Royal Sound and near off shore, gusting to twenty. Perfect for a southerly run. On this strong ebb tide we should shoot out Port Royal guickly and run down to St. Catherines Sound, into Walburg Creek and be anchored before dark, a run of sixty-two miles.

What could go wrong?

We left Beaufort at sunrise, headed down the Beaufort River, rounded Spanish Point, and passed the entrance to Battery Creek and Parris Island to the west and Cane and Cat Islands to the east, blistering along at 7.0, sometimes 8.0 knots.

Passed Fort Freemont at Lands’ End to the east and Parris Island Spit to the west and spilled into Port Royal Sound doing 8.0 – 8.5 knots. Rounded Bay Point at the mouth of the inlet to enter the Atlantic, speed and wind picking up.

And that’s when we hit the wall.

A few words about passage making planning. These days there are all kind of on line apps linking one to the latest marine weather conditions and forecasts. Passsagemakng.com, PocketGrib.com. NOAAweather.com, Liveweather and Seatow just to name a few. One can safely sit at anchor the night before and plan a passage in the comfort of one’s cozy cabin while sipping a favorite libation and scratching one’s sand fly bites.

The National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies are on top of this weather stuff and generally get it pretty darn right.

There is a pattern to weather generally. High and low pressure systems move in and out, bringing changing winds, temperatures and reasonably predictable precipitation patterns. Current conditions are what is happening right now and forecasts are – well – forecasts, and subject to change at any moment.

Knowing current conditions is really helpful. In this modern era sea buoys are deployed at strategic locations and are equipped with the latest digital weather recorders. The mariner can go to Liveweather for example, click on a particular buoy and find out the current weather condition at that buoy at that precise time.

For today’s passage we are using the Grays Reef buoy, forty nautical miles SE of Savannah, GA at 31.40N, 80.87W. Today, as we motor joyfully along at 8.0 knots and begin to round Bay Point, Greys Reef was reporting wind was NNE 16 – 20, gusting to 23. Not bad if one is running down wind.

All systems go.

But Greys Reef is not where we are. We are headed SE and turning due E on a strong ebb tide, leaving an ocean inlet to merge into the mighty Atlantic. 

Running along at 8.0, sometimes 9.0 knots now with a twenty knot E wind right on our nose,  that wind transforms that strong ebb tide into standing waves, a wall of ten foot waves.

Rise up to the crest of one mighty monster then fall into the trough between it and the next one. 

Now we are in it. No turning back.

More fun, thrills and excitement than a bullet ride at the Staunton carnival in 1964 followed by a clandestine girlie show visit.

Needless to say that this was a rather trying experience. But slog on we did and after about an hour of bouncing along like a bucking bronco we turned SE then S so that the wind was on our stern, a little more comfortable although holding a downwind course, surfing along on ten foot waves, can be challenging.

We raced along just out of sight on land passed Hilton Head Island, Little Tybee, Wassaw and Ossabaw Sounds to make our entry into St. Catherines Sound and finally, finally into the tranquil and scenic Walburg Creek where we came to anchor at 31.668N, 81.18W in eight feet of calm water.

I looked at Emily and said, “What just happened?”

Early to bed. Good night all.

Pametto Bugs and other Insects

Friday, 11-20-2015. 0800. Wind moderate NE. Sunny. Fifty-eight degrees F. A beautiful day.

We hauled into the Beaufort Downtown Marina, where we intend to stay for the next two days. Rented a car and drove over to St. Helena Island where we discovered the Penn Center, a museum documenting the history and culture of the Gullah or Geechee people, formerly enslaved African-Americans whose descendants still live here.

This ‘Lowcountry’ as it is called, is a broad coastal plain characterized by extensive wetlands and a number of ‘Sea Islands’, St Helena being one. Today’s Gullah people, many  of whom speak a kind of English based creole referred to as "Sea Island Creole”, keep their unique West and Central African cultures alive through their story telling, rice-based cuisine, music, folk beliefs, crafts, farming, and fishing traditions.

A few local Gullah women make traditional, intricately woven ‘sweet grass’ baskets, out of – well – sweet grass. These baskets are acclaimed far and wide for their quality and authenticity.

A local Gullah Lady Shows Emily Sweet Grass Baskets

And they sure know how to make gumbo.

The Penn Center is also the site of the Penn School, founded in 1861, one of the first schools in America built to educate former slaves.

After our Penn Center visit we did a little tour of Beaufort’s splendid historic district.

On Saturday we drove down to Savannah, Georgia for a few had to find marine supplies, which we did not find.

Savannah, the capitol and oldest city in Georgia was founded in 1733. Walk on cobblestone streets adorned with stately, spreading live oak trees garlanded with Spanish moss, guarding old southern homes.

