November 2008

I left the Hartough’s River House on November 2 and sailed down the Rappahannock to the Chesapeake and down to Hampton Roads. It was an historic place. Here in 1862 was fought the Battle of the Ironclads.

In the morning of March 8, 1862 a strange vessel steamed out of Norfolk to confront the Union blockade. The CSS Virginia, looking for all the world like an iron pup tent riding on a low barge, had been built from the raised bones and propulsion system of the USS Merrimack. Bearing only 10 guns, the Confederate secret weapon bore down on the 24 gun USS Cumberland, and the 44 gun USS Congress. Both lofty men ‘o war let loose with their broadsides. To their horror, the balls bounced off of the two inch iron plates. The bizarre juggernaut steamed unmolested through the hail of cannon balls, rammed the Cumberland and sank her within minutes. To avoid a similar fate, the Congress grounded herself and concentrated her fire on the Virginia. After an hour Cumberland was forced to surrender to an almost undamaged Virginia before catching fire and exploding.

The following day, the Union unleashed their own secret weapon: the USS Monitor, another low barge. This one topped with what appeared to be a huge inverted tuna can. This turret of eight inch thick iron contained only two large calibre guns, but could be rotated to fire in any direction. The two ironclads met in the roads and pelted each other for hours, each unable to do more than dent the other’s armour. When they withdrew, the age of sail had come to an end.

Windsong too steamed out into Hampton Roads and she too encountered a strange yet powerful naval vessel. It was a grey rainy morning as I entered one of earth’s greatest natural harbours. It’s strategic importance remains to the day, making it the home of the world’s largest naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. The first thing I spotted in the harbour’s bustling traffic was a dredging rig that could dredge South Port’s entrance channel in a day. The dump truck sized bucket was suspended from a main boom 27 stories high founded on a turret the size of South Port’s clubhouse.

When I finally tore my eyes away from this Harbourmaster’s dream, I spotted a strange low vessel escorted by two Coast Guard patrol boats. She was heading straight towards me as she exited Norfolk’s Elizabeth River.

"Holy $@#$%^! That’s a submarine!"

In one smooth motion I turned on the VHF to channel 16 and gybed.

The radio crackled to life with the submarine’s captain saying "You mean the yellow sailboat on my bow?"

To which the Coast Guard replied, "No the blue sportfish that crossed your bow. We are going to bring him in to such and such street pier if that is acceptable."

I then saw a Coast Guard patrol boat with two machine guns roaring toward me. I altered course even further.

The radio crackled again, "Securité, Securité, Hello all stations. US Warship Event Charlie is now transiting Norfolk harbour. Mariners are reminded that vessels operating within 500 yards of any naval vessel must do so at the minimum speed required to manoeuver. Vessels are forbidden from approaching within 100 yards of any naval vessel. Failure to comply with these regulations may result in up to six years in prison and a fine of $25,000. Deadly force may be used to enforce these regulations. This is USCGC Beluga, Out."

Was the guy in the blue sportfish getting the prison sentence, the fine, or the deadly force? And what was I about to receive?

The Coast Guard vessel bristled with deadly force as she continued to approach. She turned and ran along my side. My heart was pounding in my throat while I barely dared to breathe. When the submarine was directly abeam she finally swung around to follow the sub. Nervously, I reached for my camera wondering what the penalty was for photography.

Entering Norfolk, I dropped the hook in the small-boat anchorage at red buoy 36, Mile Zero of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The nautical history lesson continued as I dinghied across the river to the Navy Museum and boarded the battleship Wisconsin.

USS Wisconsin, built in 1943 at the height of WWII, represented the end point of the evolution that began with the Monitor and Virginia. The Monitor’s turret once laughed at, became the design of choice as it grew to house three 16 inch guns that could each hurl a projectile the mass of a Volkswagen. Three of these turrets dominated her 887 foot decks surrounded by six smaller turrets holding twin five inch guns. By way of comparison, she was four times the length, twice the beam, and sixteen times the tonnage of Nelson’s Victory, still the state of the art 100 years earlier. A single shot from one of her sixteen inch guns threw more metal than Victory’s entire armament of 104 guns.

She ruled the waves for only fourteen years before being decommissioned, having been made obsolete by another technology born out of WWII: the aircraft carrier. She was brought out of mothballs for three short years in 1988 when she was fitted out with Tomahawk and Harpoon missile launchers for Operation Desert Storm.

