Little Triangle Loop WEEK #3, 7-13July018

      On Saturday morning we get up and do chores for SummerTime. I permanently wire the radar power. I use the DC breaker labeled "SPARE" on the panel. It had always been on, and one fall day in 2017 I turned it off to see what did not work. Nothing seemed to be affected then. Today I wedge myself in under the helm seat and behind the breaker panel door and see the only wire coming from the breaker is the one to the little light that says the breaker is powered. I add the positive wire to give the radar its own breaker, and use the Dymo Labelmaker to make a label to go over the word "SPARE". Barbara does some of the laundry as the laundry facility at Shady Harbor is first class. There is a sink and folding table, and three of each unit. There is a good restaurant here, and in the evening we have dinner there with the "Gold Looper" crew off of "FIRST FORTY".  On Sunday we get up and go to the nearest church which is too far to walk. We borrow the courtesy car from the marina to go to "The Reformed Church". Afterwards we find a convenience store in the next town to buy milk for our breakfast. There is not a whole lot in New Baltimore where Shady Harbor Marina is located.
      Monday morning I talk to the yard manager about getting SummerTime pulled and the bottom and prop cleaned. They can not do it until mid day Tuesday, so I decide not to do it. We fuel up SummerTime. It takes 150 gallons, the most we have ever put in her tank. She has not been fueled since Atlantic City, exactly 30hr on the clock and 244 miles. We have run almost constantly at the 85-90% power setting. We are running harder than normal to travel at even 10knots, & I think fuel consumption is up, and speed is down for a given rpm, because the prop has some barnacles clinging to it from the sitting in Wormley Creek. The boat is down 20% in speed for a given rpm past 2000rpm. It is not linear, taking more rpm for an incremental increase the faster we try to go. We leave Shady Harbor and head to Waterford, NY. This is the eastern end of the Erie Canal, and where we leave the Hudson River. We tie up at the Waterford Welcome Center Docks. We have been 25 miles today since  leaving Shady Harbor. The Welcome Center personnel are most pleasant, and we register and pay $10.00 for electricity for two nights. The docks are free to transients.

WATERFORD CANAL  WELCOME CENTER & DOCKS

After SummerTime is secure, I walk to the Rite Aid pharmacy to get a renewal on my 90 day prescriptions. Some things have to be verified, as Rite Aid is in the throes of ownership change. The branch I used in Hampton is closed as part of that ownership change. They will call me when the prescription is ready. On Tuesday morning Barbara and I decide to eat breakfast out as a change. We go to Don & Paul's Cafe on Bridge Street. A local place with a regular clientele and inexpensive  breakfast menu. I get blueberries over French Toast. As we finish I get the call from the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions. Barbara walks with me down Bridge Street to the drug store, and we take the pedestrian walkway along the canal to get back. In the afternoon, I tackle the job of replacing the seal between the two exhaust elbows and stopping the exhaust leak in the joint. With the new parts we got from TA Diesel, we succeed this time in sealing the joint. We clean up SummerTime and get her ready to leave on Wednesday morning. Boats are only allowed to stay 2 days at the Welcome Center. On Wednesday, we leave with a local boat to head west on the Erie Canal.

ENTERING THE ERIE CANAL LOCK SYSTEM

         Though it is about 9:30 when we leave the dock, we have a good day of travel. The first lock is number "E-2". Locks  2-6 all occur in less than 1-1/2 miles, and raise westbound (us today) or lower eastbound vessels 150 ft. The The New York State Cruising Guide  states: "These locks provide the highest lift (approximately 150 feet) over the shortest distance of any canal in the world." When you get to the top you are on the Mohawk River. The Mohawk, along with several other rivers, makes up the Erie Canal System that was the historical route to move freight from the Great Lakes to the Hudson River for transport to the Port of New York City. And consumable goods back the other way. The local boat, "GETAWAY", stops after lock 7, as their local port is the Schenectady Yacht Club. We continue on our way, as the day is still early. We have lunch between locks 7 & 8. Lunch on the canal works about the same as our other days. We plan the lunch to occur between locks that are at least about 6 miles, or more than 1/2 hour apart. Barbara goes to the galley and makes sandwiches, fills our water bottles, and brings a lunch of sandwiches, fruit, and/or chips that we eat on the flybridge while continuing to move forward. Today we do good, we get to Amsterdam, NY about 4:45. We are through lock #10, meaning we did 9 locks and 38 miles. We tie up to a dock at a restaurant, in Amsterdan, there is another, older Mainship 34 behind us. It is a Mark I, and looks extremely well with a shiny white hull and bright blue canvas. Barbara and I go to dinner at Rivers Edge Cafe where we overlook the dock while eating great food at a reasonable price.

