Leaving St. Augustine

El Galeon San Pelayo  (photo: St. Augustine tourist bureau)

We had mixed feelings saying good by to St Augustine. Right on the intracoastal waterway, St. Augustine has become a magnet for cruisers and has an active community of sailors, some who come and stay for a few days a year, some for months, and some for years. One of our cruising friends said you can leave but it’s like a bungee cord, pulling you back to it. It is home port to every kind of boat imaginable, including the Spanish galleon San Pelayo, replica of the ship sailed by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, St. Augustine’s founder. The beautiful square rigger, which sailed here from Spain and is spending years cruising the East Coast before returning to its homeland, calls St. Augustine its home port in the Americas.

The Schooner "Freedom"

What makes St. Augustine so attractive? The oldest continuously occupied city in the United States (since 1565), under the flags of four nations (Spain, France, England, and the United States (and one wannabe, the Confederate States of America), it has to rank with New Orleans, San Francisco, Charleston, Savannah and Boston as one of the most interesting cities in the country. Truly impressive buildings, some authentically ancient (by American standards) like the Castillo de San Marcos, the fortress guarding the inlet from the sea. Some in the Spanish Renaissance style built as hotels by Henry Flagler, cofounder with Rockefeller of Standard Oil . And, as we said, a friendly community of sailors ready to meet for happy hour. For us, a month passed in St. Augustine before we knew it. We decided that this is as far south as we needed to go for this year, and planned to head back to the Chesapeake, and possibly on to Maine, for the summer.

At the Castillo de San Marcos

Our plan was to head north at a leisurely pace, taking time to explore and enjoy the anchorages that we had passed through or passed up on our way south. We aimed to follow the advice of our friends on the boat Cinderella: We don’t want to be any farther north than the azaleas are in bloom. What a luxury it is going to be to look forward to longer days and warmer nights as we travel after the bone chilling cold we experienced on our way south in the fall. Our first day was a short one, about twelve miles or two hours to Pine Island. No hurry, so Jim had time to change the two fuel filters before we left. Always exciting, as we’re never sure whether the engine will develop an air lock and refuse to run after we do this. But after a brief sputter the engine kicked in and ran smoothly, and by one o’clock we were heading through the Bridge of Lions.

It was a beautiful day, with dolphins swimming around our boat as we passed the St. Augustine inlet and headed up the waterway. By three o’clock we were anchored among the low lying islands and marsh grasses, sitting in the cockpit, sipping a beer, watching the herons and egrets and thinking what a great life this is.

The next day, Saturday, looked to be equally idyllic. The weather still beautiful, in the seventies, light breeze, sunny skies, a whole family of dolphins. The nearly full moon phase meant that low water came in the middle of the day, so none of the five bridges we had to pass under were going to be a problem. The only problem was that traveling on the waterway in Florida on a weekend is about like driving on I-75 or I-95. Sports fishermen and jet skiers buzzed passed us, often at close quarters, without regard to what their wake was doing to us, not to mention the water skier who kept falling right in our path . About three o’clock we reached our next anchorage, St. George Island, where we planned to spend a day exploring the plantation and poking around the marshes in our dinghy. What we didn’t remember was that we had entered and left this anchorage on the way down at half tide, and what we hadn’t counted on was the exceptionally low water caused by the nearly full moon. Angie has built in radar that tells her when to hand over the wheel to Jim,and this is what she did. As we headed into the harbor, Bel Canto came to a sudden stop. I can’t say we were hard aground, because, fortunately for us, the bottom was soft mud, but we definitely weren’t going any farther. We weren’t too worried, because we were on a rising tide, and the light wind was blowing in the right direction to help us off when the time came. We motioned to a passing powerboat that had politely slowed as it passed us  to come over, planning to ask them to speed by us creating a wake to help lift us off. But by the time they got near, the tide lifted us enough and the wind turned the boat enough that we were able to motor off. Co-captain Angie said there was no way that we were going to make it over the bar at the entrance to the harbor in the next couple of hours, and that we should move on.

The Anchorage at Pine Island

Throwing B-Day Roses to the Manatees

There is no good anchorage near this one, but Fernandina Beach was only three or four hours away, so we decided to motor on. The water was still low, but after only one more close encounter with the mud, we made it through the tough spots. By evening we were moored at Fernandina Beach.

