Lake Ogleton, Day 2

We decided that we would leave Lake Ogleton on Monday morning.  The weather is supposed to hold for the immediate future, it is fun being with Dave and Mary and we don’t want to fight our way up the rest of the bay to Baltimore on a Sunday.  There is a 200 boat sailing regatta this weekend in Annapolis, and the “Worlds Largest Striped Bass” tournament goes though Sunday.

The fishing tournament explains our issues on the water yesterday.  There are about 500 boats entered, each paying near $300 each.  Top prize is $10,000 for amateurs and $5,000 for pros.  Evidently fisherman are really reluctant to alter course or deal with other recreational boats when that $10,000 fish is probably just ahead of them.

Today, after a leisurely breakfast at Dave and Mary’s house we headed down to Harrington Harbor North so Dave could rig dock lines and fenders on Gatsby to ready the boat for launch this week.  While we were there we checked out all the boats in the yard, thinking there might be something interesting for sale; we found nothing that struck our fancy.  A stop was made at Hartge Yacht Harbor in Galesville to see if anything was available there and we also came up dry.  Interesting, affordable boats are hard to come by.

Covered, in the water slips at Hartge.

Dave and Mary’s daughter Colleen and son in law Todd joined us for dinner at a cute “small plate” restaurant, then it was back to Dave and Mary’s place for a after dinner drink before we returned to Liberty for the evening.

Today:  0 miles.

Dave

Lake Ogleton Dock, Annapolis, MD

The anchor came aboard at 0720 (we started the process at 0700 but it took almost 20 minutes to make the boat ready and hose down the anchor chain as it came in) and headed out into the bay.  At the time the winds were NE at 13 knots, at 45 degrees off the bow.  Eventually the winds dropped to 10 and then to about 5 knots by the time we  got close to Annapolis.

We are not sure what is worse, dodging fishing boats or crab pots.  The nice thing about crab pots is they don’t move.  Today we kept coming across large groups of fishing boats as the one month rockfish season is in full swing.  It didn’t take long to come across a mass of boats (we counted 35 in front of us and this with limited visibility as there was a light mist in the air most of the day) requiring us to pick our way through them.

Although we needed to dodge a few “port tackers” (boats coming at us from the left which made us the stand-on or privileged vessel so theoretically we shouldn’t have to change course but do), we had almost made it through the pack when it appeared one boat simply wanted to assert their “right of way” privilege on us.  Fishing boats that are dragging lures (trolling) seem to change course at random with out paying a lot of attention to what is going on around them.  After all, they are fishing and think they have rights on all others in the near vicinity.  We just had one boat that altered course to go behind us as he rightly should have when our friend decided to start to cross our bow then decided better and took our stern.  At this point he called us on channel 16 on the VHF radio and asked if we knew we were impeding a fishing vessel.  My reply (also on channel 16) was to quote USCG Navigation Rule 3, paragraph (d) which defines a vessel engaged in fishing.  This does not “include a vessel with trolling lines”.  As we were the stand-on vessel we were obligated to maintain course and speed so the burdened vessel can take appropriate action to avoid us.  Well, his response was not understandable, but the tone was definitely not friendly.  Generally, the USCG admonishes people who use channel 16 for any purpose other than hailing and switching to another working channel but evidently didn’t feel the need to holler at us for quoting chapter and verse.  It could be this guy simply wasn’t paying attention and was surprised to find another boat that was not fishing in his vicinity.   He could have slowed down and we would have passed in front or altered course if had been paying closer attention.   And yes, I keep a copy of this section of the navigation rules at the helm station as we repeatedly hear fisherman asserting their assumed rights on the radio.  I have always threatened to read this section to all vessels in radio range when I hear such things but of course I never would.  But when somebody singles us out on the radio….

One fisherman politely asked a sailboat to alter course as he said his fishing lines extended 300′ back from his boat.  That is 100 yards, a long way.

Coming across another group of fishing boats a few hours later and being “pushed” to the side by more boats coming in from the port side (again we are the stand-on vessel but try to be nice) we found ourselves getting a little too close to the traffic lane where a tug towing a large barge was almost abeam of us.  It then occurred to us that if we simply slowed down and let the tug and barge pass, we could fall in behind the barge and let it run interference for us through the fishing fleet.