VIEW FROM RIVERS EDGE CAFE

Dessert is a warm brownie with two flavors of ice cream on top, great! We later meet the owners of "EVEN TIDE", and chat with them and compare boat mods until near midnight. We turn in knowing that it will be another day of locks when we get going. The first lock, #10, is just about a mile away.
      We both get up late and are moving slowly without a really good nights sleep. While our stopover point seemed nice, there were railroad tracks beyond the building we could not see. The trains seemed to run at least every 20 minutes through the night, and sometimes there were two of them. There must have been a few road crossings also, as there was a lot of horn blowing. We talked to the other Mainship owners a few more minutes before leaving the dock at about 10. The ride today is gorgeous. We are at the lower part of the Adirondacks and the canal runs through valleys between hills.

VIEW ALONG CANAL BETWEEN  AMSTERDAM and ST JOHNSVILLE

Occasionally we see a mountain peak in the background between hills. Our run is uneventful, we get through locks 10 to 16. We stop in St. Johnsville about 4pm, and tie up alongside the wall in their protected harbor off the canal/Mohawk River. It is much quieter here, though the boat basin of the marina is surrounded by a campground. Most all the other boats in here are pontoon boats. We walk in to town to check it out, and to buy some milk. The grocery store in the guidebook looks more like a neighborhood store from the 50s before there were convenience stores. We proceed one more block to the Stewart's Shops convenience store. We have been told that they have really good ice cream, a leftover from the days when Stewart Shops had their own dairies. We are not disappointed in the ice cream, I get a waffle cone with "Brew Ha Ha" in it, and Barbara gets her favorite flavor: Dark Chocolate. We go back to the boat and spend a peaceful night.

ST JOHNSVILLE TRAIN TRACKS AS MOSTLY ALONG THE CANAL

The same train tracks are near this marina also, but there is no horn blowing as the one road that crosses the tracks is a bridge.
      We get up Friday morning and decide to head for Little Falls, two locks and 11 miles. The dock walls at St. Johnsville may have been good for docking barges, but it is a high climb up from SummerTime's side deck to the wall even for me. Nearly impossible for Barbara. She sits on the wall from the side deck, and swings her legs up onto the top of the wall. Besides, we have seen a brochure that says that Little Falls is having a cheese festival on Saturday. We call the Little Falls municipal marina to make sure they have room for us. They state there are no boats there at 10 when I call, but it is a "first come first serve" dock. We go through lock 16 which is a warm up for lock 17. Lock 17 will take us up 40.5ft. in one lift.

LOCK TRAVELERS ARE ALL KINDS

 It is the highest single lift on the canal. It also is the only lock on the canal without swing gates. Its eastern entry gate is a massive concrete block that raises and lowers vertically like a guillotine.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN A 40FT LIFT LOCK

Leaving the lock we meet a NY State Canal tug pushing a barge around the curve by Little Falls. At this point we are looking down on the town. I am thinking that the tug wants me on the outside of the turn so he does not have to worry about being close to the canal wall, possibly hitting it, and sending torrents of water onto the town. Nothing like that happens of course. And I do not see any repairs in the wall from any previous boats from the past 200 years.

LITTLE FALLS IS BELOW CANAL TO RIGHT

We get to the Little Falls Municipal dock about 5 minutes after meeting the tug. We are the fouth boat to the docks. The dockmaster helps us get tied up, and we settle in for the rest of the afternoon. We ask about a ride to the Cheese Festival on Saturday as this Municipal Marina does not have a courtesy car, but do give rides to town when they are not busy docking people.

