GOODBYE ATLANTIC OCEAN

August 12, 2009

Today's (second) post is just a short one because we left Barnegat Inlet and made the 8 hour run up the rest of the New Jersey coast to Sandy Hook and are anchored in Horseshoe Cove for just tonight. The highest land mass along the eastern seaboard, the Atlantic Highlands, is an interesting site off our starboard side. So, we made it from Florida to New York in 10 days. That is a true trawler record!

Wayne was the one who added the part about seeing the humpback whales to the last posting. I just want to elaborate a bit about them and some other wildlife sightings and what it's like to be around my crew mates for such events. Besides, after the whale sighting the day went downhill.

Seeing the whales was really neat! The water was glassy calm, so it was easy to spot them, and they were traveling north just like we were, so they stayed abreast of us for while. They would just surface and blow some air and then calmly submerge again, with their flukes coming upright out of the water. We have never seen the humpbacks this far south before, and I was surprised they would be so close to shore (<3 miles) and in only 50' of water. They were not close enough to be able to get a good photo, and the morning light was shrouded with a foggy gray mist. The previous day, as we angled our way in toward Barnegat Inlet, I spotted enormous schools of golden colored rays in the water. I have never seen anything like that before, where there are dozens in each school, hundreds in all. It made me think of watching a swarm of butterflies. The rays are like butterflies of the sea; they are so graceful and beautiful with the golden upper sides and bright white undersides, and they glide so effortlessly through the water, gently twisting and turning. I am usually the one who spots the wildlife. In my enthusiastic state, I let a shrilling (or so the guys say) alert of “look”, “see”, or point at the sighting. That gets Ursa all excited, because she knows those words, and senses my body language that something is up. She may bark or start huffing and puffing and jumping up to one of the windows, or scratching to be put up to her new perch on the helm area. For some reason, the guys get annoyed at me for getting her excited. Yet they think The Queen is so cute when she is sitting up on the helm, where they put her when she beckons at other times. I'm just venting because they would miss seeing a lot of things if it wasn't for me, and what am I supposed to do when something exciting is happening? Am I supposed to be calm and gently say, gentlemen over to the starboard side of the boat, about 100 yards away at a bearing of about 45º there is a 1000# bluefin tuna jumping out of the water if you would like to take the opportunity to observe it in its natural state? Duh, by the time I got all that out, the thing would be down with Davey Jones again. Wayne's eyesight sucks, and Eddie is half asleep most of the time, so it is a duller voyage without my “shrills for thrills”. OK, back to today's voyage. The skies got dark, the wind kicked up, and the rain came down (remember the Gilligan Island's theme song?). Thankfully we weren't on the MINNOW, and FLUKE took it all in stride. We had water splashing over the bow and a couple of roofers. Visitor puked for the first time this trip, but the rest of the crew held everything down. However, a big sigh of relief came when we rounded the point at Sandy Hook and got out of the wind and into calmer waters. Eddie was cold and wanted to watch TV, but I shamed him into putting on his foul weather clothing and helping me put away our fishing gear until we head back to FL.

Since it is so cool today and we got in early, I talked Wayne into making a pizza to celebrate our arrival in NY and what will be a new adventure for us up the Hudson River. It was great!

Ogling the Pizza

FAIRWINDS FOR FLUKE

August 11, 2009

We just passed Atlantic City, New Jersey, about 28 hours since we left Great Bridge, VA. In between swatting flies, I'm trying to write this section of the blog. Now backing up a bit:

The WE Marine Maintenance Team did all they could on the auto pilot repair, including a dockside test. We needed to get out in open waters to see if it really was fixed. We decided to catch the 0800 Great Bridge lock opening so we could time the bridge openings through Norfolk and Portsmouth harbors and get out into the waters of Chesapeake Bay.

One large section of the Norfolk waterfront is devoted to the scrap industry. It is fascinating to see the scrap heaps and all the activities associated with processing the scrap and moving it to and from the yards. Remember the barges we passed going through the bridges as we approached Great Bridge? Gigantic ships, commercial and military, some still whole, others in half or pieces, waiting to be picked clean and chopped up into movable sections, sit by the waterway.