Angie: After going aground twice on our way to Fernandina Beach, we decided to skip Georgia, which has even more “trouble spots,” and do another 24 hour passage from Fernandina Beach, FL, to Beaufort, SC. This one was quite a contrast to our earlier passage in the other direction. We were able to sail for several hours, breaking our previous record for time sailing. The winds were out of the East and sometimes on the nose, but the wave action was much better this time, and even when the wind was light, there was enough to fill our sails and help to steady the boat. I got two hours of sleep instead of a half hour and it wasn’t as cold.  At night we could see the full moon through the partly cloudy skies.

"A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou . . ."

Coming out of the Fernandina Beach Harbor making our way to the ocean was quite a ride because of the opposing tide and wind. We were crashing into the waves for at least an hour. If I had been on shore looking out at these waters, I would have said, “I’m not going out there!” Well, I was out there. Bel Canto is really seaworthy, and she took the waves better than her crew. As we came out the long entrance channel, there was a clear line where the brackish river water met the ocean. As soon as we passed the line, the water smoothed out and we were able to sail comfortably. It was a great sail with a few lovely surprises, Like the school of rays swimming just under the surface of the water, resembling nothing more than a squadron of fighter planes. Then I saw this orangish/brown thing floating in the water. As we got closer, I saw that  it was a sea turtle. It dived and then I saw this little turtle swimming just behind it. Sea turtles lay their eggs on the beach and then desert the eggs, so I don’t think this was a mother and baby, but that’s what it looked like.  We saw another one swimming later on. And we had a whole pod of dolphins playing in the waves around our boat.  We were pretty excited about seeing all these sea creatures. All in all, it was a beautiful trip, the kind we live for.

Over the Bounding Main

Fernandina Beach, Thursday, March 6

We are sitting in the mooring field, rocking and rolling in gale force winds. A few minutes ago our diesel heater, which kept us warm and toasty at 74 degrees last evening, blew out in a back draft and filled the cabin with smoke. For a moment I wasn't sure whether or not we would have to abandon ship, but within minutes all of the fuel sources were shut off, and the cabin was clearing with the help of a few open ports and fans going.  We are safe, but the cabin temperature has dropped from 68 to 64 degrees. We will have to live with the warmth that our trawler lantern gives off, since we won't be able to use the diesel heater in these winds. I'm not sure that we'll be able to trust it at all anymore. But we ARE safe, and managing to stay reasonably warm with long underwear, blankets and hot water bottles. But who'd have thought that we would be getting this kind of weather in Florida?

Leaving Beaufort   Photo:Joe Bonturi

We cheered when the weather forecast gave us a window to make the passage from Beaufort to Florida an March 1 and 2. We were ready to leave Beaufort for new scenery and very excited about making our first ocean passage on Bel Canto. We figured the passage from Beaufort to Fernandina Beach would take us somewhere between 22 and 26 hours, and no strong winds or threatening weather  patterns were predicted for the next two days.

Saturday, March 1, dawned clear and relatively warm. We were up early, disconnecting power cords and making sure everything was stowed securely for our trip. We needed to leave the dock before nine o'clock to take advantage of the rising tide and incoming current for an easy departure. Joe Bonturi, our neighbor on Nirvana Blues, was there to give us a hand off. We pushed the bow away from the dock and glided off into the perfect morning. There was just enough breeze on the river to have us looking forward to raising the sails as soon as we cleared the McTeer Bridge, just a couple of miles downriver.

What we hadn't counted on was the tide, always higher after a new moon, being two feet above normal. As we approached the bridge we could see that the water was high on the bridge stanchions.  Angie got the binoculars and looked for the gauge that would tell us the bridge clearance. There wasn't one. We slowed the boat to a crawl while I checked all of our references for information on the bridge clearance. They all gave the clearance at 65 feet without any mention of problems. Angie gave me a questioning look, and I said, “We'll go through.” I started to crawl forward at idle speed, all the time looking at the stanchions with their bases awash. (It doesn't do any good to look up--the mast always looks like it is going to hit!) At the last moment I was seized with doubt and wheeled the boat around.