JUNE 2017 - JOURNEY to HAMPTON ROADS, VA Area

     Having completed our loop the end of March, we decide to hang out (live with on land) with Barbara's brother at Carolina Beach. We made two day trips on  SummerTime in this period. On the 10th of April, we took Barbara's brother, sister, and nieces to Bald Head Island at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. It is a private island, accessible only by boat or plane. The residents there use golf carts to get around. A private ferry takes over workers and support vehicles for people working on the island. We rent a golf cart there, as it is a big island. We spend a couple of hours driving around the island. We go to the "Old Baldy" lighthouse from 1817 which is privately owned and undergoing restoration.

OLD BALDY

We have a painting of this light in our personal possessions. This is the second time for Barbara and I to visit as we came here once when dating as a friend's father was the island caretaker. There are several hundred more houses there now than then in the 70s. In the late 70s when we went to the island, there was one rambling beach house hotel, maybe 50 houses, a golf course, and a runway.

PRESERVED BEACHFRONT & FRYING PAN SHOALS START OFF SHORE

Today there is a small village with shopping, restaurants, a grill, souvenir shopping, a post office, a church, and marina. We take a second trip in early May to the Carolina Beach boat harbor. It is a couple hour trip to make sure everything works and not too much grows on the bottom. The last two weeks of May we have some work done to the fuel injection system on the Perkins. All the injectors are removed and taken to a shop for cleaning. They also take the injector pump to install a new seal on the throttle shaft which had been the diesel leak so hard to find. When all is returned and re-installed, Mr. Perkins runs better than ever.
     The beginning of June, we decide to go to Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Our daughter and son-in-law live there. They have asked us to stay in the area for the upcoming winter as she is expecting. So on 2Jun, we load the boat with our gear, and prepare SummerTime to travel again. We leave CB after church on Sunday morning. The trip north seems to be going good until we get to the drawbridge at Wrightsville Beach. We are early for a bridge that only opens on the hour. We take a side trip up one of the nearby channels to kill nearly an half hour. When we get back to the bridge over the ICW, we are forced to wait longer as there is a small sailboat under the draw with its mast caught in the overhead members. The bridge operator relays over the radio that he cannot open the bridge until the sailboat is clear. It is tense as there are several boats in the queue to go through, and the tide and wind are trying to push everyone to and through the bridge.

BOATS JOCKEYING FOR POSITION AWAITING BRIDGE OPENING

Eight minutes after the hour the sailboat clears his mast, and the bridge opens. We continue on our way at a 90% engine speed to make the opening of the next bridge. We make this opening and slow to normal cruise speeds until we get to Topsail Island. We find an anchorage in the channel by the south part of the island.  The wind is blowing pretty good, but the anchor is holding strong, and we get a good nights rest. While checking the engine the next morning, I discover that we have a couple of fuel seeps from the injector re-install. I call the repair people and we work out a meeting with one of their employees at a Sneads Ferry Marina for Tuesday to repair the minor leaks. We continue N up the ICW towards our rendezvous point with the mechanic. We stop for fuel at a marina before the one we are headed to. We have to anchor out of  the ICW as there is a bigger cruiser there who is taking on 1700gal of fuel. They tell us it will be an hour. We wait our turn and take on a measly 48gal to top off our 190gal tank. We continue on to our marina for meeting the mechanic. On Tuesday, Dean shows up at 7:45 and proceeds to repair the two minor leaks. He is quick and we are gone from the Marina at 9:35. We have to wait for the bridge to Onslow Beach to open while transiting the ICW through Camp Lejeune.

ARTILLERY TARGET AREA ONSLOW BEACH

Another looper bait catches up to us as we wait. We travel slowly together through the base, and we pick up speed and leave the Krogen "Manatee" behind as we round the ICW turn at the White Oak River intersection. We pass the State Port docks at Morehead City and make the turn with the ICW.