Juliette Low was born here, founder of the Girl Scouts of America, as was another famous lady, Ann Noble Sims, born in 1923, destined to be the mother of my beautiful bride, Emily. It’s the home of the Georgia Historical Society, the oldest continuously operated historical society in the south. Throwing that tidbit in for McKelden, Emily’s brother, president of the New York Genealogical Society.

The Savannah waterfront has magnificent old warehouses converted into all manner of restaurants, shops and other businesses just itching to get at your pocketbook. Hugh container ships glide by within fifty yards of the town docks.

On Saturday night we kept a dinner date with our friend and my VMI Brother Rat Scott Kinsey.  Scott lives with his wife Laura and their dogs, Doc and Mac, two horses, lots of alligators, water moccasins, sand flies and the occasional coral snake, just outside the crossroads town of Sheldon, SC on the Pocataligo River, in a wonderful home he designed and built. After VMI he migrated to the south, became a luthier, fine bass player, song writer and all around good guy.

He prepared a scrumptious dinner of French beef stew, scalloped potatoes, salad and turtle chocolates.  Afterwards he entertained us with stories about his friend, the late great John Hartford, a very fine old timey musician. Then he broke out his own late nineteenth century German fiddle and regaled us with old timey toons. We had a delightful time. Upon our leaving he supplied us with a loaf of just baked (by him) bread and a half dozen designer hot dogs from Nebraska.

Scott's Fancy Fiddle

Dinner Yum  Yum

Scott Sawing Away

Back to Beaufort with full bellies and nighty night we went.

Sunday morning we returned the car and left the marina dock only to anchor out in the Beaufort channel in preparation for a long day tomorrow, intending an off shore run to St. Catherines Island.

Before we leave the great state of South Carolina I would be remiss if I did not mention South Carolina’s state insect, the palmetto bug, otherwise known as a big, fat cockroach. The South Carolina palmetto bug is the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana), not to be confused with the Florida palmetto bug (Eurycotis floridana). Palmetto bug is a rather benign name for this creature but a palmetto bug by any other name is still a big fat cockroach.

Cockroaches are not native to America. They were introduced from Africa in the sixteenth century and have adapted quite well here. The palmetto bug population that thrives in South Carolina now was brought in by Billy Martin, while he was vacationing in 1998, after having been fired by the New York Yankees for the fifth time.

Cockroaches are not the least bit harmful. South Carolinians know this and they have developed an intimate and custodial relation with them. Palmetto bugs don’t bit or sting although some have accused them of emitting noxious odors from time to time. But, hey, we all do that.

Everything in South Carolina is named after the palmetto bug. Businesses, sports teams, churches; Palmetto Paint and Supply, Palmetto Body Piercing and Tattoo, Palmetto Motors, Palmetto Pizza, Palmetto Medical Services, Palmetto Plumbing Supply, Palmetto Unitarian Church, Palmetto First Bank, Palmetto Exterminators (licensed to exterminate any bug except the palmetto bug). 

The University of South Carolina’s football team, now the Gamecocks, used to be called the University of South Carolina Palmetto Bugs until Steve Spurrier emigrated from Florida and put an end to that. 

Palmetto bugs are cherished as pets in South Carolina and all homes have little palmetto bug condos. All hotels, motels and B&Bs in South Carolina are well endowed with palmetto bugs who cheerfully visit overnight guests by dropping from the ceiling into bed for a late night chat.

It is against state law in South Carolina to harm or harass a palmetto bug.

The popular bee hive hairdo, or the B-52, was developed in the 1960s in South Carolina so women could not be without their precious pet palmetto bugs when out and about on the town.  While South Carolina beauties are having coffee and apple fritters at the local Starbucks their pet palmettos can race out from their hive, descend their owners arm and grab a quick crumb snack, delighting fellow diners to no end. 

The middle name of all women in South Carolina is Palmetto; Savannah Palmetto Coppersmith, Emma Palmetto Bamberg, Olivia Palmetto Beaufort, Emmylou Palmetto Calhoun, Jesse Pearl Palmetto Bug Pickens.

There is even a state sponsored and wildly popular Palmetto Bug Precision Swim Team. They are very good, what with six legs and water wings with which to execute exact and coordinated moves. The Palmetto Bug Paladins Chorus Line woos audiences all over. Those six bare legs do it every time.

The palmetto bug is held in the highest esteem by South Carolinians but a close second is the sand flea, sometimes referred to as the sand gnat, no-see-um, granny nipper, chitra, punkie, or punky, the darling of anyone attempting to enjoy the great outdoors. But a sand flea by any other name is still a sand flea.