The Port Royal Landing marina is located just before the bridge. I radioed to see if I could get any more information on the bridge clearance. "We've been watching you," they radioed back. "We're looking at the bridge fenderboards with binoculars and right now the clearance is 63 feet." They told us how to gauge the clearance by the number of boards on the channel fenders showing. There was nothing for us to do but thank our lucky stars or the sea gods that I hadn't been foolish and go back to wait for the tide to go out. Back in Beaufort we tied up at the fuel dock and took advantage of the delay to breakfast heartily on a Spanish omelet and bacon. Good thing. This was the last real meal we were to have until we arrived in Fernandina Beach.

Shortly after noon we headed out again, and soon we had cleared the bridge with feet to spare. The sky was clear, the breeze fair, and we put out sail with joy in our hearts as we pushed out into Port Royal Sound, scurrying along on the outgoing tide. Several dolphins surfaced near the boat as if to confirm our good luck. As we headed down the sound toward the ocean, though, the wind began to weaken. Going out the long channel that leads out of the sound past the shoals on each side, we were again under power. It was nearing four o'clock when we had cleared all of the breakers that lay just outside the channel and turned on the course we would be following for the next 80 miles. For the next few hours we "motorsailed" (sails up but motor running and giving us most of our momentum), the sails helping to steady us against the three to five foot waves hitting us abeam. The wind gradually died out, though, and the boat's motion became more and more uncomfortable. Sailboats are designed to sail (obviously), and the combination of sail and keel give them more stability in a seaway than a comparable power vessel would have. But when just under power, the height and weight of the mast and rigging accentuate the rolling, and this was the case on Bel Canto for most of the night. Since we both felt more comfortable above deck than below, and since we were only going to be out for one night, we decided to forgo watches and keep each other company in the cockpit. Ten CD's by our favorite singers playing over the cockpit speakers would help to keep us in the awake mode.

 A side trip took us to the High Museum, Atlanta

Fortunately the night was clear, though fairly cold. As we looked at the star filled sky, undimmed by any loom from light sources on shore, we recalled our one perfect night of ocean sailing many years before. Our friends John and Zelda had joined us for the passage on Escapade from Marion, Massachusetts, to Cutler, Maine. The wind was about 12 knots astern and for 13 hours we sailed under spinnaker, gazing at the August meteor showers among the stars overhead and at the two V's of diamond studded phosphorescence trailing off our stern. It was memories like this that had drawn us back to the ocean. As this night wore on, dew began to collect on the decks and the cold began to creep into our bones. Soon we were wrapped in blankets and clutching hot water bottles to keep warm, bracing ourselves against the motion of the boat and waiting for the long night to end.

Centre Street, Fernandina Beach

By sun up the seas had quieted a great deal and we were feeling much more upbeat. But as we approached our goal, the weather had one more little surprise for us. A thick fog blanket descended along the shore, reducing visibility to a few hundred feet. NOAA weather radio predicted that it would burn off by nine o'clock, so for a while we motored back and forth, being careful to keep out of the shipping lanes. By nine, though, there was no sign of the fog abating. We had encountered similar conditions when we arrived at Cutler many years ago. Then, Angie had guided us in, standing on the foredeck and directing me by listening to the bell buoy that marked the middle of the channel. As we entered the harbor the fog cleared and we were a bit shaken to see the exposed rocks and boats that we had picked our way through. Now, though, we had GPS and a modern chart plotter to help us. We determined that we could make our way in just outside the channel on the south side and keep clear of both shoals and shipping lanes.


A short time later we were back on the ICW, safely (and quietly) moored at Fernandina Beach. We were dead tired, but feeling good about our achievement. Not that we had conquered a bit of the ocean. You don't conquer the ocean. Not that we had survived the trip, because we were never in survival mode. But we had raised the bar a little bit higher and accomplished our goal. And that was a great feeling.

Our last sunset at Beaufort before setting sail

Held Captive in Beaufort, SC

The Beach at Hunting Island

 

We can't tell you how many people we have met in Beaufort who tell us, "We came here in (name a year) planning to stay (a few days, a week, a month) and here we still are, x years later." We can see their point. We arrived here on December 3rd, and though we do plan to leave and continue farther south (we really do), we have just signed up for another month at the Downtown Marina. Beaufort is a captivating town, claiming to have been named "the happiest coastal town in the East."