PLAY ON THE ICW NEAR TOPSAIL BEACH

COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC ON ICW BEFORE NEUSE RIVER

It has been a lovely morning so far, and we hope the weather holds as we travel the Neuse River portion of the ICW. We have an easy trip down the Neuse, and across the bottom corner of the Pamlico Sound. They are calling for increasing winds, and we pull into a small creek off the ICW and anchor for the night. We are near my sisters but I can not call her as we have no phone service in this areas. The wind does get up in the night and there are light showers. We awake to find that our anchor has dragged about 2 boat lengths with the wind change. We miraculously blew between two crab pots without getting caught in either one. This creek had a soft mud bottom, and it took two attempts to get the anchor to set, so I am not surprised that the wind direction change caused us to drag. Checking the engine before the morning start, I discover that one of our fuel leaks is back. We are in the near middle of nowhere in eastern NC. I wrap the fuel line in an absorbent pig blanket, and we weigh anchor and head for Belhaven, NC. There are several other boats making the crossing of the Pamlico River with us. It is rough and one of the smaller boats tucks in behind us to let us break the waves for him. We decide to stay at the River Forest Manor Marina, a place we have stayed at before. We got there about 1pm. They loaned us a golf cart to go into town to look for parts to repair our leak. We stayed at River Forest an extra day. The weather for Thursday is forecast as small craft warnings. Our next leg is across Albemarle Sound, which has a nasty reputation. We get our fuel leak repaired on the day off. On the 9th, we left River Forest at 7am. There were several other boats going north on the ICW besides us. We made the Alligator River Bridge at 1:10 and proceeded into the Albemarle Sound. The Dismal Swamp Canal is closed due to hurricane damage from 2016, so we go the North River route. It is not as pretty as the Dismal Swamp route, but much quicker. We pass Coinjock where a lot of boats dock for a night to get the renown prime rib. We anchored in Blackwater Creek for the night. The bottom is soft here also, but there is no wind. We got up early on Saturday morning due to wakes rocking us from fisherman hurrying out to their favorite fishing spots. Barbara piloted while I hoisted the anchor. I think all 30' of chain lay in one spot in the mud. It took about 10min to get the anchor in due to having to rinse all the chain off. As we came out of Blackwater Creek, we fell in behind a larger boat that had been in Belhaven with us. We followed them through the canals and creeks and made the bridge openings with them. We did a lock today for the first time in months. There is a lock in Great Bridge, VA to handle the small differences in tide level between the canal and the Ashley River. We saw Chuck and Sue from "Somewhere In Time" on the dock of Atlantic Yacht Basin Marina as we passed heading to the lock. After the lock and bridge opening, we were on the Ashley River and on our way to Hampton Public Piers. We traveled slow through the Naval Base at Norfolk and picked up speed as we headed across the James River. there are always interesting sites as you travel through Norfolk/Portsmouth as there is the big Naval Base there as well as a vibrant Commercial Shipping presence. Today there is the added benefit of a Tall Ship Festival Going on. We got to Hampton Public Piers a little after 1:30pm on June 10, 2017.

TALL SHIP FESTIVAL - NORFOLK

       We spend a few days tidying SumerTime up and getting her ready to make a trip with our daughter and her husband. On Friday, they get to SummerTime early, load their gear, and we are off by 8:10 headed to Tangier Island, VA. We go into Salt Ponds Marina on the bay around the point of Fort Monroe. We fuel up where Barbara's brother abraded his forehead when we stopped here 4 years ago taking SummerTime to The Great Lakes. After putting on 81.8 gallons we are off again towards Tangier. It is a nice day and the Chesapeake Bay is fairly slick. We see a number of ships anchored across the bay, staging to go into a port to be unloaded. We are bucking a falling tide initially, so we increase our cruising speed. We also meet and pass some ships. After passing Wolf Trap Light, the tide changes and our speed picks up by .8 knots. We keep heading north up the bay towards Parks Marina on the N end of Tangier Island. Eventually we see the structures on the island appear on the horizon. It is a longer time to make out the land as the Bay is swallowing the island up.