And here is where I draw the line on this South Carolina pet insect obsession. First of all they fly like all insects, and swarm, and being no-see-ums, you can’t see um. Secondly they bite and suck blood from their mammalian, reptilian and avian victims. Oddly enough it’s only the female flies that bite. Nothing worse than a swarm of angry, biting females!

And boy do those bites itch. I don’t get how such a tiny creature can inflict such an annoying bite, but they sure do. Furthermore why would any loving deity create this coastal paradise then throw in sand flies. Water moccasins, copperheads, an occasional coral snake, alligators, black widow and brown recluse spiders, sure, I get that, but why sand flies.

Sand fleas make me forget any notion of living in harmony with nature. I strongly urge the federal government step in, throw a big plastic bag over the entire state and douse it with DDT until every sand flea has met his maker and do it before we come back through next May. Of course the feds will have to gather all the palmetto bugs into safe houses during the operation.

Good night to all. I must spend some time scratching my sand flea bites before bedtime.

Tomorrow the mighty Atlantic

Anchored in Beaufort Harbor

Thursday, 11-19-2015. 0900 Wind NE at 10 knots. Temp 58 degrees F. 

Intermittent rain all last night. Raining this morning and rain forecast for today. Staying on hook waiting for better weather. Nursing the damned mystery leak we have not found, sharing bowl emptying duty, reading, napping, conversing, and watching life unfold on the water.

The main attraction is a fleet of tug boats, tenders and barges loaded with thousand foot sections of thirty-six inch polypropylene pipe, cranes, massive pumps and all manner of other necessary equipment, gather just to the south of us, a full blown dredging operation waiting for the tide change. Listening to their boat to boat communications as they coordinated the movement of this ‘floating city’ was like listening to a NASA launch. They finally got under way, ponderously motored by us within two hundred feet and passed through Lady Island Bridge on their way to Wilmington, NC. I still can’t believe they didn’t hit something.

Tomorrow we dock at the Downtown Marina in beautiful and historic downtown Beaufort, SC.

Good night all. 

Tides

Wednesday, 11-18-2015. 0830 Winds light NE Temp 60 degrees F.

Anchored on a low stand ebb tide in Church Creek with five other boats.

Everybody gets the basic idea about tides I suspect.  Tides are the daily rise and fall of sea level and are the result of interplay between the gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon and Sun and the rotation of the Earth. That interplay results in a ‘bulge’ of water that moves around the planet to create the tides. Where these celestial bodies are in relation to one another at any given moment in the yearly and monthly cycle determines the tides in a given location. Local geography generally determines tide height and current velocity.

An ebb tide (falling tide) is occurring when water is moving away from a land body towards the ocean. A low stand tide (low tide) is when the lowest water height is reached at a particular location. Ebb flow does not necessarily stop at low tide.

In a future blog entry, on which I’m sure you just can’t wait, I’m ‘gonna splain’ in great detail just how complicated tidal flow is and why its consideration is important for safe navigation.

Here is a little teaser.

In Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay the average tidal range is on the order of a few feet. On the same day, where we are now on Church Creek, in South Carolina, the Palmetto State (I’ll get to that later), the tide range is on the order of six feet. Just south of here in the Beaufort area its eight feet. Quite a difference. Why is that? To make a very long story very short, it has to do with geography. The bay is large and its inlet from the ocean is broad compared to Port Royal Sound and its relatively narrow inlet, which feeds the Beaufort River, where we are now. The same very big bulge of Atlantic Ocean water is hitting both those locations, but the Bay simply has more room, more volume, in which to fit the incoming water. Currents at the broad Bay entrance are modest for the same reason. At the narrow Port Royal Sound Inlet the incoming current is stronger, because water flows faster through a smaller pipe.

From Church Creek we crossed the North Edisto River, the Dawho River, the South Edisto River, passed through Fenwick Cut to the Ashepoo River then through the Ashepoo G Coosaw Cutoff to the Coosaw River into Brickyard Creek and finally into the Beaufort River, where we rounded the peninsula, passed through the Ladys Island Bridge and came to rest on anchor in the Beaufort Harbor at 1400.

Along the way, it starts to rain.

More boring geography stuff? Partially to illustrate another point (besides tide considerations), that being that South Carolina has a remarkably large and complex array of coastal rivers meandering here and there through ecologically productive, tidal saltwater wetlands, brimming with wildlife; birds, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, crabs, worms and insects (yes those too) and a fascinating assortment of wetland plants. In fact South Carolina has more salt water wetland acreage than any Atlantic Coastal state. These areas are a national treasure in my view. It’s fortunate that average tides are so high here. High tides in low coastal areas make for extensive salt water marches that must be infinitely harder to develop.

Good news.

So there.

Tomorrow we hope to tie up in the Beaufort City Marina where we are going to hunker down for a couple of days.

Good night.