Windsong entered the ICW in a flotilla of five boats with a Coast Guard escort. We passed through the naval shipyards before the rest of the flotilla continued straight up the Elizabeth River and I turned off for the Dismal Swamp Canal. Opened in 1805, the canal is the oldest manmade waterway in the United States. The swamp was named in 1728 by Colonel William Byrd who later suggested a canal. The surveyor who laid down the route was George Washington. Washington even held shares in the canal that he sold to "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, father of the famous Confederate General. Today the canal remains as the shoal draft route from Elizabeth River to Albemarle Sound.

I was a tiring day as the canal was only 40 feet wide requiring hand steering for the entire day. The knotmeter jammed with pine needles that were floating in the amber water. The water looked pretty nasty to me, but I later learned that it is actually extremely clean. The colour comes from tannins from the juniper, gum, and cypress trees. The tannins prevent bacteria growth making "juniper water" from the Dismal Swamp highly sought after by the captains of the old sailing ships.

November 6^th was my kind of intracoastal: wide open downwind sailing on Albemarle Sound and the Alligator River averaging 6.3 knots. The Alligator River Bridge operator held the bridge open for me for five minutes so that I could sail right through. I hauled up the anchor very gingerly the next morning because Skipper Bob’s cruising guide warned that you must be careful not to lose your thumb while weighing anchor here!

My thumb survived, but I did have my first grounding of the ICW. I moved aside to let a powerboat pass (Didn’t I once hear that the overtaking boat must stay clear?) and I found myself thumping to a stop. The boat spun easily and powered off without me so much as touching the throttle. It would have been pretty funny if I had to call the guy and ask him to come back and tow me off.

Next stop was Beaufort, North Carolina, one time home of Blackbeard the pirate. I pulled into the fuel marina for diesel. I really mean fuel marina. There was no fuel dock, just 300 feet of fuel hose so that you could fuel up in any slip in the place. Of course it is much easier to move your boat to a fuel dock than it is to drag 300 feet of hose to your boat. What a workout!

From there I dropped an anchor in front of downtown where I found Blackbeard’s house. The current owner didn’t have a whisker on his face or a hair on his head, but he didn’t look any friendlier than Blackbeard himself! I also saw artifacts from his ship Queen Anne’s Revenge in the local museum. In the morning I wandered off to Carrot Island, part of Rachel Carson National Estuarine Sanctuary. Rachel’s book Silent Spring introduced the world to the dangers of pesticides like DDT and is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Her sanctuary holds a herd of wild horses. I found the shaggy guys up a small creek. I could hear Mick Jagger singing "Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away." when one of them decided to enlighten me on the origins of the expression "Piss like racehorse". When he let loose, it was like a garden hose. Perhaps Mick should have made it "Wild, wild horses couldn’t wash me away!"

I settled down into the pattern of the ICW: up at dawn, hand steer down the narrow ditch all day, at sunset start looking for one of the anchorages in Skipper Bob’s guide, drop the hook as it was getting dark, eat dinner, and pass out. I starting seeing dolphins regularly, and for the fist time ever, these ones would stick around to have their pictures taken. Jan and Dean sang to me as I passed Surf City. I wondered if there really are two girls for every boy?

I took some photos to send home as I passed South Port. To enter South Carolina, I had to pass through a pontoon bridge. Basically, the centre portion of the bridge was built on a barge. When a boat came by, the operator activated winch and cable to pull the floating section of the bridge out of the way.

I had been instructed that I had to stop at the Barefoot Landing outlet mall in North Myrtle Beach. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. The place was like an amusement park without the rides. There was a house of mirrors, a haunted house, and a hundred souvenir shops. Perhaps if I went across the street I would find something practical. Nope. But I did find golf ball hut, the dog spa, and Bargain Beachwear which was entered through the jaws of a huge fibreglass shark’s head. I thought that I had entered the Twilight Zone and emerged in the land of run away consumerism. Then I found a sign that explained it all, "Welcome to North Myrtle Beach, home of Vanna White."

The intracoastal at this point was truly a ditch carved through the sand with huge Hurricane proof houses with enormous screened in porches and even screened in swimming pools. I never saw a flying insect. I don’t think I want to come back in the summer time to find out what all of the screening is for.

Things turned scenic as I entered the cypress swamps leading to Charleston. The cypress trees grew right out of the water sitting on a buttress system of roots that disappear below the surface. The morning of November 13^th was especially scenic with a light mist laying over the swamp. Soon it turned into pea soup fog. On came the RADAR and two hours later it lifted only to descend again at sunset. I felt like I was back in Newfoundland as I felt my way into my anchorage by a combination of braille, RADAR, and chartplotter.

