The official start

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 25, 2011

We are at mile zero of the Virginia ICW. What people generally refer to as the ICW starts here.

Reading about bridge restrictions, temporary changes, converting statute miles to nautical miles, and the like, has me totally confused. My best guess is that we need to leave the marina at about 8:15AM to make things work. It turns out I’ve got it right, since as we leave, we join a parade of almost 20 other boats heading south.

There is a lot of traffic on the river. A departing tanker blocks our way, and just about every bridge listed as normally open is, in fact, closed as the mini-fleet arrives. The channel is narrow, so the maneuvering can become tricky.

The weather is cool, but sunny; not unpleasant. After many bridge delays, we make it to the only lock on this route. First locking experience for us. It is a busy time, with the lock completely filled with our traveling companions. We drop a little over 3 feet, and are on our way.

Everyone heads single file down the narrow channel. Yes, a couple more bridge delays make it seem like rush hour on the Garden State. We progress to more open water (but still narrow channels) with scenery nothing like bake home. We see several species of gull that are new to us; we have some research to do.

Late afternoon, we put into the Midway Marina in Coinjock where we are doing this update, catching up on email, and doing a bit of work.

More news as things progress…

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Off We Go

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 24, 2011

The forecast isn’t as good as we had hoped… but the weather really looks fine, so off we go for Portsmouth.

Coming down to Deltaville, all of a sudden the electronic charts on the E80s disappeared! New chart module (whole east coast). We called navionics, and after a short conversation they confirmed that they had a little problem. Not to worry, though… we could download an update! Scary thought. Well, we have a CF card reader on board, and a tolerable internet connection for the 600MB download. Several tries later, we had up to date and complete charts (I hope).

After a calm start, the breeze came up a bit, along with the seas. That said, we found ourselves motorsailing with the current at just around 8 knots. The 2-3 foot seas weren’t that bad, and we made it to Norfolk earlier than expected.

What a port! All the navel vessels at dock (and dry dock) made even the carriers look small. Up the river to Portsmouth, we put into Ocean Marine. There we planned to stay a few days to make a very quick dash back to NJ to check progress on the house.

Almost everything is fine. Our rental car is waiting, we have a convenient slip, but the shore power isn’t working. Friday afternoon, the service department is closed, we call the manufacturer. They suggest we probably need to replace the unit. Great!

In 3 days, the refrigeration will draw down the batteries, so we pick up a portable charger to keep things topped off while away. The trip north is a little strenuous, but generally successful. We have no first floor any more, and they are finishing completely rebuilding the foundation in half the house, all the sub flooring and much of the heating. Not the place to be living at the moment.

We attempt to make arrangements for an electrician to have a look at our inverter/charger ($1800 for a replacement, they say), and it looks, since they don’t have one in stock, like this could both take a bit of time as well as a bit of cash. I decide to call Xantrex with updated information on our observations. It turns out that our unit is discontinued, and not generally available. The exact replacement requires rewiring for our type of installation, and the new model, well, you know.

But wait, this tech asks about the input voltage at the unit (seeking to determine whether it might be an external problem), and he reacts to my comment that we see a steady 130V. This is high, he says… in fact, the internal programming is set to potentially lock out the AC at this voltage level. We’re still in the car, naturally, and have been trying to locate a part and arrange for a service visit. The marina service department will be closed by the time we get in, but Xantrex will still be open. We will call when we arrive and do a few more checks.

We phone, and of course get another tech. We go through the details, and sit down at the panel to reprogram a few parameters. Voila! Allowing what the factory settings consider an over voltage brings things back to life. If only the first tech we spoke to had asked the same things!

We go to bed, after a light dinner, happier, knowing we will be on our way in the morning.

Oh yes. Portsmouth and Norfolk are both interesting towns with an utterly fascinating, though very commercial and military, waterfront.

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Weather, weather, weather

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 20, 2011

We knew the weather would not be cooperative today… but really! Here is the marine foreecast.

afternoon. waves 2 to 3 ft.