Charleston

Tuesday, 11-17-2015 0830. Partially cloudy. Wind E at 12 – 15 knots. Strong on our starboard quarter. Temp 62 degrees F

We are tied up in the Charleston Maritime Center Marina on the east side of the Charleston Peninsula, having come in early yesterday at 0830.

We are here to visit a second cousin of mine and see some of this beautiful and historic city. A free trolley hits most of the old town and historic parts of the city so away we went to do just that.

We visited the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which unfortunately for us was closed for renovations.

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church

Click on the picture and it will enlarge so you can read the text 

After that we walked through the historic district, went to a Harris Teeter for supplies, bought some post cards and returned to Flicka.

Exciting people we are!

Passed a pleasant night tied to the dock with lots of rocking and rolling due to that strong quartering E wind.

At noon today, after a bit of a harrowing experience getting off the dock, we motored out into the Charleston Harbor, rounded the peninsula, entered the ICW, passed through to Wappo Swing Bridge and Elliott Cut to spill into the Stono River Where we came to anchor in Church Creek for the night.

A short day. 

And a screwed up entry to the blog, which I'm fixing now. 

Namaste

A few Charleston pics.

    

Civil Twilight and Other Important Matters

Monday, 11-16-2015, 0455. No wind. Strong late ebb tide. Dark as the inside of a cow.

Why so early?

We want to be in Charleston as early as possible to get into the Charleston Maritime Center (Marina), rent a car and visit an ailing cousin.

That means passing through the Ben Sawyer Swing Bridge before 0700 when a mandatory closure goes into effect until 0900 to accommodate rush hour traffic. We need to be close to the bridge early enough to ask for passage and give the bridge troll time to open and close the bridge before 0700.

We are 1.12 nautical miles away up a narrow creek with shoaling at the entrance. We need to go slow enough to react quickly in case we touch bottom or hit something or are attacked by marauding monarch butterflies. I use four knots as a base line which means it will take seventeen minutes to get to the bridge. Throw in an extra five minutes to weigh anchor and get the boat positioned to depart and we have a twenty-two minute trip.

Since we should arrive at the bridge at 0645 that means we need to leave the anchorage at 0623, certainly no later than 0630.

So we are leaving our anchorage during a time called nautical twilight by planetary scientists. Normal folk call it just plant twilight. Those pesky planetary scientists though recognize three distinct twilight phases. Astrological twilight marks the end of night proper and on this day in November it starts at 0526 and ends at 0555 when nautical twilight starts, which ends at 0625 when civil twilight starts, which runs to 0651, when the sun comes up.

What the hell! Planetary scientists are way cool.

To make this simple, let me just say we are leaving our anchorage before the sun comes up.

Night time on the water can be very confusing and disorienting. For one thing, it’s night time. A full moon helps, but on a moonless night, unless an object on the water is lit up it is virtually invisible, even big boats. Forget seeing fixed obstructions, crab pot buoys, small boats, floating debris or erant Jimmy Buffet parrrott head gear. 

Undaunted by all this math we turned on our navigational lights, which consist of a red light to port, green to starboard, white to stern and a steaming light forward (which denotes a boat under  power at night). This array of lights show differently from different aspects so that other boats can deduce our direction relative to theirs, as we can theirs.

For example, if you are seeing a red and green light, that boat is headed directly at you. If the green light flickers out and you are only seeing the red light (port side) the boat has made a turn to its starboard and is moving across you path from left to right. If it continues to turn you will pick up the stern light which tells you the boat is going away at an angle. Once the red light goes out and you only see the white stern light the boat is going straight away.

Commercial vessels have this light array other ancillary lights to denote other vital information, like whether it is pushing or towing another vessel, or the kind of vessel it is, fishing, tug, pilot, container or tanker, or whether Miley Cyrus is aboard. Stuff like that. A mariner has to know these light arrays in order to safely navigate at night and take advantage of any Miley Cyrus sightings.

We weighed anchor at 0623 on a strong ebb tide that pulls the bow around to point precisely at the mouth of Inlet Creek. We can just make out opposing shores of the creek as we ghost out at 3.5 knots. So far so good. The compass, depth finder and GPS are very helpful.

We intersect the main stem of the ICW, take a right and are pointed at the bridge, lit up like the national Christmas tree. But we have no idea what is between us and it except for blackness. But every minute it’s getting lighter as we move from navigational twilight to civil twilight. Finally features start to come into view, a dock here, an unlit day mark there.

We continue on, arriving right on time. We call the bridge troll to announce our arrival and intent to pass. He acknowledges our request and says, “Bring it on”. As we motor slowly forward another boat, Egret, behind us, a little late, because he is probably a no good, Canadian bum, calls to announce his intent to pass and apologizes for his lateness. The bridge troll asks if we can wait a bit so he only has to open the bridge once and of course we say sure, not wanting to piss off a bridge troll first thing in the morning. So we have to turn, motor away from the bridge for a few minutes and then turn back until Egret catches up.

