David Perry

Winds picked up last night and remained strong this morning. We have a swing bridge 45nm ahead of us that won’t open when the wind exceeds 25 kts. since we need to pass through the bridge, we decide to wait here for the wind to die down. I received a text from my friend Cody, who was in Phoenix, AZ for a concert. He was available this coming week to help as crew and offered to fly in to meet us. We made arrangements for Cody to fly to Charleston on Sunday where we would plan to meet him. Around 2:00 pm the wind had weaken a little so we decided to pull up anchor and continue along the ICW towards Charleston. At 5:00 pm we pulled off the ICW onto Awendaw Creek and anchored for the night. This anchorage is part of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge and is one of my favorite anchorages.

Thursday morning the anchor is up before sunrise and we are on our way by 6:06 am. Todays forecast shows a brief weather window for an offshore passage so we leave the Cape Fear River for open water. This passage will take us South beyond the Myrtle Beach area while avoiding the meandering ICW and its many bridges. The Bridges along this stretch of the ICW have created clearance problems for us in the past. We make good time offshore but tomorrows forecast is for winds in excess of 40 knots so we decide to head into Winyaw Bay and anchor for the night. Having covered a total of 82.8 nm today we are now in the State of South Carolina.

We pulled up anchor and were on our way out of Mile Hammock anchorage at 6:30 am. We had to time our passage under the 64′ Topsail Island Bridge and the Surf City Bridge. The bridges are both several miles from any inlets or known tide tables making it difficult to time for low tide. Based on the distance from the closest tide table, I calculated that low tide at the 1st bridge would be approximately 3 hours behind the local tide table. We passed under the Topsail Bridge with little room to spare but had plenty of clearance under the higher Surf City bridge. Next we had the two Bascule bridges at Wrightsville beach to pass through and then the Seabreeze Bridge at Snows Cut before entering the Cape Fear River. After a days run of 53.7 nm, we anchored for the night at Tina’s Pocket in the middle of the Cape Fear River.

8:05 am We pulled out of River Dunes Marina and onto the ICW headed South. The offshore weather report did not look favorable so we decided to continue on the ICW. After 65.4 nm, we anchored in Mile Hammock Bay at the Camp Lajeune Marine Base at 5:30 pm. This is a nice, large anchorage just off the ICW and tonight we are the only boat here.

I enjoyed the Holidays in Vermont and caught up on all my Doctor, Dental and eye appointments (I even squeezed in a colonoscopy as well as a couple days on the ski slopes ). I’ve been away from the boat six weeks longer than I had intended and now it’s time to head for warmer weather.

My friend Gordon, who had helped me move the boat on my last leg, introduced me to Rick Walker as someone who loves the ocean and was interested in an adventure. Rick lives in South Woodstock, VT but spends much of his time with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on their 80′ Research Vessel “RV Martin Sheen”. Because of time constraints, Rick was unable to join Sea Shepherd on their latest voyage but was eager to join me for a quick trip from North Carolina to Florida. On Wednesday February 23rd I met Rick in Lebanon, NH and we took the Dartmouth Coach to Boston to board a plane to New Bern, NC. When we arrived on the boat, we found that the boat refrigerator had stopped working and also noticed that the hull cleaning I had previously scheduled had not been completed. After a few phone calls we were able to schedule a technician to repair the refrigerator on Friday. With the refrigerator now working, we could provision the boat. It was late Monday afternoon before we finally got the diver to clean the hull. The hull cleaning was important as a fouled hull, covered in sea growth, will slow our progress by as much 1 – 1-¹/₂ kts. / hr. Fully provisioned and with full fuel and water tanks, we were ready for an early Tuesday morning departure.

We had the anchor up and were moving before sunrise. River Dunes is off the Neuse River, at the far Southern end of Pamlico Sound. We had another 60 miles to cover and we needed to arrive at River Dunes before the marina closed at 5:00 pm. The Sound was calm and smooth as glass, with only the ripples caused by the boat as we glided along. We arrived at the marina at 3:30 allowing ample time to pump out our holding tanks before tying up in our new slip. The guys helped clean the boat and we secured everything down below in preparation for departure. The following morning, Alex’s wife Delouise arrived to pick us up. Gordon and I were dropped off at the New Bern Airport while Alex and his wife returned home by car. I will be in Vermont through the Holidays and return to the boat around mid January.