The tug and barge paving the way for us.  He quickly left us in his wake as he was two knots faster but we didn’t have to dodge any boats while we were behind him.

We did hear a freighter place a VHF radio call asking the fishing fleet to move from the shipping channel to let him pass.  You would think a 700 foot long vessel wouldn’t have to make such a request but evidently those fish must be worth a lot of money to risk your boat (and your life) for one.

 

We are not going to assert any rights over this guy.

Dave and Mary were on the dock to greet us with their fenders.  Some chit chat in the warmth of Liberty’s salon as the temperature was a balmy 50 degrees outside,  then it was off to their house for some wine and cheese before attending a neighborhood gathering.

As the marina is somewhat exposed to NE winds we use Gatsby’s Big Bertha fenders just in case. They do a great job of protecting Liberty but make boarding her more difficult. The famed gang plank came to the rescue.

The Annapolis Cove marina in Lake Ogleton at night.

Today:  45 nm in 7 engine hours.  Total:  3668 nm.

Dave

Mill Creek #2 Anchorage, Solomons, MD

The weather forecast for today was favorable: East winds of 5-10 knots, so we left the very exclusive Allnutt YC at 0730 and headed down the St. Mary’s River and into the Potomac.

Leaving Bob’s dock in the rain.

It was a fairly smooth ride until we approached Point Lookout where the Potomac dumps into the Chesapeake.  This area can have some short, choppy (nasty) waves and today was no exception as the 5-10 knots of wind turned out to be a pretty steady 15 knots.  Looking at our track as reported by our Spot transmitter you would think that it was a pretty straight forward course, probably driven by our autopilot.  That wasn’t exactly the case.  Spot only reports our position every ten minutes.  In between times we were zigging and zagging like crazy while trying to contend with the pitching and rolling (and crab pot floats).  Fortunately, as we got further away from the Potomac influence we only had to contend with rolling and that was somewhat minimized a bit through the use of our steadying sail.  The day has a way of averaging itself out so out of the six and one half hours we were under way today, only about an hour or two were borderline uncomfortable.  It doesn’t help when the entire day is spent in cool, overcast conditions with a light rain.

We had hoped to meet up at Solomons with our friends Bill and Judy, owners of the Pilgrim 40 Dreamboat Annie but we weren’t able to connect this time.  Their dock is not available due to the spring explosion of horned duckweed, Judy is out of town working and Bill has work commitments.  Well, this gives us an opportunity to check out the anchorages up Mill Creek in Solomons.  Reviews of this anchorage indicate that during the summer it can be crowded with water skiers, wake boarders and jet skiers all ignoring the 6 mph “speed limit” and no enforcement.  Obviously we don’t have that problem at this time of the year.  There is only one other boat anchored here, a large motor yacht from NJ.

Our location in Solomons

 

A view from anchor. This sailboat is actually kept on an electric lift.

As you would expect there are some nice homes that are on the banks of the creek.

 

Tomorrow we should find us in Lake Ogleton, just south of Annapolis where we will be visiting with Dave and Mary, owners of the Pilgrim 40 Gatsby.  The forecast is for NE winds of 5-10 knots, hopefully they will get that right.

Today:  40 nm in 6.4 engine hours.  Total:  3623 nm.

Dave

R and R at the Allnutt dock

To recap some of our weeks activities, we had rented a car from Enterprise (they pick you up, in our case a 20 minute ride away) for a week.  After we picked it up we stopped by the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum to check out the naval aviation exhibits before returning to Liberty.

The outdoor exhibits are getting a little long in the tooth, the sign boards describing the aircraft and their particular history are getting old and faded.

Travel up to Erie the following day was uneventful, always a good thing.  We got to visit with friends and family and celibate grand children Kate (one year old) and Luke’s (seven years old) birthday.

Kate enjoying her birthday cup cake.

