4/8/15 - In heavy haze weighed anchor and motored out into Mobjack Bay. Haze turned into heavy fog with 100' visibility. Ran with radar and AIS. As we got out into the Chesapeake visibility reduced to 50' to 75'. This was my first experience with sailing in fog and it had my nerves on edge the entire time. If we didn't have the radar I would have gone back and anchored for another day. We ran under power for 32 miles like this but as we came into Hampton Roads the fog lifted.
This is a heavily industrialized area with large ships and constant tug and barge traffic. There's plenty of room and deep water but having good visibility really adds to the feeing of security.
We turned into the Elizabeth River and anchored at Hospital Point, a wide spot in the river with the Navy hospital on the near shore and downtown Norfolk across the water. At night the lights from downtown Norfolk lit up the sky. Not a very pretty skyline but it had plenty of color. In the chart to the left you can see where we anchored (blue arrow) just off the main shipping channel. Not an ideal anchorage but it's a good "in between" location with about a days run to our next stop. Hospital Point is considered mile 0.0 on the ICW.
4/9/15 - Departed Hospital Point anchorage, overcast with temperatures in the mid 60's. Today we had a gauntlet of bridges to run, something like six in just a few miles. The first was a railroad lift bridge for the "Old Virginia" RR and our guide book had it listed as being usually open. As we came around a bend in the river we found it closed for maintenance. We had about a twenty minute wait so we pulled over to the side to stay out of the way of the tugs that were circling around, waiting to go through too. When the bridge finally opened the tugs all rushed through. I hit the throttle and discovered a strong vibration at the helm. We could hear something whacking the hull and our top speed was about 2.5 knots. We crept through the bridge and stopped just beyond. I was pretty sure we had wrapped some rope around the prop and pictured myself jumping into 48 degree water (filthy 48 degree water) to clear it. I tried revving the engine in forward and reverse and it seemed to make things a little better. After doing that three more times the prop cleared and we were on our way. We were really fortunate there.
After we passed through the final bridge we continued on for a while before realizing we had missed our turn into the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. Bummer. A quick turn and retracing our path brought us back to the final bridge. The turn-off was just beyond the bridge and we missed it because Bella had freaked out from the traffic noise going under the bridge.
The canal is narrow and overgrown on both sides with vine-entangled trees and overhanging branches. The water is the color of root-beer, caused by the tannin in the Cyprus trees. This dark brown water eventually created a brown "mustache" stain at the bow of our boat. Speed is restricted to 5 knots to keep the wakes to a minimum and prevent erosion. This canal was originally started as a way to bring harvested trees in from the Dismal Swamp. A company was formed in the 1700's by George Washington and a short stretch of the canal was begun. It was added onto over the years. What's truly amazing is that this canal was all dug by hand using slave labor 200 years ago and it's still in use today.
Cruising down the Dismal Swamp Canal is pretty mellow with its slow pace and peaceful surroundings. Highway 17 runs along one side in some areas but it's not very distracting. Our goal was the Welcome Center at mile 27.8.
About a mile before we got there we came across a barge used by the Army Corp of Engineers. The barge dwarfed the canal and took up about half its width. With our 15' beam we had to get over close to shore. As we came closer to the barge we caught a tree branch in our lower spreader on the port side. The branch was fairly rotten and it exploded all over the boat. We were covered in mistletoe, leaves and pieces of the branch. We looked like we were camouflaged for jungle warfare. Worse yet, there was still about 15' of branch still hanging on at the first spreader, about 20' off the deck. As we drifted past the barge we collided with another branch from another tree and added to the debris. A quick visual inspection showed everything was still intact (except the branch) so we continued on.When we pulled over into the visitor center there were already two other sailboats tied up to the wharf with just enough room for us to pull in at the end. As soon as we tied up several folks came over offering help. One older guy suggested tying a crescent wrench to a string and heaving it over the brach still hanging from our rigging. We tried this once and decided it was too dangerous. Another gentleman suggested pulling a spare halyard back over the branch and using that to knock it loose. We tried that and it was effective in knocking one part of the branch down but we still had the larger part of it snugly wedged into the port side shrouds. In the end, a younger dude offered to go up in the bosons chair, tie the branch to a halyard and safely lower it down. This worked and once we cleared all the debris you'd never know we had been playing lumberjack.
The visitor center turned out to be a rest stop for Rte 17 in combination with a North Carolina state park with a museum, campgrounds, kayaks and canoes. We decided to stay for two nights so we could have a full day to hike some trails and check out the museum. The museum was interesting with a good explanation of the history of the canal. Plus it was air conditioned. One trail we walked on was a raised Boardwalk through part of the swamp. Very nice. The second trail we tried wandered along the canal for miles and included an example of a whiskey still, something that was common to the area. While we were contemplating how to add a still to our boat we discovered we were being taken over by ticks. I removed six in about two minutes and Cheri had at least three on her. That was pretty much the end of our hiking for that day. We hustled back to the museum bathrooms and stripped down searching for more ticks. Once we passed inspection we returned to the boat.
Once we got to the lock it lowered us 8' and we found ourselves in Turners Cut and eventually the headwaters of the Pasquotank River. Here we found the route to be wider and the forest at the sides to be much cleaner with less undergrowth and it held our first examples of Cyprus trees. The Dismal Swamp Canal was interesting because of its history but it was straight and narrow and obviously man-made. Once we got out on the river our route meandered through natural forests and the experience was more of being out in un-molested Nature.
We had planned to anchor out behind Goat Island but when we got there we still had plenty of daylight so we decided to continue on to Elizabeth City, NC (mile 51.3). This is a popular stop-off on the ICW and has lots of small shops and good places to eat. Unfortunately for us, once we got through the Elizabeth City Bridge (twin bascule) we found a brisk 15 knot wind blowing straight up the river into the docks. We made several attempts to pull in but the wind and waves made it hazardous so we pulled out and continued down the river. We were now pressed for time and the only other anchorage in the area was a poor choice due to the wind. We decided to try across the river in an undeveloped cove with hopes the trees along the shore would give us some protection. As we got about half way there we were pulled over by a Coast Guard patrol boat for a safety inspection. They boarded us while we were still underway and gave us a complete inspection, including the bilges, sea cocks, paperwork, fire extinguishers and more. In the end we passed with flying colors and received a gold certificate to show we were 100% in compliance. After they departed we continued on to our anchorage behind Anson Point where we spent a somewhat rocky night but in complete safety and comfort. In the chart to the left our anchorage is shown by a blue arrow.
On 4/12 we got underway around 0900 and motored out the Pasquotank River where we saw a dirigible hangar at what turned out to be the only dirigible manufacturing facility in the USA. Go figure. We continued from there into the Albemarle Sound. This is a wide crossing that can be rough with a brisk wind but we lucked out with about 10 knots out of the NE. We brought out the main and Genoa and enjoyed a good three hour sail into the Alligator River. As we came into the mouth of the river we furled the sails and continued under power which would prove to be the norm for the rest of our voyage. Once past the narrow entrance into the river we turned W into the Little Alligator River and followed a circuitous channel into a nice, well protected anchorage at Southshore Landing. The chart to the left shows part of the Albemarle Sound at the top, the Alligator River in the lower right and the Little Alligator River and our anchorage (blue dot) in the lower left. This was a nice undeveloped spot with the only sign of humans being an abandoned barge on the shore, apparently used as a hunting lodge or something.
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