Beaufort begins to charm you as soon as you land at the elegant waterfront park. with its palm lined brick walkway along the Beaufort River, part of the Intracoastal Waterway. Then you stroll through "The Point," densely packed with pre-Civil War mansions built by the owners of the Sea Island plantations where their black slaves raised the indigo, rice, and cotton that at one time made Beaufort County the richest county in South Carolina. Walking among the mansions on streets punctuated with mammoth oaks draped with Spanish moss, you feel transported into another place and time. You can understand why so many movies, including Forest Gump, The Big Chill, and, of course, Prince of Tides, have been filmed here.

The history became even more real to us when we entered a gallery on Bay Street advertising art by four generations of a family who at one time were numbered among the local planters, as they called themselves. "Our family, like most of the planters here, treated their slaves very well," they told Angie after she had softened them up with some friendly chatting. "It was overseers who were responsible for the abuses you hear about." They didn't see the irony. The owners of the island plantations didn't live on them, but instead built winter and summer homes where the climate was more bearable and diseases like yellow fever and malaria less prevalent, leaving the management of the slaves who worked the plantations to the overseers. As a result, the black people who worked the plantations developed their unique dialect and subculture known as Gullah. When the Union troops occupied this area, in the early days of the Civil War, the owners mostly abandoned their lands, and the Gullah became among the first slaves to be freed when they were taken as "contraband" by the Union general. Many of them fought for the Union in the war, and one in particular, Robert Smalls, became a local hero. Captain of a merchant ship working out of Charleston, he gathered together family and friends and under cover of darkness snuck the ship past the Confederate barricades and delivered it, and his fellow slaves, to the Union army in Beaufort. He went on to serve three terms as a U.S. Congressman. The Gullah are extremely proud of their heritage and add a distinct flavor to both the food and the culture of this region.

"A Gullah Christmas"

The historic part of Beaufort covers about a square mile, and one of the great attractions for us is that the marina where we are staying is right on the main street, within walking distance of some great restaurants, bars, and art galleries. And we do walk. So much that we are recognized and greeted by many of the locals. And that's another attraction. People we've never seen before smile and say "Hello, how ya doin'" when they pass us on the street. It's an uncommonly friendly town, and that's partly because "local" is a relative term here. It seems like eighty percent of the people we meet have a story about how they ended up in Beaufort two or ten or twenty years ago. Of course there are natives here, but for the most part they seem to welcome rather than resent the newcomers. It's as though the indigenous small town Southern friendliness is a virus that infects all who come in contact with it. We happened to mention to one local resident who has a boat across the dock from us that we had some errands to do but that the marina courtesy car wasn't available. "Take mine," he said. We had to ask his last name in case we were stopped and had to explain why we were driving a car belonging to someone else.

John Marshall is one of the people who ended up here. Born in Detroit, he has lived in Florida, San Francisco, New York, Germany, and Virginia and traveled to Morocco, Argentina, Spain, France and Italy, before landing in Charleston and then here. John is a professional chef who lives on his sailboat here in the marina. He has opened a small restaurant/bar in town called the Old Bull. The  Old Bull is "closed" on Mondays, but the bar is open to all of the local wait people and musicians, who usually have Monday nights off. Everyone who comes in gets a cup of John's gourmet soup of the night along with their drinks. And in case you should ever visit Beaufort, the Old Bull has the most delicious food at the best prices in town.

Because Beaufort County is made up of low-lying islands, bordered by tidal marsh lands, it hasn't become over-developed. Yes, there is Hilton Head, and there is a scattering of gated communities, but much of the area is in its natural state. Hunting Island has been preserved as a state park. Driving its winding trails through the mixture of palms and moss draped live oaks, you feel like you are entering  a primeval forest. It is a mystical, magical place. You half expect to see dinosaurs emerging from the trees by the lagoon. 

Hunting Island

This morning I get up and look out at the harbor where the sun is just beginning to chase away the light mist lying over the flat water and think that there is no place that I would rather be right now. So, yes, we will soon head out to experience some new territory. But not today.