While in Erie I noticed that our rental (2015 Chrysler 200) indicating that it needed an oil change as most modern cars do via a dashboard display.  The car has 20,000 miles on it and there was a sticker inside the door saying the next oil change was due at 10,000 miles.  This might mean that there was about 15,000 miles on the current oil so I pulled the dipstick to see what it looked like.  Much to my surprise, there was only about 1/4″ of oil showing on the dipstick.  OK, it is really, really low on oil (no idiot light came on to indicate a low oil level/pressure reading).  We bought two quarts, added it and the level was still below the add mark.  Another quart of oil brought the level to within 1/4″ of the full mark.  So, we added three quarts of oil to a system that according to the manual held 5.5 quarts total.  It is amazing the engine wasn’t toast.  Driving the car for about 1000 miles we averaged 37 mpg (almost all of it highway miles) so that wasn’t bad   The cruise control was pretty much worthless.  Going down hills the control would let the speed increase about 6 mph for the longest time, and going up hills it would let the speed drop almost the same amount.  We are not in the market for a new vehicle but if we were a Chrysler product would be scratched from the list.  Enterprise did knock $20 off the cost of the rental when we returned the vehicle and presented them with the receipts for the oil.  It was had to believe that a car with only 20,000 miles would have as many dings and scratches in it that ours did (Florida plates).

Our friend Bob kindly had a chicken roasting for us when we pulled into his house on our return last evening.  It was nice having dinner waiting for us after fighting our way through all the rush hour traffic on the eastern corridor although we by-passed the Washington DC area entirely.  We had breakfast, lunch and dinner with Bob on Liberty today, desert was at Bobs house.  We “treated” Bob to an Erie delicacy, Smith’s Natural Casing Hot dogs, potato salad, beans and Cole slaw.  We don’t have hot dogs very often, maybe twice a year (with good reason).

Today’s activities centered on (besides eating) checking out the Willard 40 October and doing a bit of boat work in the mid 80 temperatures we had today.  Even though we had been warned that October was probably beyond saving by our advance scout (Bill, owner of the Pilgrim 40 Dream Boat Annie) we had to see it for ourselves.  Bill was right.  October should be re-named December as she is in the final month of her life.

We were hoping for the best as we really like the looks and the functionality of the Willard 40.

We were hard pressed to find any deck, or cabin top area that wasn’t saturated.  The current owner had made some attempts a few years back in re-coring some bad areas but even these had re-opened and allowed water back into the core.  Almost all the inside woodwork through out the boat was damp and de-laminating, there were pools of water in places there shouldn’t have been any water at all.

Part of the cabin sole in the saloon where you could have probably put your foot through into the engine room if you stepped here.

This is really the first boat we have ever seen that we think can not realistically be saved as there is too much damage to all the coring.  It is really a shame as those boats have a bullet proof hull and we are fond of the design.

After a trip to Walmart to re-provision we decided to replace the small roller on our anchor bow roller.  We had a few custom rollers made from Delrin (Polyoxymethylene (POM)) and “simply” needed to remove the 1/2″ bolt that was the axle and swap the rollers out.  The  bolt had been coated with Tef-Gel.  “Tef-Gel eliminates seizing galling, corrosion and friction welding of stainless steel, inconel, and other nickel alloys. When both surfaces are coated and mated with Tef-Gel there are no voids for electrolytes (saltwater) to be drawn in by capillary action over extended periods of time.”   Well, evidently we didn’t use enough the first time as we couldn’t get the stainless bolt out of the aluminum casting.  The bolt would grudgingly turn but not back out.   In the end we took the anchor roller off the pulpit and up to Bob’s shop where he has a 12 ton hydraulic press that we used to extract the bolt.  Putting it back together, we used a lot of Tef-Gel ($40 for 2 oz.) this time around hoping that the press would not be required in the future.

The black piece under the anchor in the center of the picture is the new roller.

Replacement roller, the width and diameter are not available as a standard part.

Tomorrow the wind forecast is for NE winds in the 20+ knot range.  We are staying put until the following day when winds should be E at around 10.  We need to round Point Lookout at the North West side of the Potomac.  That area can get a bit rough with confused waves so we will wait for conditions to improve a bit first.