Recycling America

The commercial shipping piers are numerous, we always see freighters coming in, going out, getting loaded or unloaded. This colorful Maersk freighter caught my attention because it had just come in from sea and was getting ready to be pushed into the dock by the two tug boats. We were marveling over how many containers were on board. The stern area picture shows one stack of 134 shipping containers. Look how many are on the rest of the ship, and think of how many are below decks that you can't see. I imagine a ship packed like this out in the open ocean in rough seas and bad weather with the waves smashing up on those containers, and am not surprised about the stories we've read where containers get loose and fall into the ocean, broken apart and cargo floating away. All that stuff can become hazards for other vessels.

Goods For a Recessed Economy

UPS Will Be Waiting Nearby

We were gathering weather information as we were underway, with two options in mind. If the weather and seas in the coastal Atlantic waters were forecast to be good for the next couple of days, we would go offshore again. If not, we would have to travel up the Chesapeake, go through the C & D canal, and then back down the Delaware River to get to the Atlantic. That would add several days and many more miles to our journey.

When we heard a favorable forecast we made the decision to head to sea again. Right before we crossed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel for our off-shore travel this odd-looking Navy vessel went thundering by. It was like a gigantic, high speed airboat.

Getting There Quickly

We turned northward with the idea to travel offshore along what is called the DelMarVa peninsula, short for Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Our initial plan was to continue on all night until we reached the mouth of the Delaware River and see if we needed to find a secure place to anchor because of weather, fatigue, or boat problems.

Once we got out of the 3 mile limit area, we put out our trolling lines. I told you we had stopped at the bait and tackle store, only with the intention of picking up $2 worth of swivels, but we left the store with $42 worth of other tackle to try (we call that stimulating the local economy). We were hoping to be able to get some striper action. Eddie is holding the lure contraption the guy told us people were using with good results. I had my doubts, but put it in the water behind FLUKE. The thing weighed so much I was afraid we would have our fuel efficiency reduced. It almost broke my arm to have to haul it in while we were underway. Two of the lures were lost without even any fish activity. I will disassemble it and use the parts for other fishing activities.

Trolling Trash

Calm seas throughout the daylight hours made for a comfortable passage for everyone. I made gourmet brownies, another first for the FLUKE crew, we grilled burgers while fully underway. Even AP has done the proper job keeping us on course, so I guess we can chalk up another victory for the WEMMT!

The Happy Grill Master

We reached the southern mouth of the Delaware River at sunrise, and with fair winds and good seas still in our favor we made the decision to keep going all the way to Barnegat Inlet, NJ where we would anchor for the night. That will be 38 hours of straight passage making.

Now I will have to talk about the flies. Every time we have traveled along the New Jersey coastline, we have been inundated with hoards of fat, biting, house flies (maybe they are really sea flies!). There is no land closer than 3 miles away, we aren't dragging a dead animal, and the wind doesn't appear to be a factor. Yet, swarms of these flies land on the boat and then work their way inside. Closing our doors and screens just makes it unbearably hot so we end up swatting flies for hours. I will have to vacuum up all the dead flies when we anchor the boat so they don't get ground into the floors.

Well, we made it to the “anchorage” at Barnegat Inlet. There are more permanently moored boats here now than when we were here 2 years ago. There isn't much space for us to anchor; the area is restricted by depth, some nearby docks, mooring balls, and channel markers. We set the hook, but broke several of our standard anchoring rules: we only have out a 100' of line, about 1/3 to ½ of what we would usually have out, we're very close to a little moored sailboat, we're close to a dock, and we're practically on top of a channel marker. We are in a reversing current area, so the lesser of all the evils will be to brush the channel marker and hope not to get hung up on it. If we get a blow in the night we will be up with the engine going for sure.

August 12, 2009

Well it was a calm night, since the t-storms stayed to the west, and we are underway to New York City as this entry is posted. We are a couple of miles off shore and are connected to the internet via ATT cellular.

It is a little foggy and we just spotted a couple of humpback whales.

CANAL CRUISING

August 9, 2009

After a peaceful night at the anchorage in Wrightsville Beach, we exited the inlet to make the 8 hr. run to Beaufort, NC. We decided to go back to sea rather than take the inland Intracoastal Waterway route because the ICW through that stretch of the waterway is plagued with shoaling, low bridges we would have to wait for, narrow, and lots of traffic. The seas were borderline comfortable, but no one got sick. It was the first day we didn't sweat from the heat since we left Florida,and that was a relief!

We entered the inlet with the winds behind us and outgoing tide which always is a formula for more turbulence than cruisers would like to have. Fortunately the Beaufort inlet is a Class A inlet with a deep channel, wide, and well-marked.