TANGIER ISLAND IS LOW

We get to Parks Marina about 3:45 Friday afternoon, and the octogenarian Mr. Parks assigns us to a dock. He is a colorful character with a reputation up and down the bay.

PART OF FISHING FLEET

We go to the nearest local restaurant to the docks and order seafood dinners. On Saturday morning, the four of us go on foot to explore the town. Tangier Island is a place that time has nearly forgotten. The only access to the island is by boat or aircraft (they have a small airport with a storied history)

AIRPORT HISTORY for ISLAND

 and there are almost no motor vehicles. the streets are narrow and not wide enough for two cars to meet. Everyone gets around on foot, golf carts, or scooters.

TRAVEL MEANS ON NARROW STREETS

We eat lunch at one of the famous bed & breakfast where they serve family style. We tour a lot of gift shops. While the men go out in the bay each day to make the family income fishing, the women on the island cater to tourists to bolster the family income. We take in their history museum.

OF COURSE I FOUND ICE CREAM to EAT at SPANKY'S PLACE

We go back to SummerTime and rest up before going to another restaurant to eat dinner.

SUNSET ON TANGIER ISLAND

Sunday morning we listen to NOAA weather radio and decide to leave early as the winds are going to pick up on the bay. It turns out to be a good decision as the winds do increase and our trip back is mostly in 2' waves, with spray occasionally blow up on the flybridge when there is a bigger wave. We get back to Hampton at about 4:45pm.
       We stay at Hampton docks for a few days and leave to re-fuel from our Tangier trip. We go down to a marina in Portsmouth as fuel is cheaper there, and SummerTime needs to be moved once in a while to keep growh off the bottom. We come back and spend one night anchored in the Hampton River near I-64 before we go back to the Hampton Public Piers for a few more days.

SUNSET OVER HAMPTON

Little Triangle Loop Week #2, 30Jun-6Jul 2018

       We got back late Monday to Point Pleasant, NJ where SummerTime was waiting for us to board after our road trip to Ohio. We chose to leave SummerTime at Canal Point Marina while we took our road trip as we thought the south end of the Point Pleasant Canal area would be more secure than the north end on the Manesquan River. We knew we needed to be at Manesquan as that is where you go into the Atlantic to get to New York harbor. Canal Point Marina was only ten minutes from the Manesquan River and turned out to be an excellent place to leave SummerTime. The place was very nice. Our dock was next to condominiums on canals that were inhabited by mostly boaters, one who volunteered to watch SummerTime for us. Also the staff at the Marina was very nice and knowledgeable. On Tuesday Barbara did laundry and I did some chores on the boat. Most importantly I bought an alternator belt, and put the one in stores on the engine. The new belt went into the spare parts stores. While in the bilge, I saw that the exhaust elbows off of the turbo were sooted. That could only mean that the joint between the dry ell on the turbo and the wet ell above it was leaking. I pulled the elbows apart, and the seal was distorted. I do not know if it was like that when the manicooler was put back on, or if I did it later when I took the exhaust and upper ell loose when the hot water heater hoses were thought to be leaking. I cleaned up the area and put my one new seal in place. On Wednesday, the 4th, I worked on routing the cable from the radar to its monitor at the lower helm. We did not go to any fireworks shows, but there were plenty of fireworks to be seen from the locals up and down the canal.
       Thursday we got up early and went to Walmart to get provisions for the boat. We were back on board by 8:15. I took the rental car back to Hertz, and a Canal Point Marina employee picked me up at Hertz and brought me back to SummerTime. We got underway at 9:50, and were out Manesquan Inlet and in the Atlantic before 10:30. The ocean was much smoother (2-3' seas) this time than when we carried SummerTime north to the Great Lakes just over 5 years ago (4-6' following seas). We ran at 90% until we were at New York Harbor, or 2-1/2 hours after clearing out of the inlet. We slowed to 11kt going under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. It was a lovely day, and we could see the bridge about 12 miles away on the ocean. We could see the City skyline from farther out than that, well before we got to Sandy Hook.