0 miles traveled (by boat).

Dave

 

Allnutt Dock, Church Cove, St. Inigoes

Leaving the marina at 0830 hours we had a fairly smooth ride up to and then across the Potomac into the St. Mary’s river.  Small craft advisories had been posted for the day in last evenings forecast and were still active this morning.  We saw north west winds of 13 knots at 1000, dropping to 10 knots from the WNW for a few hours.  There was a bit of a chop on the Potomac, just enough to get a bit of spray on the pilot house windows.  It wasn’t until we were well up the St. Mary’s river that the wind shifted into the west and picked up to over 15; thank you Zephyrus for allowing us an uneventful passage today.

Liberty and Victory at Bob’s dock.

We are now securely tied at our friend Bob’s dock in St. Inigoes off the St. Mary’s river.   Bob has been working on his 37′ LNVT for a number of years, right now all his old fuel tanks (six)  have been removed from the boat and he is working on replacements.  We gave Bob some SolidWorks (CAD program) lessons late this afternoon and then had the Mates famous one skillet lasagna for dinner aboard Liberty with Bob.

Tomorrow we rent a car (Enterprise will pick us up), the next day we will be off to Erie for a few days for visits and the grand kids birthdays.  As such, there will be no new blog postings for about a week.

Today:  34 nm in 5.1 engine hours.  Total:  3583 nm

Dave

Jennings Boatyard, VA

Leaving the dock at 0745 got us into Hampton Roads with four other sailboats heading north.  That was no surprise as all the boats that have been waiting for decent weather are now on the road again.  We heard a lot of radio chatter among sailboats today discussing where they were all heading.  Of course the most interesting conversation had to be the one between sailboats talking about the perfect weather.  Our winds today were South West to East, the maximum wind velocity was seven but a good part of the time it was dead calm.  I am not sure how that is perfect weather for sailboats.  Wait, I forgot.  Most of these boats are power boats with stick in them.

Steel Hulled “Tugantine” at Rebel Marina.

The Norfolk Rebel is a sail assisted tug.  It was actually built in this yard in 1980, by Lane Briggs, the father of the dock master/owner of the Rebel Marina.   Four years ago they tore out the interior so they could re-plate the bottom.  The boat is continually maintained and is skippered by the dock masters brother.  The boat gets around, we saw it in Baltimore during the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race a few years ago.  The builder of this tug was one of the originators of this race.  A short history of the boat is at: http://www.tugantine.com/

Photo of Olive Oyl, taken this morning when the light was right.

A perfect trawler day (and evidently a good cruising sailboat day according to the sailors on the VHF).

At the “crowded” docks at Jennings Boatyard.

When we hosed the salt off the boat, antifreeze was still in the water lines of the marina. We “helped” them flush their lines. No way are we using this water to fill our tanks.

Today:  55 nm in 8.5 engine hours.  Total:  3549 nm.

Dave

Rebel Marina, Norfolk VA

We left our “free” dock this morning, heading up the Elizabeth River with the wind still gusting to close to 20 knots at times.  After stopping at the free pump out station in Portsmouth we continued up the river past the naval base to Rebel Marina, home to the Pilgrim 40 Olive Oyl.

Besides the war ships there are always BIG interesting things to see on the Elizabeth River.

As we were getting some spray on the pilot house windows which the wipers only made worse we needed to stop before coming into the marina to rinse the windows down with fresh water so we could see where we were going.  Our assigned slip was the last one that was available here, and just so happened to be directly across the dock from Olive Oyl.

Olive Oyl, Hull #21. She is equipped with a 135 hp Perkins, a lot more horse power than is in Liberty (75 hp Beta Marine). Olive Oyl cruises at the same speed as Liberty (7 knots) and has a top speed of 9 knots where Liberty tops out at 7.75 knots.

We wanted to have Fred and Nancy (owners of Olive Oyl) over for dinner on Liberty, but unfortunately Fred seems have come down with some bug and was feeling real bad.  We did do the required boat tours but they were short so we didn’t delve into the details like we usually do.  As we will be going by here in the fall, we will make it a point to stop in to see them again or convince them to make a quick two hour cruise to Portsmouth and join us at the free dock.