But everything works well and right at 0655 we passed under the bridge and make our way toward the Charleston harbor just as a brilliant sun comes up, marking a shattering transition from civil twilight to full daylight.

All is well as we pass a container ship and other early morning boats. Fort Sumter appears to port, out the harbor further, where on April 12, 1861, confederate artillery fired on the union garrison at the fort, marking the start of armed conflict of the Civil War, which was anything but civil. Over 750,000 people died in that horror which ended on May 9th, 1865.

It took a long time for the people of South Carolina to remove the confederate flag from statehouse grounds in Charleston, a flag which has become in most people’s minds a symbol of racial hatred and oppression.  To her credit on July 9th, 2015 South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley ordered that to be done, but not before a racist devil entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church at 110 Calhoun Street in Charleston on Wednesday, June 16, 2015 and murdered nine black people during a prayer meeting.  

We are going to visit that church today to pay our respects.

Smooth sailing

Pretty Little Butterfly

Sunday 11-15-2015 0830 Calm winds, 57 degrees F.

We left our anchorage on Awendaw Creek at 0830. At 0915, in the vicinity of Casino Creek, we pass a Marco Company dredging operation. Much of the ICW is man-made ‘connector’ canals which must be dredged pretty constantly, because guess what, nature puts sediment anywhere it damn well pleases.

Dredging is a grand scale, bottom sucking operation involving long line, thirty-six inch plastic pipe strung out over a required distance, with boats vacuuming the bottom and pumping the sediment to an upland storage location where it erodes back into the channel thus assuring job security in perpetuity for Marcol.

Marcol Dredger

Some of the material is used to replenish various Atlantic beaches which are constantly eroding because, need I remind you, the geomorphological forces of nature don’t give a shit about where we want beaches. But we need our beaches so obese white guys can slather themselves with ineffective sun screen, drink ice cold PBRs and leer at the pretty, bikini clad, tattooed babes walking in the sand trolling for young hot hunk guys.

And so cynics like me can drive boats up and down the ICW.     

0930 we pass a large flock of a hundred or more double crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) doing what appears to be a whole lot of nothing. Which of course is not true because they are engaged in all kind of survival behaviors including, first and foremost, fishing. As you might conclude from your own experience in life, eating is important. Often they can be seen holding their wings out to dry because their creator, in her infinite wisdom, did not install water proofing oil glands like she did in other more fortunate birds. And yes, many birds are just hanging out, jockeying for position in cormorant society, looking for a girlfriend. You know, stuff we do.    

We pass a small, single handed sloop running wing and wing, a technique that employs the boat’s main sail to one side and the head sail to the other, so the boat look like a magnificent bird slowly and purposefully flapping its way along.

1015. We get an uplifting and much appreciated call from one of my favorite people on the planet. Joe (Whitey) McCue. Joe and I have been adventuring together through the chaos of this life for more than forty years. Adventure on Joe!

And just after Joe’s call, which must have been a portend, we were visited by a splendid monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) who had winged itself onto Flicka, where it flitted about and came to rest on Emily’s sleeve. It rested for a moment, took flight again and then bounced about on the port lazarette. Appearing to be somewhat distressed, it finally came to rest near the stern.

Everyone knows about the life history of these magnificent creatures. For millions of years, the eastern North American population has migrated  southward in late-summer and fall from the United States and southern Canada to a particularly small area in central Mexico, covering thousands of miles, with a corresponding multi-generational return north in the spring. How the hell does this delicate creature do this?

Not only is it able to navigate that distance but just imagine the physical stamina required. And ponder this. Many individuals die on the migration, but not before they lay eggs. The progeny from those eggs pick right up where their parents left off and continue the grand migration northward until they, or their offspring, finally come to be in the very spot from which long gone individuals left the past fall headed south to their sunny warm Mexico mecca. Except that in these modern days that mecca is threatened by logging operations and other human activities. So watch every monarch you can. Someday the one you see may be the last of its kind.

What happened next is the astonishing part of this story.  

The ever present Captain Emily just happened to be drinking (I’m not making this up) a Jumex brand mango nectar juice. She poured some of the juice into a bottle cap and carefully slid it into sniffing range. That beautiful creature perked right up, plunged its prodigious proboscis into the tantalizingly tasty energy rich nectar and sucked and sucked and sucked.

Pretty Little Butterfly

As suddenly as it started feeding it quit, bounced around a bit in the stern licking its little butterfly lips and suddenly took to strong directed flight. I imagined it to have bent its wing in salute to Emily as it sailed away.