When I shut down the engine, I heard the funniest sound coming from my bilge pump. I opened up the bilge to find it filled with thick black oil. The bilge pump was killing itself while trying to pump SAE 30. "Oh #(*&%! What part of my engine blew up!" It proved to be a broken pipe leading to the oil pressure sender, which explained why the oil pressure alarm never went off. There was only a litre of oil left in the engine. If I had run it much longer there would have been serious damage. As it was, I had huge mess and needed a tool to extract the broken pipe so it could be replaced. Repairs would have to wait until morning as I needed a hardware store, a marina with oil disposal, and a cool engine to work on.

In the morning a contemplated calling Towboat US. After all, I’d bought their insurance so the tow would be free. Instead, I decided that I was a sailor and could sail myself out of this. I won my anchor and allowed the ebbing tide to wash me out of the side channel that I was anchored in and into the ICW proper. As I entered the main channel I opened the genny and promptly ran aground. With the falling tide there was no time to wait for Towboat US. I flagged down the first fishing boat. He did his best but it was already too late. It was all he could do to turn my bow toward the deeper water. A passing tug hailed offering his services. Who knew what this might cost me, but the other option was to end up laying on my side waiting for Towboat US to pull me off on the rising tide. He dropped his barge and started hauling on me. We quickly broke to half inch twist towline. He pulled out a 5/8 twist line while I reached for half inch braid. We settled on both tied to the base of the mast. He had to pull so hard that I swear half of the rudder was out of the water before I broke free. A bargain at $100.

I sailed to the Isle of Palms marina where they had oil disposal and had arranged a ride to the hardware store. Captain Randy was my volunteer taxi. He was dying of a bone disease caused by a case of the bends that he got when working as a commercial diver 30 years ago. He could think of no way he would rather end his days than hanging around the marina helping wayward sailors. He wouldn’t even let me buy him a beer in thanks.

The broken pipe came right out and was easily replaced. The remainder of the day was spent cleaning the bilge. The first five gallons of bilge water pumped out solid black. Three litres of bilge cleaner and five gallons of water later the bilge had some semblance of cleanliness. Spot took advantage of the situation to take some shore leave and visit all of the neighbours on their boats.

The next morning I headed off to Charleston. After anchoring in the Ashley River, I threw my fold up bike in the dinghy and headed for West Marine. My luck wasn’t changing. West Marine didn’t have the part I needed. Then, on my way back to the marina, the chain on my bike broke. To add insult to injury, when I got back to the marina pushing my bike, the dock boy threatened that if I ever came back his boss would chain my dinghy to the dock and charge me $50.

I heard the Charleston City Marina on the other side of the river was more cruiser friendly so I dinghied over. They had a dinghy dock full of cruisers. I went ashore to take a look at downtown. When I got there, the cold front hit and it started to pour. I took refuge in the nearest museum: The Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon. It was a good find. The site included a piece of the original city wall, had been a jail for pirates and civil war prisoners, and had hosted George Washington. I tried to walk around and see as much of the historic downtown as I could, but the rain soon drove me back to the boat.

No sooner had I changed into dry clothes than I heard "Clunk, clunk" coming from my stern quarter. I poked my head out of the companionway to find my neighbour’s bow getting intimate with my stern pulpit. I mean if you are going to have a bad day, you might as well do it in style! After extricating my neighbour’s bow pulpit from my stern anchor and rail, I figured out what had happened. The tide had changed and was now opposing the wind causing my anchor line to wrap around my keel. I careened all over the anchorage motoring every which way until I managed to free it. I settled down 150 feet away from him then each boat took turns swinging wildly to within ten feet of each other. Neither of us was going to get any sleep like this so I weighed anchor. It seemed to weigh a lot more than usual. The problem was an umbrella caught in the anchor chain. Umbrella removed, the anchor came up and I let the tide carry me 50 feet before resetting it. I looked around the anchorage to see that I wasn’t the only one having fun. Lights were on everywhere and a police boat was assisting a trawler that had been hit by an unmanned sailboat that had dragged anchor when the tide changed.

In the morning the forecast was for frost.

"That’s enough! I’ve had it! To hell with this place! To hell with this ditch! I’m going to sea!"

As I headed out, the water turned blue. There wasn’t a marker, a shoal, or another boat to dodge as far as the eye could see. In relief, my tired eyes fell on a book for the first time in two weeks. By nightfall it was too cold to go on deck without a survival suit but I was bowling along at 6-7 knots on a beam reach. Florida hear I come!

