Over 900 miles…. and counting..... An adventure.....The making of a Captain.....

Enjoying reading this story. As a cold weather boater, I have learned that a small 1500 watt ceramic heater is a must have in cold weather. I keep one plugged in and running on the floor by my feet. This along with a drop curtain to reduce the volume of space to be warmed makes a huge improvement in comfort. Since I single hand myself, I prepare two PB and J sandwiches before taking off and keep them in baggies at the helm along with two bottles of water. The high calories keep you sustained without having to stop to eat.

I hope there are more posts....this was really getting good...

What did I just do......

Get up at 2am to follow some crazy sport fish guys in the dark, rainy, cold of night to get through the Great Bridge Lock only to be left in the middle of nowhere on some waterway I've never experienced before....and fried my cellphone at the helm because of rain...

It was all a blur.... All I wanted to do was decompress.

Well, as I write this, I thought I'd take a look at the chart and try and piece it together a bit.... They left me after the Great Bridge, which means, according to Navionics, I had about a 35 mile run to Coinjock. So, somewhere around 2 hours of heavy concentration navigating in poor conditions /fog....I checked the weather history and it shows light rain / fog....

I want to be clear....I felt left alone - abandoned... I wasn't cursing them or hoping that they sunk / ran aground or anything, but at the time I was like WTF, I never would have done that to another person...You make an agreement and you stick to it....When those boats disappeared and I was in the fog with no phone, it wasn't another day at the park...It was an oh shit moment...

I wasn't tired when I got to Coinjock, it was more like bewildered... It was probably all the adrenaline...

When I got tied up at the dock, I went down below to get out of the damp clothes and change into dry clothes... I was smart enough to wear a few layers when I departed Portsmouth so I wasn't overly soaked....It had actually warmed up into the 60's by this point so I just threw on a shirt and it was a great feeling being dry.

I was tied up right next to the marina store, so I walked off the boat with the engines running...I didn't want to shut her down in case I had an issue with the port engine again... I only spent about 5-10 min. walking around the place and looking at the map to see I was basically in the middle of nowhere and it was still early...

I mean the thought had occurred to me to call it a day...It was a crazy / eventful morning and perhaps it would be prudent to just say mission accomplished and hope for better weather the next day.

But, here's what happened... I walked literally back to 15' to my boat and went below to grab the Ipad and see what was ahead... Hmmm....Belhaven...Can I make it? Let's plot it and see....

Now, as I write this, I'm checking again for my recollection and understanding....It shows about 140 miles and roughly 5 hours...

All I can remember was thinking it was early, somewhere between maybe 8am-10am, and I'm thinking be there around 2:30pmish is more than doable...

Plus - The sun had come out...Now we were talking...It was warm, upper 60's maybe...I was dry...The engines were idling...and the sun had come out of the clouds...Anyone at this point would have given the green light to head out...

So, I made sure I had food handy, the Ipad plotted at the helm...The Ray Marine plotter all set and I asked for some assistance with my lines to depart... I was continuing on...



GREAT BRIDGE LOCK



CHART FROM GREAT BRIDGE LOCK TO COINJOCK



COINJOCK
(My boat was right next to the dock house)



BELHAVEN MARINA

Amazing Read, thank you very much and your writing is impressive.

Enjoy reading this. keep it going

And...???

This read is rapidly becoming the highlight of my day!

I love reading the thread - very well written.

Appreciate the likes & glad you all are enjoying it... It's nice to learn you like my writing style...

Boat Guy said:

Appreciate the likes & glad you all are enjoying it... It's nice to learn you like my writing style...

Click to expand...

It's making for great winter time reading. I get to enjoy your journey while my boat is blocked and covered for the winter.

-Kevin

Amen to all the comments above. I'm enjoying it a lot.

Wow! What a great read.... I am glued to the details of your adventures trip.

Thanks for sharing,
JB

===== A few thoughts =====
For those of you not familiar with the ICW, Coinjock Marina is kind of a legendary stop on the waterway...