I also imagined that at the end of the day it joined its flutter of south bound buddies and joyfully exclaimed, “Man, you just won’t believe what happened to me today!” 

After that all we could do was smile at one another as we glided along the narrow Harbor River, passed Capers Inlet, the Isle of Palms and Breach Inlet and finally to a beautiful anchorage on Inlet Creek, just a few miles from Charleston, which is where we are bound tomorrow.

We pulled into this pretty little creek early, to rest and prepare for our stay in Charleston.

Early to bed, early to rise.

Got to be at the Ben Sawyer Swing Bridge at 0645 to catch the last opening before 0700 to 0900 mandatory closure for rush hour traffic.

Good night all.

Sunset over Inlet Creek

We are boarded!

Saturday, 11-14-2015, 0830, Wind N 5 knots. 46 degrees F. strong out-going current.

After the ever so satisfying two cups of coffee we weight anchor and head down the beautiful Waccamaw River, past incoming creeks and sloughs, through the Cypress Swamp, past Butler Island and finally to the Waccamaw’s confluence with the Great Pee Dee River, forming the Winyah River.

And on this stretch, just past the Lafayette Fixed Bridge, it finally happened.

We were approached by a U. S. Coast Guard patrol boat. As they got closer we could see five crew members carrying side arms and, just like in the movies, radios, whistles, flashlights, mace and unidentifiable digital devices. They all looked to be in their late twenties, early thirties. All spiffy, spit shinned and fiddle fit.

They pulled abreast on our starboard side and requested permission to board. Professional, pleasant and polite as pie they were.

What to do? I momentarily thought about refusal but also had a sneaking suspicion that that would be a loser.  I did not know specifically at that moment but the Fourth Amendment does not mean squat to the U. S. Coast  Guard, whose mission is, first and foremost, to protect our borders. Drug interdiction is a big part of that.

As it turns out (I’m paraphrasing), Title 14 section 89 of the United States Code authorizes the US Coast Guard to board your boat any time they want, and look anywhere they want, without probable cause or a warrant. They can do this on the open sea, or while you’re asleep aboard in your marina at midnight. They can look through your bedsheets, in your lockers, in your bilges, in your jewelry box, or in your pockets. They can do it carrying just their side arms, or they can do it carrying assault rifles. They can be polite about it or they can be rude, but mostly they’re polite.

I granted permission and aboard they came. Three of their crew, one of which identified himself as a U. S. Customs official, adroitly stepped onto our gunnel and joined us in the cockpit. I was at the helm and Emily was standing on the companion way ladder.

The leader explained that this was a routine boarding and asked to see our documentation and identification, which we gladly handed over. The skipper called that information in to confirm and, you know me, I started asking questions. While we waited for confirmation we found out that one guy was from Savannah, the customs official from North Carolina and the last from Wisconsin. They all agreed that their choices to join the armed services was the best decision they had made for themselves. Before you know it, we were buddy-buddy. But they were still carrying side arms.

The only other ‘formal’ question, besides those for identification, was whether we were carrying any weapons. The answer of course was no. No questions about illegal drugs or safety equipment or our sanitation system.

Once their dispatcher confirmed our identities, they wished us a pleasant and safe day. Their boat pulled up and they stepped off as adroitly as they had come and slowly motored off. As they pulled away they smiled, waved and, I’m not kidding, bowed ever so slightly.

I’m sure glad they did not do a search and discover the ton of marijuana in the bilge and cache of automatic weapons in the forepeak.

So there you have it. Our first Coast Guard boarding.

After that, and after calming down a bit, we got under way, past Georgetown, down the Winyah and into the Esterville Minim Creek Canal, crossed Santee Bay, the North Santee River, through Four Mile Creek Canal and the South Santee River. 

We passed through a very shallow section in McClellanville area, with a few grounded boats, but worked our way through successfully. 

Finally anchored in twelve feet on Awendaw Creek, one of our favorite spots. 

A beautiful sundown in calm weather. But brrrr, brrrr cold!

The Rock Pile

Friday, 11-13-2015, 0830, Wind N 5 knots, 52 degrees F, out-going current on a falling high tide.

Anchored with six other boats in this narrow creek, among them our friends on Illusion and the indefatigable, seventy-seven year old single-hander Tom Murphy on Monday Morning.

We motor out into the ICW, passing Nixons Crossing where the gambling boats lay waiting for the next group of boneheads. Onward to the start of the Rock Pile, a narrow, windy stretch of the ICW with rock ledges bordering the edges. That’s ‘edges have ledges’, not to be confused with ‘ruffles have ridges”.

The U. S. Corp of Engineers made the rock pile when they blasted the channel from granite bed rock years ago. They piled the spoil on each side, some of which has ‘migrated’ out from the ledge. At low tides (and the tide change in these parts is on the order of four feet) the passage narrows and obviously becomes more shallow.