Light House, Hunting Island

Window, tabby church ruins, St. Helena Island

Ghost Tree, Hunting Island

Typical Day on the Waterway

Nightcap II at Campbell Creek

Nov.16: It was foggy this a.m. so we are not moving, but it turned into a beautiful day. I got some great fog photos. I'm really liking my 70-300 mm L series. I can hand hold it on the boat even though the boat is always in motion. The stabilizer helps me to make images that are in focus, most of the time.

Today we finally got to shed our long underwear, watch caps, 2 pairs of gloves, 2 layers of clothes, winter jacket, heavy socks, and scarf. So much for balmy, tropical weather. This is an unusual cold fall on the East Coast. We traveled at the same time 28 years ago and according to our log the weather was great.

We share the waterway with some interesting boats!

While we are laying over Jim is baking bread. We have the luxury of having an oven. I made a blueberry crumble cake earlier. Jim made the most delicious omelet with potatoes, onions, white cheddar cheese, and roasted red peppers. When we're in an anchorage or at a dock, we can bake and cook because we have the time. When we're moving, our time is spent reading charts, plotting courses, and being alert and aware of boats, tides, floating objects, and following the coastal markers so that we don't go aground. Navigating is a full time job. Then when we're sailing, that's another story. I get to take photos when I get tired of being at the helm.

The Red Marker tells us to take the channel to the right

Nov.18: We made it to Beaufort (North Carolina). Left early this am and encountered fog in the Bay River and the Neuse River. It was pretty nerve wracking. We had 1/2 mile visibility and used our chart plotter to navigate, but I still follow the paper charts and keep track of where we are. It takes two of us to navigate and watch out for barges which are really huge. We did have visibility for 1/2 mile or so unlike yesterday when boats were out there with no visibility. When we left our anchorage in Campbell Creek, there was no fog. There were very few boats out today on the water compared to yesterday when visibility was practically zero. Go figure. We had a hard time following the markers because we couldn't see them.  We relied on our chart plotter and it was accurate. Of course, I was following the paper charts, but if you can't find the markers. . .  Coming into the harbor was really tricky. You are surrounded by shallow water, somewhat nerve racking and Jim crossed one point where we sounded 5.9 feet. We made it though.

High Tide and the Osprey nest almost hid this marker!

Nov. 24: I was thrilled when I saw my first dolphin. I love those animals. It has been and is an amazing journey. Fortunately, I have Jim to share it with. It's my dream and he is helping me live it! It is challenging, and not everyone could live this life style. It's been quite the adventure.

.  .  .




We will probably be traveling on Thanksgiving Day. Hope to celebrate it at St. James Marina near Southport NC where we are going next to wait out some more bad weather. It should be interesting tomorrow when we start out and the temp is 31. The winds have died down, so we have to take the opportunity to travel. There are small craft warnings up and down the East Coast, but it's going to be OK where we are going.

Nov. 25

We are at St. James Plantation Marina, a multimillion dollar development of houses, condos, golf courses etc. We are only stopping here because of the weather really sucks. It was 31 this morning when we started out at 7:30. I had long underwear and several layers and still was freezing my butt off, and Jim had to be extra careful in bringing up the anchor because the deck was icy. Now we are plugged into shore power and have heat.

While here we played a game of chess to pass the time. I'd rather play Scrabble, but I beat Jim at chess once in a while when he makes mistakes. We really haven't had time to play scrabble or chess because we go to bed early so that we can get up at 5:00 to get ready to travel down the ICW. The weather is 15-25 degrees below normal for this time of the year. When we traveled this same route 28 years ago, a couple of weeks earlier in November, it was beautiful.

When we anchored here last night, only the mast of this boat was visible!

Dec. 2: We are anchored before Charleston in a 7 ft tide which is really high for this area. We are now waiting for the tide to go down so that we can get under the Isle of Palm Bridge, just before Charleston. Dolphins were swimming around the boat this am. The good thing about the high tide is that I didn't have to get up at 5:00 am this morning.