From a logical standpoint, it's about a day run to get to Norfolk, so it makes sense for a lot of people to make this a stopping point. It has easy side-tie slips and caters to transients.

Also, if you're a meat eater, it has a reputation for a great steak....
====== END =====

So, now we are looking at a different picture all together...

When I left Portsmouth in the wee hours of night, it was cold, rainy, and dark.

Now, it's sunny, warm, and the rain stopped... I couldn't just let this day be wasted. I mean this was perfect cruising weather...Supernatural forces had imparted on me a great opportunity to continue my journey...Or, so I thought...

As I grabbed the lines from the dock-hand and thanked him for his help, I was really looking forward to a nice easy cruise. I simply let the boat drift off the dock a bit and then slipped her into gear.

I wasn't in any hurry...Just basically idle "no wake" speed as I could see the bridge out ahead of me... I figured, looking at the map that once I got past it, it would / should be up on plane pretty much the entire way...

I kicked on the music to have some tunes playing as I slowly reached the bridge...

Then, as I pass under, sometime after I throttle up and get her on plane...

Now it's a bit fuzzy here...I honestly don't know exactly when or where...All I know is that it happened shortly after I got under the bridge...

What I mean is, that nice sunny day was a mirage... I could not believe how fast things deteriorated...It was still relatively warm, but the fog and rain came back...What was worse was the winds also kicked up...

I remember thinking, Coinjock wasn't too far back in my rear-view (maybe 10-15 miles not sure), perhaps I should just turn around and not tempt fate... Right?

What would you do? I recall conditions were fog with maybe a mile visibility, light rain, something like a 10kts wind from the SW kicking up spray and mid 60's temp....

So, I turned around and headed back to Coinjock

--- NOT --- Of course not, what would be the fun in that? I continued on with a very similar run from the Great Bridge... A bit white knuckled...In other words, not really an opportunity to relax at all...

But, once again, I don't recall seeing another vessel all the way to Belhaven, so that was nice...No slow passes...I actually didn't appreciate this until further along in my journey...

I don't remember all the specifics of this leg of the trip...It was just a lot of running up on plane making sure I stayed in the channel...Looking at the chart you can understand why... Looking out at the waterway, you get a different feeling...It appears to be a vast watery playground to boat all around...Though, the charts tell a different story....You can see depths of 2-3ft just outside the channel.

If you make a mistake and venture out, likely you will end up hitting bottom and having an all around bad day. Fortunately, most of the bottom is muddy so you're probably not going to put a hole in your boat...Though, you never know what might be on the bottom, something metal, or even a sunken vessel never removed.

Even the surface can hide large logs and debris right below it... So a careful watch is prudent...

Even the channel can have shoaling... Though, at this point, none of this was my concern.

I'm at 18kts and I figured follow the center channel and verify with the magenta-line and all should be good...

There were two sections of this trip that stand out in my memory....

First, the Albemarle Sound... You see, most of this trip I could see was sort of a ditch where I could see the shore on both sides...Cruising down a narrow river with a channel marking the way... Then you get to the Albemarle Sound and things change...

You can't see coastline... The waves pickup due to winds, and the channel seems out of nowhere...With different markers connecting up...It wasn't bad...It was simply different...Wide open and exposed...

Second, the Alligator Cut... Like I said earlier, conditions had deteriorated...It was most apparent in the cut...winds and rain and fog had made it look like a squall with a tornado...Not a tight funnel-cloud type tornado, but a circular flow that was maybe as wide as the cut...They was no dodging it or pulling up at a marina...I don't think there was much in the way of "safe harbor" at any point in this leg. Perhaps I missed things as I was hyper-focused on center channel, but it's a pretty lonely segment between Coinjock and Belhaven....It was simply a surreal feeling behind the helm to see this type of weather pattern...I though, this is a "Gilligan's Island" type of experience...

I don't really remember specifics about the last section of the run...Perhaps the rain died down and conditions were better...I would bet that was the case...Because I do recall coming into Belhaven before sun-down and contacting Belhaven Marina for a slip and getting in no problem...