"Securite, securite, securite. This is sailing vessel Flicka entering the north end of the Rock Pile at mile marker 342 at 1000 hours, south bound. I repeat securite, securite, securite. This is sailing vessel Flicka entering the north end of the Rock Pile at mile marker 342 at 1000 hours, south bound. Over."

This is the message we transmit over VHF channel sixteen, the open channel monitored by all vessels and the U. S. Coast Guard, used to hail other vessels, report hazards to navigation, make distress calls, etc.

Sixteen is not for talking to Bubba about the latest Skoal product or for fish stories or radio dating.

We are announcing that we are entering the Rock Pile to alert other users of this dangerous area, especially barges and other large commercial craft, of our intent to traverse, in hopes that they won’t run us the hell over.

We had planned this morning to pass through the Rock Pile at as close to high tide as possible, which we did. Good on us. No mishaps or north bound traffic this morning.

Onward passed the Grand Strand Airport, Atlantic and Myrtle Beaches and through the Socastee (sock it to me) swing bridge.

“Socastee Bridge, Socastee Bridge, Socastee Bridge, this is sailing vessel Flicka south bound, ten minutes from the bridge, requesting permission to pass. Over”, I say importantly.

“Good morning. What’s your hailing port captain?” the bridge troll says more casually. “And do you have and small dogs aboard?” he says in a slightly menacing tone.

“Socastee Bridge, this is sailing vessel Flicka. We hail from San Francisco, CA and we have no small dogs aboard. Can we interest you in some raw chicken?” I add politely.

“Bridge trolls do not eat chicken Flicka. Chicken is for you weak stomached humans. Are you toying with me?”

“Socastee Bridge, this is sailing vessel Flicka. No sir. My sincerest apologies. Over.”

“Alright Flicka. Pull up to the bridge. I’ll get you through, but when you pass this way again make sure you have a small dog or two aboard.”

“Socastee Bridge, this is sailing vessel Flicka. Yes sir. Thank you and have a nice day. This is sailing vessel Flicka clear the bridge and south bound.”

Whew! Made it past another bridge troll.

Onward, past Bucksport and into the Waccamaw River, a beautiful tidal river flowing through cedar swamp wetlands and finally to anchor at 1530 on a bend in Bull Creek on a strong outgoing tide.

By ourselves now, an occasional small camouflaged boat comes by with one or two crew aboard, wearing camouflaged hats, face muffs, jackets, pants and boots, with camouflaged shot guns resting on camouflaged coolers. What the fuck are these guys hiding from?

1545. The sun is setting. Very quiet now except for the sound of water gurgling past the hull and a solitary Barred owl’s plaintive call echoing down the waterways.

Hoo hoo ho-ho hoo hoo ho-oooooooawr (“who cooks for you, who cooks for you-all”)

Tomorrow more of the Waccamaw, on to the Great Pee Dee, the Esterville Minin Creek Canal and other exotic places on the ICW.

Lockwood Folly

Thursday 11-12-2015, 0645, 58 degrees F.  Wind westerly, slight. Incoming tide.  62 degrees. Partially cloudy.

Headed down ICW early from the sleepy Hamlet of Southport to arrive at ‘Lockwood Folly’ at near high tide.  Lockwood Folly River and Inlet are danger areas Hank talked about last night, a typical ocean inlet with strong tidal flows and resultant shoaling at strategic points, right smack on the ICW. So best to negotiate at high tide. Which we did, successfully!

Legend has it that the Lockwood Folly River got its name because a Mr. Lockwood, worked tirelessly for many months to build the boat of his dreams, only to discover that he had made the boat’s draft too deep to clear the sandbar at the inlet. Abandoned, the boat rotted in place.

Draft, by the way, for you novices, is the depth of the boat in the water.

I bet the next twenty years of Mr. Lockwood’s life were hard to bear. “There goes old woodhead Lockwood, the guy that built that there boat.” Things were probably not pleasant at the local pub where Locky went to have a warm swill. “Hey bonehead, how’s the boat coming?” Great peals of laughter could be heard for miles from the gathered, toothless and less than hygienic mariners, farmers and bar maids.

An important navigation lesson one learns by negotiating a tuff spot like Lockwood Folly is to always, I repeat, always know and respect navigation aids (navaids). These days, mariners use generally reliable digital mapping programs to navigate by just ‘following the bouncing boat’ on a screen. But these programs, as good as they are, don’t always reflect what is actually happening on the ground, or in our case, in the water.

The always reliable United States Coast Guard constantly checks navaid positions and moves them in response to changing conditions. Following the marks (navaids), never cutting corners, proceeding with caution, staying alert. These are the hallmark rules for successful passage through hazardous areas.      