Rough Ride Through the Inlet

We headed toward the ICW after we exited the inlet area and planned to stay on the ICW for a couple of days until we would stop at Great Bridge, VA. Our other alternative would have been to continue traveling out in the Atlantic, but we would have had to round Cape Hatteras (a long way out) with the weather deteriorating, and the next section of the ICW is mostly pleasant and easy to travel on.

Before we could even get on the ICW we needed to go through the bridge in the photo that was being blocked by the shrimp trawler, the Capt. Allison Milliken. We didn't mind waiting though, because we had the opportunity to watch a really skilled captain in action.

Raising the Outriggers

In order for the captain to get his boat under the bridge, he had to lower his outriggers, but he had to be careful not to lower them too much because they would hit the bridge supports. Once through the bridge he had to stop the boat before he reached the railroad bridge that was right next to the bridge he just went under so that he could get the outriggers back to their upright position so he could pass by the railroad bridge (seen vertical in the photo). To do this, he needed to be able to lay up on the bridge fenders where he could stop the boat to raise the outriggers. Just getting a big boat like that up against those fenders with an the outgoing tide pushing him and such limited space would have been a feat in itself. He got assistance in getting pushed over to the side with the little yellow towboat in the photo.

Laying Up Against the Bridge Fender

When the bridge area was clear, we moved onward. We would be traveling on a part of the ICW that originated from natural waterways connected by man-made canals, most of which are narrow, and go through back country land and swamps. I like smelling the pine fragrance in the sections bordered by the pine forests and looking for wildlife,of which we usually see a variety.

After a quiet night anchored in South River, across from Oriental, NC, we had the hook up and were underway by 0600. A cold front had passed through, and we were “chilly” most of the morning. It felt so good not to be sweltering. We made calls to a couple of people in Florida to tell them we were cold!It was such a clear, beautiful morning, and there were a lot of blue crab fisherman checking their traps in the shallow backwaters.

Fishing For North Carolina Blue Crabs

One of the most significant stretches of this section is the 21 mile long Alligator Pungo canal, so named because it connects the Alligator River with the Pungo River. The canal traverses some farm lands and a large portion of natural swampland. A lot of boaters find the canal an annoyance, mostly because it is very straight and narrow bordered by an enormous number of stumps, as well as dead and decaying trees that become dead heads, dangerous, mostly submerged floating logs. You have to keep a sharp eye out at all times so you don't run one over. One of those things could put a hole through the hull of the boat, bend the prop, or break a rudder. I only get nervous with the stumps when we have to pass a barge that is taking up most of the canal, forcing us over to one side. For all the stumps we can see, I just know there are many times that which we can't see.

Dangerous Stumps

The canal usually has some wildlife to see, the most being present early or late in the day. Since we were traveling through in late afternoon there wasn't a lot of excitement. I did see two bald eagles, one adult and one juvenile and a pair of quails, any of which I haven't seen in the wild in over 20 years.

We had to pass a sailboat named ROCINANTE. The first challenge was deciding how to pronounce the name correctly to call on the VHF. I am always amazed why someone chooses to name their boat something that the majority of the boating population cannot say or spell correctly. The captain was excited I said the name correctly and became very chatty. The name was taken after the mule of Don Quixote, a trusty steed that would take him any where he wanted to go. That is a glamorous name compared to the Sea Ray that also passed us named A LOT OF NUTS AND SCREWS. I could devote the rest of the blog to my theories about that name, especially being a Sea Ray, but I will only let you speculate on your own. Plus my Mom gets a copy of this and gets upset when I use foul language.

Alligator River Single Pivot Swing Bridge

You can see in the photo that this is a very long (about 2 mi.) low, bridge. The bridge tender actually drives his car out to the keeper's house, where a designated car park area was constructed. We think this is the only bridge we have seen where this has been done. While the bridge opens on demand, if the winds exceed 34 KTS it will not open. It has a huge tooth and gear mechanism that supports the moving span, but the span is so wide it must not be stable enough to sustain high winds. Once passing through the bridge we anchored for the night near the mouth of East Lake, just a remote, wooded area with gobs of crab traps in the water.

Most of the next day was rather uneventful as far as natural scenery goes. Since it was Saturday, all kinds, mostly crazy, of weekend boaters were out in full force as we transversed Currituck Sound. It appears that the latest rage on the water is being towed by anything from a slalom ski, requiring some level of skill and dexterity, to a gigantic 4-person rubber couch like thing that you just sit on, hardly getting wet, until it capsizes. That undoubtedly must be the toy of future couch potatoes.