Though, once again, I was looking forward to relaxing and decompressing after getting up around 2am and doing, by my rough calculations, 180-190 miles...It wasn't to be...

Remember, I had a port engine issue to deal with... I needed to figure out what was up with the port battery bank...

And, at this point I wasn't alone... After explaining to the owner the situation he jumped aboard and down below and took some readings and checked the water levels and noticed that the batteries were low on water...He told me about a hardware store just a few blocks away, so I was off walking down the street to grab a few gallons of distilled water... No idea of the time, but I recall it getting dark by the time I got back and added the water in hopes that it would do the trick... He was confident that's all I needed, so, so was I...

Now - At some point in the arrival / heading the the marina office / back and forth to the hardware store, I noticed another Sea Ray and a couple hanging around... We got to talking and found out he's a member of CSR...

Small world, isn't it... It's where I met KTCanuck and his wife...

Perhaps he will chime in on the weather and our conversation...He might remember it differently.. I don't recall if he ran that day or was just in the marina...I think he thought I was crazy after I explained my day...Don't know.

Love your writing style.

Two observations:

First - some of the roughest water I have ever been in was the Albemarle sound with the wind blowing.

Second - the best shrimp and grits I have ever had was at the restaurant across the street from the Ace Hardware.

Keep writing... reliving the experience.

Thanks FF -

I do remember a recommended restaurant called Farm Boys... Though I pretty much ate on the boat all the time... In fact I should talk about how I provisioned the boat... That's pretty humorous....

You are really making some fans here on CSR. What a great escape from the never ending winter. Please keep it coming.

Boat Guy said:

Thanks FF -

I do remember a recommended restaurant called Farm Boys... Though I pretty much ate on the boat all the time... In fact I should talk about how I provisioned the boat... That's pretty humorous....

Click to expand...

Love to hear provisioning strategy - what you did - how well did strategy work.

Keep writing - give us more...

If we had 3 or 4 people on here that could write like this I would never get anything done.

Ahhhh, the joy of being retired--I can check CSR and this thread several times a day!

Let's digress.....

FF reminded me of something that looking back on, is pretty funny...

Provisioning...

The idea to make the journey was not really planned out...I didn't chart it; look for marinas beforehand; do any sort of calculations; anything basically a planner would do...

What I did do was make sure my Nav equipment was functioning; my TowBoatUS card was up to date and handy; talk to Capt. Rusty; and provision for food...

In fact, provisioning became the area that I was most concerned about... I simply prefer to make my own food...I know it's healthy, and I can relax on the boat while eating. Further, it's cost effective.

I knew there would be marina bars and seafood possibilities, but would there be grocery stores? I mean, I wouldn't have a car, so would it be possible to restock food? Who knows?

I had never seen the ICW before, and I knew even in Annapolis it can be a challenge to get to a grocery store by foot...I had visions of small towns where you might have to travel miles for groceries...

So, I bought non-perishable food and chicken breasts to freeze....Primarily containers of rice and pasta... As I started to think the trip would be a "go", I would buy it... Then, I left some in the car, put some in the house, and some on the boat...never really paying attention to how much I had.

A few days before departing I decided to get it all on the boat and organize storage...

I had purchased 32 Oz containers of Texmati Rice... How many? By the time I had pulled them from all the places and count them, I had over 20! I had over 20 boxes of pasta...And over 40 chicken breasts that I put into individual zip lock bags in the freezer!

I mean, seriously, I might as well have gone offshore for a month...

Keep in mind, I had other food...Oatmeal, eggs, fruits & veggies, etc...

It's a good thing the 400DA has a nice galley with storage...I actually used the area underneath the couch...That area will hold a fair amount of rice...haha

The reality was, I wasn't doing any overnights offshore...I was in the marinas before sundown...Many marinas had loaner cars or bikes and grocery stores nearby...

Nowadays, you even have Uber in most areas...

The bottom-line is, you're not going to starve if you don't stock-up like I did... But, I did eat well...

You have Pasta for all of 2019...

Nothing wrong with extra food...