So proceed we did past the ‘Folly’ We passed under three fixed bridges, crossed the Little River Inlet with it constantly changing currents and finally came to be in South Carolina. We anchored at 1530 in eight feet on the Calabash River, just in time to see the ‘Big M Casino’, a gambling boat, motor north bound out of Nixon’s Crossroads.

The 'Big M'

One of those dangerous illegals cleaning Big M's windows.

Gambling is illegal in South Carolina so the Big M loads up a bunch of folks with pockets full of cash and drives out through the Little River Inlet past the three mile territorial limit into the Atlantic Ocean. On the way the clients are well lubricated with free booze and plenty to eat. Once past the limit the gambling begins in earnest. Casino gorillas toss anyone caught cheating overboard. In the wee hours the boat returns with a bunch of well fed, drunk, broke and bummed out gamblers (minus the cheaters) and a safe full of cash.

Now ain’t that fun!

Early to bed, early to rise for us non-gamblers.

Tomorrow we tackle the daunting ‘Rock Pile’, called the Rock Pile, because, well, it’s a pile of rocks.

Good night.

Cape Fear River

Wednesday, 11-11-2015, 0630 Sunrise over Carolina Beach Harbor. Wind 5 knots NE, Temperature 50 degrees F.

0800 Entering Snows Cut, a man made canal that connects Dick Bay (please believe me, I am not making that up) with the Cape Fear River. 

Snow's Cut

We fight a strong current through the cut and merge with the 370 mile long Cape Fear River, the approach to Wilmington, the leading port in North Carolina. Wilmington is the hub of a robust import/export business for all kinds of products. Lots of barges, military craft, tankers, container ships, commercial fishing and recreational vessels and now Flicka ply these waters.

Vigilance is the word today. Passing by some very large vessels.

We pass by Fort Caswell on Oak Island, a  19^th and early 20^th century defense facility for the North Carolina Coast and the Cape Fear River nuclear power plant to the west, just a couple of miles from Southport, our destination for the day. We turn back into the ICW across from Battery Island and then immediately into the Southport Yacht Basin, a picturesque little harbor ringed with commercial fishing vessels, pilot boats, pleasure craft, one restaurant and very nice historic waterfront homes.

Southport

We anchor in eight feet of water right beside Palasso, owned and operated by Pete Lipton, a character we met last year on our spring return. His boat has not moved. He wasn’t ‘home’ today. Good thing, because Pete in a professional talker, beating records for any talker I have ever met. See last year’s May 12 entry for more on Pete.

We spied an open slip at a free dock and moved there to gain access to Southport Marina (and escape Pete) where every evening at 1800, Hank Pomeranz, retired Navy navigator and now owner of Carolina Yacht Care, gives an informative, free talk on navigating the waters within eighty miles north and south of Southport, including valuable advice on weather and ocean passage making, an activity to which we aspire.

We walk over to the marina with new friends, Dave and Polly, from ‘Illusion’, a twenty-seven foot Island Packet. Dave, seventy-seven years young, and Polly, his lovely wife, bought this boat just this year. They are headed for the Bahamas in it. More amazing is that they traded in their trawler (power boat) for the sailboat. Most ‘old people’ do it the other way. That is, they trade the sail boat for a more easy to manage power boat.

Dick from Illusiom

Hank was great and talked about specific hazardous areas we will encounter between here and Savannah, GA. This area of the ICW has many inlets to the ocean, a five to eight foot tide change, thus very fast tidal currents and lots of shoaling, making for unexpected shallow spots and potential for grounding.

After the talk we walked over to the Fishy Fish Café for a marvelous bowl of clam chowder and a couple of fine North Carolina India Pale Ales.

Back aboard Flicka I just had to have one more. For my beer snob, much loved son-in-law, Chad, I chose a ‘Hog Wild’ from the Aviator Brewing Company in Fuquay-Varina, NC. A very tasty IPA brewed with two - row pale, Vienna and crystal malts and Chinook, Columbus, Cascade, Magnum and Willamette hops. Packing a 6.7% wallop.

The picture on the can is of a snorting, drooling, menacing, Arnold Schwarzenegger looking, iron pumped boar hog wearing an Aviator tee-shirt, sporting a nose ring and chain around his neck with a dog tag that reads ‘Aviator Brew Master’. He’s holding a little buddy rat friend in his left hand who is wearing a tee-shirt that barely covers his fat little beer belly. I swear I'm not making this up. It came out of some other demented mind.

So that’s it for today.

Tomorrow we press onward to Lockwood’s Folly, a particularly daunting inlet with some serious shoaling and finally hoping to sneak into South Carolina to anchor on the Calabash River.

Namaste