...gale warning in effect until 5 pm edt this afternoon....today...sw winds 20 to 25 kt with gusts to around 35 kt. waves 5 to
6 ft...subsiding to 4 to 5 ft late afternoon.
.tonight...sw winds 20 to 25 kt with gusts up to 30 kt in the
evening...diminishing to 15 to 20 kt. waves 4 to 5 ft in the
evening...subsiding to 3 to 4 ft.
.fri...w winds 10 to 15 kt...diminishing to 5 to 10 kt in the

… and this is on the Bay! We’ll stay another day.

Tomorrow the winds look tolerable; could be better, could be worse. From the west, at least, we would have the least of the waves by keeping inshore.

Last night was a howler… It made us wonder whether we wouldn’ t rather be home. But then, there are jackhammers, cement trucks and construction going on to repair the damage from Irene. Can’t win, I guess.

Plenty of food on board, work to do. What can I say?

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Deltaville

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 19, 2011

Well, we’re now in Deltaville. This is just over the line into Virginia. This is another of those more boats than people towns, and is pretty typical of the small coastal towns. That is, not much here. Very nice though.

It seems that the town is host to J & W Seafood which is really big into shucked oysters, crab and soft-shell crabs. Who knew.

We arrived yesterday late, are staying the day because of the rain and will probably be here tomorrow because of the forecast high winds and seas. The weather has not been helpful, but then, that is part of the reason we are fleeing south.

As the path to the ICW becomes narrower, we encounter more and more boats headed south. It’s strange, that being on the water brings with it the expectation that life on the water is all there is. Quite different from things back on land where sailing is the exception rather than the rule. Quite a different headspace.

The marina had a car which we used to have fried oysters for lunch. We picked up some oysters (from J&W) for some oyster stew for dinner, and a few things at the local grocery. About all we missed in town was the ABC store, but that’s ok, because J&W had an interesting wine selection.

Big news is that we have seen many Brown Pelicans, replacing some of the other seabirds we normally see. The scenery is changing; that’s a good thing.

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Solomons Island

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 18, 2011

This is a great little harbor, with terrific views coming in and an insanely large number of boats. There is a small anchorage just to the west on entry which we’ll have to remember for another day. This is the jumping part of the port.

We took on fuel at the Solomons Yachting Center which, at $3.39/gal is the best price we’ve seen lately. This is a great marina; very friendly and helpful. the dockage is a little pricy, but the facility is terrific looking.

We opted to stay in the cheap seats; Calvert Marina. This is just across from Zahiniser’s (which is the best rated marina in the area). Calvert has been dissed on the web for being a little run down and less helpful then the full service marinas with pools (closed) and restaurants (closed) and the like, but they were very helpful getting in, put us on a new floating dock and at $1/ft plus $5 for electric, the place was great for a one night stopover.

The marina is big and not all that beautiful. Still, with no plans to leave the boat, it was a great choice.

This morning we are getting a late-ish start for a relatively long run… and it looks like we may be stuck for a day or two with yet another weather delay. The target locations are not great for a quick trip back home… so we will likely have a work day or two coming up. We’ll see.

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Annapolis

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 17, 2011

We sat in Tolchester Beach for a day with the wind still howling. No need to get bashed around again.

Not much to do there… so Sunday we were itching to leave. The forecast didn’t look great (more wind from the south) but it looked better out than the forecast. We decided to push out, and duck back if necessary or put into Rock Hall. Change of scenery.

Things started out a little bumpy, with winds about 10-15, but as things moved along, the weather seemed to improve, so we decided to push on to Annapolis.

Glad we did. By the time we reached the bridge, the weather was great and the bay filled with boats. Sunday ended the power boat show, and there is at least one regatta going on, so dockspace in the harbor seems to be gone. As lucy would have it, there is one mooring left! The charming Harbormaster dropped by to collect our fee within moments of picking up the mooring, and quite a number of water taxis were busy shuttling people around. It was quite a different scene arriving in Annapolis by water.

Delightful evening!

we decided to take the water taxi to a local restaurant for dinner. Very prompt service and only $2 per person. Did I mention (attention AHYC) the mooring fee was $30.

The weather forecast changes every few hours, but today (Monday) looks pretty good, so we’re pushing south a bit more.