We were up and moving at sunrise. With only two days left to reach River Dunes, we still needed to cover a total of 134 nm. We passed through Coinjock feeling sorry we didn’t have time to stop at the marina diner to enjoy their famous Prime Rib, maybe next time. The wind picked up a little coming into Albermarle Sound so we raised the sails and picked up a little extra speed. Around noon we heard the unwanted slapping sound indicating we had caught a crab pot and wrapped it’s line around our port prop. Unable to free it, we continued on at a slower speed using only the starboard engine and sails. We arrived at the Washington Braum Bridge a little after 1:00 and noticed the water gauge was only showing about 64′ clearance, we needed 64′ 4″. We circled back around to drop our sails and then proceeded back up to the bridge at a very slow creep. We just cleared with the VHF antenna bent all the way over. That was a close one that could have ended our trip. The good news was that was the last bridge we needed to clear before reaching River Dunes tomorrow. It was dark by the time we arrived at our anchorage at Gull Island. We covered a total of 74.3 nm today, time for a cocktail and dinner.

Tuesday finally arrived and we pulled up anchor at 9:30 am and timed our passage to arrive at the #7 Railroad Bridge for the 11:00 am opening. We got a good jump on most of the boats with only 8 boats ahead of us.

The long line of boats behind us waiting for the Bridge opening. We had to pass through or under 13 bridges and 1 lock today. The draw bridges and lock only open on the hour so the boats were all crowding ahead to get through quickly.

The Great Bridge Lock can only move a limited number of boats at a time and it takes approximately 45 minutes to Lock through each set of boats. We were lucky to get through with the second set of boats, only having to wait about an hour. It would be a very long day for the boats at the end of the line. We eventually arrived at the Pungo Ferry Bridge and found the safety netting had been moved over to the next span allowing just enough clearance for us to pass through. It was beginning to get dark and we still needed to cross Currituck Sound. I had called the Coinjock marina earlier to try and reserve a slip but they said they were full so we would need to find an anchorage. The dredged channel through the Sound is very narrow and we knew there was a cruise ship coming up behind us and a tug towing a large barge heading towards us. The three of us meeting together in the dark along a narrow channel was something I wanted to avoid if possible. Still in the Sound, I finally found a small pocket in the shallow waters just off the channel, a place called Bell point anchorage. There wasn’t protection from any direction but the water was calm and the forecast was good with only very light winds. We dropped anchor, fixed dinner and avoided the large commercial vessels coming.

We arrived at the Hospital Point Anchorage in Norfolk, Va this afternoon around 3:00 pm, a days total of 51.7 nm. As we were coming into Norfolk, we heard a Coast Guard “Notice to Mariners” on the VHF. They reported that the Pungo Ferry Bridge, 25 nm South of us, was undergoing maintenance with cables and safety netting suspended 10′ below the bridge, restricting clearance. This 65′ bridge only gives us minimal clearance under the best of conditions and I knew there was no way we would clear through with the netting in place. The report indicated that the maintenance work would be completed by Friday afternoon. With this news, we had no choice but to stay anchored here until Friday or Saturday. Over the next couple of days the weather began to deteriorate with the forecast predicting weekend winds gusting 40 – 50 knots with the worst of it South of us. We also heard another Coast Guard report that the Norfolk Southern #7 Railroad Bridge, 5 nm South of us, would be in the closed position for maintenance from 7:00 pm Saturday through 11:00 am Tuesday. This would prevent any boats from passing through during that 64 hour period. It was now apparent, considering the weekend storm and bridge closure, we would now be sitting here until Tuesday morning. As the week wore on, we watched as other boats intending to continue South started to fill up the anchorage and marinas around us, all waiting for the weather and bridge work to pass. Thankfully, we had good on-board internet, good TV reception, plenty of food and most important good company to keep us entertained.

With an early morning start, we were able to cover 61.4 nautical miles to Fishing Bay anchorage in Deltaville, Va. This was a large, easy anchorage with dozens of other boats anchored near by.