Florida was entered by crossing the bar into St. Augustine after 35 hours at sea. The 161 ft black and white candy cane lighthouse could be seen from 15 miles out. The entrance channel wasn’t so easy to spot. In fact, it wasn’t even charted due to the shifting sands. Fortunately, the wind had died and I was able to watch a couple of sport fisherman enter ahead of me before I began my run. I never saw less than 15 feet of water but the tide rip was tremendous. I manged to avoid the surf until that last couple hundred yards where I had to plow right through 2-3 foot standing waves. Once in the calm of the harbour, I passed under the guns of the Castillo de San Marcos and slid under the Bridge of Lions to where my anchor found a home in 15 feet of calm water.

I toured the Castillo built by the Spanish in 1672 out of local coquina shell stone. This stone, which absorbed cannonballs, helped the fortress to avoid military conquest for over 300 years. It was, however, passed by treaty to the British and the Americans. Looking down those great guns into the harbour it was easy to imagine the days when square riggers carried the trade of the New World past these shores. From there I passed through the Old Town Gates and was transported into a Spanish Frontier town of 300 years ago, if a little given over to selling souvenirs.

Back on the ICW, I was being reminded of the corrosive nature of salt water. The light over the cabin table had died weeks ago, the anchor light only worked when it felt like it, and now the running lights shorted out. I arrived in Titusville absolutely throbbing with anticipation of seeing the Kennedy Space Centre, only to discover that there was no way of getting there. There was no public transit to the Space Centre and the rental car place was out of cars. Between screams of frustration I attacked my running light problem. When I opened the stern light it turned to dust in my hands. A quick run to West Marine got me a new light and I was back on my way, still shaking with disappointment of having to leave the Space Centre unseen. At least it was finally warm enough to take off my longjohns.

On November 21, the wind came up allowing me to actually sail down the intracoastal. When I cut the engine, I was surrounded by dolphins. They were nuzzling each other and surfacing so close that I was sure they would touch the boat. In the evening I caught up with Dan and Kathy aboard Sea Star who I had last seen in the northern Chesapeake. I joined them in a raft of three boats on a mooring in Vero Beach. I had dinner and breakfast with them before heading south toward Fort Lauderdale to meet my best friend Paul. For the first time since the Chesapeake I was not wearing a toque.

I had been warned that there were a dozen bridges to go through so I should strongly consider going outside onto the ocean. The outlets foamed with white water. How bad could a dozen bridges be? Try twenty seven. Alternately idling and flying along at 7 knots under genny and full throttle, I tried to time the bridges the best I could. Twenty three bridges later it was dark and I was exhausted. Lauderdale would have to wait for tomorrow.

The next morning I finally made it to Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Marina, picked up a mooring, did my laundry, scrubbed the boat and rushed to the airport to meet Paul. We rented ourselves a black Mustang convertible and set off to do some land cruising.

The first stop was Key West. We visited the traditional highlights: the southernmost point, Hemingway House, Sloppy Joe’s (Hemingway’s favourite bar), and the lighthouse before heading to Mallory Square for sunset. Sailing ships reached back and forth vying to be the one framed in the sunset then, as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, the conch shell horns sang out. Magical, and it wasn’t over. The place came alive with buskers. The first guy escaped a straight jacket. The second had Paul help him mount his unicycle so that he could juggle fire. The third rode a unicycle with one foot while dropping his hat onto his head then kicking back on again. Paul was rather popular with the buskers as the final act had him standby with a fire extinguisher as he ate fire. Then he had Paul hand him blades to put through the box containing his contortionist fiancé.

Our second day was a glorious day sail off of Fort Lauderdale. The water was the most azure blue I had ever seen. It was so clear that when we were visited by a pod of dolphins we could see them swimming all around the boat as though they were suspended in air. After another glorious sunset, we headed in to see "Bond, James Bond" in his latest movie Quantum of Solace.

Day three, we drove past the Dade County Jail to the Everglades. We took the Anhinga board walk through the marsh where we saw, Great Blue Herons, Egrets, Anhingas, and of course Alligators. Next was the Gumbo Limbo Trail through the woods and then down the Long Pine Trail to watch the sunset over the grasslands.

Paul’s last day was spent on Key Biscane. We wandered through the woods and found ourselves at the Cape Florida Lighthouse. I thought that the keeper had in pretty easy living on a beach in the sun when compared to the keepers who lived on frozen rocks in northern Ontario. Then the volunteer on duty told us that when the light was first built in 1825, the nearest towns were Key West and St. Augustine. They might have been warm, but they still led a very isolated life.

All too soon, Paul was leaving on a jet plane and it was time for Windsong, Spot, and me to prepare for our next great adventure: across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.