Jim: Just after Charleston we had to pass through Elliott Cut. It is narrow, broken rock on both sides, and the current runs up to five knots through it. The wood boat was waiting for slack tide. I misjudged and we entered the cut with the current against us. It took us almost a half hour to go a half mile. At times we seemed not to be moving at all, and all I could think of was what a terrible time it would be to have an engine failure!

Elliotts Cut

We are going to find a place to stop for awhile and just have an R & R. We can stop anywhere we want to along the coast. We are both getting tired of this bad weather and not being able to travel more often. We both like the traveling part and we do meet a lot of interesting people along the way.

An advantage of getting up as early as we do is that we get light like this!

The weather has been too bad to even think about going outside on the ocean. We also have to watch the tide tables because we have a really tall mast and need 64 ft clearance under bridges. Some bridges only have a clearance of 64 feet and that's a real problem for us, as we can't go under those bridges at high tide without risking major damage to lights, antennas and/or our mast. That would be very serious and stop our travels.

I think that the cormorants were waiting to see if we'd make it.

I'm usually on my back looking up as we go under the bridges. This one is supposed to have a clearance of 65 feet, but you can see by the waterline that it's below 64. We decided to give it a go. I wasn't looking because Jim had left the helm to Captain Braveheart. Just as we went under, I heard this loud thunk. I thought that we had hit until Jim told me that it was just a car going over the bridge.

Made it!

December 3, 2013:  Fenwick Island Anchorage, South Carolina

We are in an anchorage right now waiting for the right time to navigate another problem area in the ICW. It seems there are many. Yesterday we went under our first bridge that had a 64 ft clearance and we didn't touch!

Dec. 4: We are in South Carolina, a short day's run from Beaufort. We plan to hang out there for a little while to rest up. This traveling every day is rough, but we've been having some beautiful days---finally! Every day we spot dolphins, sometimes quite close. We try to get photos, but they appear and disappear so quickly that it is almost impossible. We don't remember seeing so many 28 years ago until we got farther south, but then there is a lot we don't remember about passing through this area 28 years ago. (There's a lot we just don't remember about 28 years ago!) We are heading for Beaufort, SC, this morning and will spend Christmas there. We will be there for a month and then head on South again. It will be good to stop and regroup.

We began seeing sights like this when we hit South Carolina

                                                                        .  .  .

We made it through the Ashepoo-Coosaw Cut (don't you love the name?), the latest ICW trouble spot. We waited at Fenwick Island for high tide, and as we were waiting, a huge double barge with a tug at both ends came through. We figured that they had timed it for the high tide, too, and if they could make it we could. Well, our lowest depth reading was 9 feet. Take away 7 feet for the tide, and at low tide there would have been just two feet of water in the cut!

Double barge passing 100 yards from our anchorage, heading for the Ashepoo-Coosaw Cut

Dec. 5, 2013, Beaufort, SC

As soon as we docked the boat, we started meeting other boaters and having great conversations. The locals are very friendly to boaters. We both felt that we made the right decision to stop here for a month and recoup from all that nasty, cold weather we had to endure. The sun felt so good.

We are in Beaufort SC for 1 month, and loving it.  We finally hit some warm weather and I shed my long underwear as soon as we docked the boat.  Beaufort is a wonderful small town with lots of culture. There are several performances that we will be attending in Dec. and a big Gullah performance/celebration this Fri that we want to attend. There will be artists, food, and stage performances. It should be fun. The Gullah were slaves and they have their own language and culture in SC. It should be an interesting and entertaining evening.  This weekend there will be a boat parade and the boats will be decorated for X-mas. We'll be able to watch them on the dock.

Pat Conroy, the author of Prince of Tides, is from Beaufort and taught school on St. Helena Island where many of the Gullah live. The kids were terrified of the water and he tried to teach them how to swim but was unsuccessful. Many of the Gullah had had bad experiences with power boats coming through here from the North. Hence, the Gullah children were terrified of the "Snowbirds" and wouldn't go in the water.

You can find a lot more history about the Gullah here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah

.  .  .

The people here in Beaufort are extremely friendly and go out of their way to make you feel at home. We hang out at a bar called "Luther's", a hangout for the locals, and are already known by the bartender and wait staff. Originally a pharmacy founded in 1906, their motto is "Good for what Ales you." We are not sure when we will leave.