The boats nose to nose.

Dave, the dock master here, told us they normally have a lot of transient dockage available but because of all the wind this last week, all the marinas are jammed up with people waiting out the weather.  The wind has been going down all afternoon and tomorrow should be a good day for heading up the Chesapeake Bay.  We will probably have quite a bit of company.  Evidently Dave is a tug captain and said that he has probably made a hundred trips down the ICW on commercial vessels.  As such he says that when he runs the ditch he is able to do it at night if necessary as he was used to doing it when working.  When talking about this past winter he said he managed to get a few really good weather windows allowing him to run outside (24 hours at a time) making for a fast transit south.  Once he got to Stewart, Florida he had to wait for two weeks to get to the Bahamas and once there had only one good day in a month.  The rest of the time it was overcast and cool.  He decided nuts to that, he can be just as uncomfortable Stateside.  A good weather window appeared to come back across and he took it while he had the chance.  The story of another cruiser who didn’t have the greatest time down island this year.

The marina has a nice lounge area, with free coffee in the morning. They also have a few vehicles you can borrow for free. Just take a key off the wall, no sign out sheet or anything. We did make a quick grocery run since we had the chance.  They have a hot tub but we aren’t here that long and it quite cool so the Mate didn’t get a chance to use it.

Today:  20 statute miles in 3 engine hours.  Total: 3494 nautical miles

As we now a few miles past Mile Marker 0, all mileage will be in nautical miles (nm).

Dave

Top Rack Marina, VA

We finally made it to the great state of Virginia.  Leaving the dock at 0800 we motored up the Dismal Swamp Canal to the Deep Water Lock.  One of the interesting observations we made during the morning was the fact that when the water depth under the keel increased from five feet to seven feet our boat speed went up .2 knots at a constant engine RPM, showing how much effect shallow, constrained water has on a hull.  There was a sail boat at the Welcome Center who thought he had something wrong with his prop as he was motoring slower than normal.  Somebody told him just to expect that in the canal.

Following Papillon through the canal.

Arriving at the Deep Water Lock fifteen minutes ahead of the “scheduled” 1100 hour locking we rafted off the Pilgrim 40 Papillon that tied to a small dock on the south side of the bridge that is just before the lock.  The lock tender operates both the lock and the bridge.  Fortunately for us, there was no south bound traffic today meaning that they didn’t need to load the lock, raise the boats, have those boats motor up to the bridge which is then raised to release them before allowing us access.  Promptly at 1100 the lock tender showed up to raise the bridge and directed us to the port side of the lock where he helped everybody with their lines.  Dropping us down about ten feet we then were able to exit the lock, but not before he played us a tune on one of the hundreds of conch shells that people have brought him over the years.  Some tourists were visiting the lock and we heard him warn them that if they asked him a question, to expect an overly long answer.  They asked and he talked.

In the lock, with two sailboats behind us.

The lock master asked our destination for the day, we replied the free dock in Portsmouth and he said that is where the sailboats were headed.  We figured that couldn’t be good as we knew boats weren’t moving due to all north east winds we have been having for the last four or five days.  If there were any spots left in Portsmouth, these two sailboats would be getting there first as we needed to head south for a few miles for fuel.  Our chances for a free dock in Portsmouth seem to be almost zero as even the free dock that was on the cutoff to the Dismal Swamp had boats on it, the first time we had ever seen anybody there.

We bought fuel at Top Rack Marina, 55 gallons at $1.60/gallon as did Papillon and made the command decision to stay put at Top Rack.  Papillon needed to press on to the anchorage at Hampton Roads as they had to put some miles under their keel.  The new owner Mark has to be in Annapolis on Tuesday to catch a flight back to NYC where he works as a emergency room physician.  The prior owners, Jack and Marilyn would continue on the boat and deliver it to it’s new home at the 79th Street Marina in NYC for Mark.

After fueling, we said goodbye to Papillon.