Shortly over the VA border we were coming up to the North Landing bridge, trying to time our approach for the hour or half hour opening, when we heard the bridge tender talking to an approaching tug. He asked the tug to lay back a bit because he was having trouble with one of the bridge spans and needed to “put some water on it” in hopes of getting it to open properly.

North Landing Double Pivot Swing Bridge

When it was our turn to go through the bridge, the tender called us to ask us to pass through with only the left span (look at the photo) open because he was having trouble with the right one. We didn't think we could fit through the opening, so Wayne called the tender to ask him how wide it was. The full width, with both spans open, was 40', and we have a 18.5' wide beam, so it was going to be an unpleasant squeeze. The tender said he would open the right span a bit, which gave us room enough to pass through without scraping the fiberglass.

5 miles later we had to pass through the Centerville Turnpike bridge. It too, is a low bridge with a vertical clearance of only 4' so it has to open for even the smallest of boats. Over 16,000 cars/day use the bridge, yet for some reason, it opens on demand on the weekends for boating traffic. Two barges, us, another big motoryacht and a couple of small boats all wanted to get through, so the tender waited until we were all piled up together to minimize the time the road traffic would have to wait. The wait forced us into having to pass the first tug in a “skinny” area of the waterway, where we had to move over with less than 2' of water under us.

Passing Two Scrap Barges Very Closely

We were on the working channel for the bridge, which is the same channel the barges use and overhead an interesting conversation between the two scrap tugs. Tug 2 called tug 1 to ask him how fast he was moving so tug 2 could gauge his speed to keep up with tug 1 to make the bridge openings together. Tug 2 said his company had restricted him to using 60 gals. of fuel/hr. to reduce operating costs. Tug 1 said his company had done the same thing with him. Tug 2 said at the current rate he had been traveling to keep up with Tug 1, he was burning 70 gals/hr., but he would justify the overage by having to make the bridges. As a comparison, we have been burning about 3 gal./hr.

Speaking of diesel fuel, just after we passed through the Centerville bridge we pulled into Atlantic Yacht, adjacent to the Great Bridge in Chesapeake, VA, to top off our fuel tanks. We still had 700 gals, but we added another 300 in hopes of not having to purchase fuel again until we are in this area for the return trip. We only paid $1.97/gal., and the prices of fuel are always much higher in the northeast. Plus, we topped off our water tanks, including filling the washing machine, so I did a load of laundry.

So here I write, docked at the free dock at Great Bridge Park, one of our favorite stops on the whole east coast. The WE Marine Maintenance Team are dissecting the hydraulic oil pump for the auto pilot in hopes of trying to figure out why AP is not doing his job properly. It may be a few days before I can give you the results of that operation since we will have to hand steer once leave here anyway, and AP won't get the full test until we are in some wide open waters.

The Twin Bascule Great Bridge Bridge

Great Bridge Park is comprised of the area between the Great Bridge lock and the Great Bridge bridge, maybe about ¼ mile apart, and that portion of the ICW in between. There is a small strip of land on either side of the waterway that is mowed and landscaped. Near the lock end is a well-treed park with playground, boat ramp, picnic tables, etc. You can watch boats, recreational and commercial, lock through the lock and then watch them go through the Great Bridge bridge, one of the most beautiful bridges we have seen. The shore is so close you can easily talk to the people on the boats. A lot of people fish and crab (the couple right across the waterway from my window have gotten at least 10 blue crabs in the last 30 minutes-I could get into doing that!) along the bulkheaded area between the two structures. Other people just sit and watch the waterway traffic pass by; the lock and bridge open on the hour and there is always some activity, especially when barges have to pass each other.

This is a great stop for cruising boats, not just because we can dock on the bulkhead for free, but also because all kinds of stores and restaurants are within easy walking distance. We stop here, if for nothing else, but just to go to Dairy Queen, every cruisers dream.

The FLUKE Crew At DQ

Today, August 9, it's 100º, and is supposed to be the same tomorrow. Our DQ treats were melting quickly. It was a hot walk to the closest mailbox and bait and tackle shop. We detoured through a residential area to be able to walk in the shade of the huge pine trees. Despite the extreme temperatures, these people have the Fall spirit already. Tomorrow we'll be moving northward, hopefully to cooler waters.

Bountiful Yard Art