Captain Braveheart

Angie has been promoted from First Mate to Co-Captain. Not only that, but she has been awarded the appellation "Captain Braveheart" for stellar performance beyond the call of duty. How did this come about? There are several stretches along the ICW that the guide books list as "ICW trouble spots." To understand this, you have to know that the ICW is a hodgepodge of waterways made up of canals connecting rivers, bays, and sounds. So you can be motoring (almost always motoring unless you are extremely lucky to catch the right combination of room, wind direction, and current) along a narrow ditch at one time, then crossing a large sound that looks like it has plenty of water but only a narrow band of it is deep enough to accommodate anything but a canoe, then heading down (or up) a river being pushed along or bucked by a swift current. Along the way there are fixed bridges that, in our case, have to be timed for clearance, bascule and swing bridges with set opening times that have to be planned for.

This whole system has a "project depth" of 12 feet, which means that at low tide (or what is officially called mean lower low water) there should be at least 6 feet of water under our keel, and the bridges are supposed to have a minimum of 65 foot clearance at high water, which means that we should have at least a foot of air between any part of the bridge and the instruments on top of our mast. But then there is the reality, and hence the "ICW trouble spots." For example a couple of days ago we passed through a section of the waterway affectionately called The Rock Pile by boaters. This is how it is described on the official NOAA charts: "Numerous rock ledges have been reported abutting the deep portion of the Intracoastal Waterway channel from Nixon Crossroads to Latitude 33.42.51 N. Mariners should use extreme caution in this area." The narrowest and rockiest stretch is "The Rock Pile." Narrow means that if we happened to meet a tug in this area, one of us might have to go into the rocks to avoid a collision.

In the past when we came to difficult areas Angie has passed the wheel off to me, but she was steering when we came to the Rock Pile, and showed no interest in relinquishing command. In fact, she had a look on her face that said, "What's so hard about this?" It must have been her experience avoiding the rocks while whitewater canoeing that gave her such confidence. Anyway there was nothing left for the Nervous Nelly of a captain to do but go up on the foredeck and pretend to be helping us to avoid obstacles.

Then there was was the Lafayette Bridge. In North Carolina, where there are several bridges with clearances reportedly less than 65 feet, most of the bridges have gauges which show the water level. But in South Carolina they have dispensed with that nicety. Also, in South Carolina, the tides are greater and the currents swifter. So as we approached the Lafayette Bridge, we were racing along at about 9 and a half miles an hour. That may not sound like racing to you, but it is 50 percent above our normal cruising speed, and faster than the boat is theoretically capable of going according to some complicated calculation that only naval architects understand. And the fact that the current was sweeping us toward the bridge was not a good thing in case at the last moment we decided we would not clear. So as we approached, we watched the water level on all of the markers and pilings we passed, trying to see how much the tide had fallen from high tide. It appeared that the water was down about a foot. Of course, there was no gauge on the bridge to verify this, but Angie lined Bel Canto up and charged through the narrow space between the bridge stanchions like she was running a chute between rocks on a whitewater rapids.

 

There are the trouble spots where "frequent shoaling has been reported in this area." These are usually places where the waterway crosses inlets from the ocean, or where you are transversing a river delta. Then the usual reading of 10 or 12 or above on our depth sounder can quickly drop to 7 or 6 or even 5. I guess this is why they call it mean low water. So again, we try to cross these at mid or high tide, but that isn't always enough. Angie was guiding Bel Canto through one of these spots when the depth began to drop. It was above "lower low water," so I said, "Keep your courage up, Angie." She did a great job of getting us through, although the alarm on our depth meter kept going off. Ever since then, when we hit a low spot, she says, "I'm keeping my courage up!" and she does.

Almost caught this one!

So what makes the stress, and getting up at 5 a.m. on frigid mornings to make use of the limited daylight, worth it? For the last three or four days we have passed through some beautiful scenery. Cyprus swamps and savannahs and low sand dunes and spent our nights in delightful anchorages. Yesterday we saw two bald eagles resting atop a dead tree as we left our anchorage, and today, several times we spotted dolphins fishing along the edge of the channel. Every day there is something new to experience. One thing sure, we are never bored.