Actually, you can stay for free (nice floating dock with electric) at Top Rack under one condition.  You have to eat in the restaurant above the marina office and spend a minimum of $75.  So I guess it isn’t exactly free.  There are many ways to rationalize a so called free dock.  We figured that if we went to Portsmouth we would go to the Commodore Theater for dinner and a movie which would cost us a minimum of $50, to watch a movie that we weren’t really interested in.  So now it only costs us $25 to stay here and have a real nice dinner as opposed to some fried something or another at the theater.  Besides, since there probably was no room at the dock in Portsmouth we would have ended up anchoring in Hampton Roads (but for free).  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush as they say and the last time we really splurged on a meal was in Captiva.  So today we fed Liberty $88 worth of diesel and ourselves $91 worth of fine food and wine.  But we got a free dock with power 🙂

This is the place that doesn’t allow you to bring “clowns, beverages, decorations or gifts”. I didn’t know you could legally discriminate against clowns.

The marina was like a ghost town today.  The only real activity was a boat auction where they were getting rid of two boats for non payment of rack storage fees.

This 15 year old 21 foot boat sold for $15k, I don’t know if was a good deal or not. If it needs a new engine, I would think not. A 19′ Bayliner sold for $1k but at least it came with a trailer.

Other than us and Papillon, not one other boat came in for fuel today.  I guess that simply reinforces the fact that boats aren’t moving due to the weather.  When we got fuel here in the fall there were boats waiting in line.

There is nobody here but us.

Today:  21 statute miles in 4.2 engine hours.  Total:  4000 miles.

Tomorrow we pass Mile Marker Zero at Portsmouth on the ICW and we switch back to nautical miles (4000 statute = 3476 nautical)

Dave

 

Dismal Swamp Welcome Center

We had the anchor aboard at 0800 and two hours later we were at the South Mills Lock in plenty of time for the scheduled 1100 hour locking.

The upper Pasquotank River before the Dismal Swamp.

To make a long story short we were the only boat getting locked through here in either direction at that time.  The lock only operates four times each day and the operator doesn’t make it all that convenient.    The waterway here is really pretty narrow, there is barely enough room to turn the boat around.  As we got there an hour early we called the lockmaster for instructions.  If we tied to some dolphins outside the lock we would have to move at 1030 as that is when he starts to dump the lock.  Fine,  there wasn’t enough room to anchor, drifting around with all the wind was getting tedious so we idled back down the creek for a while before turning around and coming back up to the lock.  We figured that after the lockmaster dumped the lock he would open the gates to allow us in to tie to the wall.  Fat chance.  It took about 10 minutes to let the water out but the gates stayed closed until 1100.  When he let us in he wanted us to tie to the opposite wall that we were rigged for requiring us to move our fenders and locking lines from one side of the boat to the other.  That could have been communicated to us when we talked to him an hour prior.  Evidently he didn’t want to have to walk to the other side of the lock.  After the lock filled we sat there for another ten minutes until he re-appeared to open the gates to let us out.  Other boats that came through the lock at later times had pretty much the same story.   Well, I guess everybody is entitled to a bad day once in a while.

Filling the lock.

Rather than lines hanging into the lock or pipes, you pass one of your lines around a bollard and back to your boat. Of course the edge of the lock has a sharp steel edge instead of a nice radius. This means that your lines don’t want to slide easily over this edge when you are trying to adjust them from down in the lock; only in North Carolina.

We were the first boat to tie up at the Welcome Center today and as the center doubles as a rest stop on Rt 17 you get lots of “visitors” who come down to the dock to check out the boats.  Two other sailboats came in later, taking the remaining spots on the bulkhead.  Anybody else would need to raft to one of us.  Well, the last boat to show up today was the Pilgrim 40 Papillon, the Pilgrim we looked at right after the holidays when we were considering a second Pilgrim for up north.  I knew the boat had sold and was being delivered to New York City from Stewart, FL at some point by the former owners Jack and Marilyn and would have Mark, the new owner on board for a while.  What I didn’t know was they were just behind us coming up the coast.  They were as surprised as us to see another Pilgrim here.  They took their beating on the Sound today although they said the Neuse River was even worse a few days ago.  Evidently the new owner got quite an indoctrination but now he knows what the boats can take.  I had been in communication with both the former owners and the new owner via e-mail for various Pilgrim related items so I already “knew” them.  It took them a bit to realize that I was the guy behind the e-mails.