Stay tuned.

   

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Wrong Call

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 14, 2011

Well, the weather didn’t look great today, but not too bad. It was supposed to deteriorate towards the afternoon, but seemed like it would be ok for travel early.

We waited a bit… the wind seemed down, the sky was actually sunny, so we thought we’d change our scenery rather than just sitting in Chesapeake City for a day or two more.

So we go.

The light and views as we travel down and out of the canal are quite fascinating. The water has the muddy green cast of the Chesapeake, and the sky changes constantly. We see some rain ahead (which the radar confirms) and a flash of lightning demonstrates that it is one of the scattered storms we could hit. It’s small, though.

Well, it may be small, but when we hit the edge of it, the wind spikes to 43 knots and we are then doused with stinging rain. There is no visibility, although the GPS/radar puts us just at a narrow turn in the channel… with a tug and barge behind. Typical!

The storm is over fairly quickly, but although the weather man predicted 10-15 knots with occasional gusts to 20, we are seeing consistent 20 knots with gusting to 30. As the tide change sets in, we get the Buzzard’s Bay type chop we hate so much. Bumpy and wet.

What was to be a possibly rougher than normal trip has turned into a much rougher than normal trip. Oh well.

Just about 4:30 we put into Tolchester Marina. It has a really freaky entrance but was calm and dry inside.

Chili for dinner, the wind has come up even inside here. It looks like we may be here tomorrow as well. The forecast is for a sunny, but windy day. Just as well, the house is torn up and there isn’t much we’d be doing back home.

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Weather Delay

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 13, 2011

We thought we’d make it to Annapolis with good weather, but the weather forecast called for cool, rain and wind.

We took the opportunity to drive Steve home and check out progress on the house. There is progress, but also no floor.

We hoped for better weather tomorrow; two days of weather delay is more than we want at this portion of the trip, but things are not looking good. A front will pass through, bringing wind and rain — again.

In the morning, we’ll decide about whether we plan a short hop south, or just buckle down and stay for another day. There is a lot of organizing still to do on board, so the only penalty is the loss of time.

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Cape May to Chesapeake City

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 12, 2011

This is the stretch of the trip I dread. I’ve never had a good transit of Delaware Bay.

Happily, this is an exception. We’re up at 4AM, and under way with a beautiful full moon and cloudy sky; very dramatic. We have timed our departure for the best tides, and the computer tells us the trip will be somewhere around 10 hours.

No breeze, but the early dawn trip through the shoals off the cape is easy.

A little later, a nice breeze comes up, and after a while, we are doing 9 knots over the ground in fairly tame seas. This doesn’t last forever, but long enough to remind us that we are doing the trip on a sail boat!

Some, but little commercial traffic, good temperature, but gathering clouts. All in all, a fine day on the water.

Things really warm up as we turn into the canal, and finally arrive at Chesepeake City. The town provides 3 free tie up spots and even arriving mid afternoon, we find two of them empty. So, free dockage for the night, right down town. You can get water and electricity for $10 and $15, but we manage without.

Dinner in town is good, but the weather for tomorrow doesn’t seem to be… We’ll decide on our plans in the morning. Everyone is happy to go to sleep early after the early start.

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AC to Cape May

By Jeff Goldfarb | Published: October 10, 2011

We get a leisurely start, since the trip is only 33 miles. Anchor up and out the inlet, the water is calm, and the day is lovely and clear. The only flaw is that there is little to no wind. Still, on the calm ocean we make good time.

Did I say only flaw? The weather is getting beautifully warm, but biting flies swarm all over the boat. If it was just the boat it might be a minor annoyance, but these things bite! Long pants and socks mean nothing to them. Marion and Steve spend time killing them, but there is an endless supply.

Otherwise, it is a nice trip. We arrive at Cape May and make our way down to Utches marina to take on fuel, do some fish shopping and spend the night. It’s a bit of a chore keeping in the unmarked deeper water approaching the marina, and it is a little tight inside, but no really problem.

The anchorage by the Coast Guard station is fuller than usual. Next time I think we’ll anchor there.

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