We then did what Pilgrim owners do when meeting for the first time, and that is have a drink, talk and tour Pilgrims.  Since Papillon had all the former owners belongings moved off and the new owner hadn’t moved much aboard we offered to have them over for dinner.  The only fly in the ointment was that we were rafted up side by side and they were on the side of the boat that had our genset exhaust meaning we didn’t want to fire it up to cook dinner.  So, we simply packed everything up, took it over to Papillon where we cooked on their stove.  Paper plates and plastic dinner ware made clean up easy.  Of course we were quite familiar with a lot of the details on Papillon as we have a hundred pictures that we took when we viewed her.  It was nice get the back story on her, what prior owners had done etc.  We then moved to Liberty for an after dinner drink and tour, inviting the couple that was cruising their catamaran back to Ontario to join us.

A pair of Pilgrims.  Even though the boats were built just over a year apart, there are some major differences, the most obvious one being the raised bulwarks at the bow.

Viewed from astern. People seeing the boats together are probably under the impression that there must be a lot of them, instead of just 41.

Today:  22 statute miles in 4.7 engine hours.  Total:  3979 miles.

Dave

Havenwood Cove Anchorage, NC

This is blog post #400, sort of a mile stone of sorts since we started this little adventure in September of 2014.

There is an old saying that faint hearted sailors never get anywhere.  Well, today we felt like real old sailors after we got in although we did get somewhere (87 miles), only a little worse for wear.

Today’s forecast was the better one of the next three days, supposedly 15 to 20, increasing to 25 this afternoon.  Actually that was pretty much correct, we had 12 knots early this morning on the Pungo River when we left the dock at 0630.   By the time we reached the Alligator River at 0930 winds were 12 gusting to 20.  Exiting the Alligator into the Albemarle Sound winds were in the low 20’s and stayed in the mid 20 knot range all the way across the sound.  For the entire length of the Alligator and across the Albemarle we had winds almost on the nose, a total distance of 26 miles.  The wind was coming straight across the sound and right down the Alligator so there was nothing to keep the waves from building except the fact that the water is fairly shallow, 10 feet in the river and about 18 feet in the sound.  The bridge tender at the Alligator Bridge said he was reading gusts of 28, but that was probably mph.  They won’t open the bridge if it gets to 35.

Inside the Pungo Alligator Canal, the winds were real light (for a while).

The last time we pitched like this was going up the Delaware Bay in the fall, only this time for a far much longer time period.  Our boat speed would go from around 7 knots to 4.5 knots after slamming through some of the bigger waves.  The old girl (Liberty) got another beating today.  By the time we reached the Pasquotank River, across the Sound and the turning point to head to Elizabeth City we were about a mile and one half off shore.  Our course now put as almost abeam to the waves but being rolled around a bit was a welcome change from all the pitching we were doing.  We also decided that the button that engages the autopilot actually serves a duel purpose as a crab pot button.  It seems like every time we use it crab pot floats appear in front of us.  Nothing like trying to spot crab pot floats among all the white caps.

Coming into Elizabeth City we decided that we wanted no part of their free docks.  The wind was still above 15 knots and would have required a down wind landing as the docks are parallel to the wind direction.  Having been here a few times before we know it takes about a half hour to secure the boat due to their short docks which requires us to lash our step ladder to the pilings to get on and off.  We had enough of being out in the breeze, so under the Elizabeth City bridge we went, by passing the free dock at Jennett Brothers Food Distributors (large pilings set outboard of the rather high dock) and instead headed about three miles up the river to this cute little anchorage that we have all to ourselves.  Windfinder is still showing Elizabeth City recording 15 knot winds, we have maybe a few knots of breeze sheltered by the trees and homes here.

Howdy, neighbor.

After we settled in we had a nice salmon, salad, corn on the cob dinner with wine (of course).

Today:  87 statute miles in 11.6 engine hours.  Total:  3957 miles.

Dave