ENTERING NY HARBOR, STATUE OF LIBERTY IS JUST to LEFT of  CENTER

WAITING to GET IN

New York Harbor is a nightmare of sorts when you are skippering the boat. It has constantly moving traffic. Besides the ships and tugs, there are numerous ferry boats, water taxis, and tour boats running around. None but the Staten Island Ferries seem to have a set route. It requires your head to be on a constant swivel as you go through the harbor.

CONTRAST in SPEEDS

And I think the only thing slower than SummerTime are the kayakers and sailboats. It is most congested, as would be expected, around the Statue of Liberty. Once we clear the George Washington bridge, the traffic lessens, and the trip becomes a little less tense. We soon pass under the new Tappan Zee bridge.

NEW TAPPAN ZEE BRIDGE, REMAINS of OLD BRIDGE in BACKGROUND

Parts of the old one are still standing, and there are some massive cranes on barges next to the old bridge. It is a good thing we come through this Thursday, as the US Coast Guard makes a radio announcement that the Tappan Zee bridge area will be closed to through traffic in the channel on Friday and Saturday. We get to Half Moon Bay Marina at Croton on the Hudson at 4:50, having covered nearly 87 miles. We had a rising tide and wind behind us to cover those miles in that time. We go into the village of Croton for dinner. It was more than the 3/8 miles that Steve at the marina told us, by a factor of 2. The Colonial Diner made it worth our while as we could not eat all that was served. We had our cake put in a carryout box so we could stop at the village creamery on the way back to the boat. The ice cream there was as good as we were told. They are also a bakery, and we were told the weekends that they make exceptional donuts. We will have to try that another time. It will be hard to beat the baked goods from "Glazed Donuts" in Hampton, VA though.

YACHT OLYMPUS ANCHORED OFF CROTON

      On Friday we try to get off early hoping to catch a little of the rising tide as we head up the Hudson. We are a little later than I had planned due to looking for some charts stowed away somewhere. We find the charts and get underway at 8:50. There are 2 other boats leaving the marina in front of us. We manage to stay in sight of the one, but the front one goes away from both of us. About 1-1/2 hours into the trip we are overtaken from the west by a bad thunderstorm. It is raining hard, and we both go down to the lower helm to navigate. The radar is not working as I had cut the cigarette lighter plug off this morning to wire it permanently. Then the chart searching got me distracted so I did not finish the permanent power supply to the radar. So we slow and motor on at about 6kt in reduced visibility. The boat in front has slowed also. About 11 the rain quits and we pick speed back up. We catch up to the other boat at West Point. They are slowed taking multiple photos of the Institute from their bow. It is an impressive site when seen from the water. The buildings appear to rise from the river to the heights of the hills surrounding them.

WEST POINT

We pass the other boat, and through radio  conversations find that they are loopers also. They are only going to Kingston, NY and we are headed to New Baltimore. We have one more light rain shower where I do not have to leave the upper helm to navigate. The front has passed, and the winds have shifted from our port stern quarter to our nose. Now we are now fighting the wind and the falling tide. We pass Hyde Park, another famous place on the Hudson River. We get to Donovan's Shady Harbor Marina in New Baltimore about 5:45, or 15min before closing.

SHADY HARBOR MARINA

We get a pump out before moving to our slip space. It is quitting time for the help, so we decide to fuel before we leave. When I check in my exhaust seal and gaskets I had ordered from TAD on Thursday are at the counter. There is another Mainship here, a "400", and they are loopers and come over to introduce themselves. So we meet the crew on "First Forty", the first looper boats we have had contact with since Hampton.

Little Triangle Loop Week #1, 23-29June2018

  It is Saturday, 22 June, the day we had scheduled to leave Hampton, VA for the start of our Summer 2018 trip. We actually were planning to start this trip back in May, but Mr. Perkins decided he needed some major repairs. We discovered on some short day trips back in May that we were losing engine coolant. As there were no external leaks present, I made a best guess that the closed coolant glycol system that operates under pressure was losing to the open raw water system. The raw water system uses a heat exchanger to cool the closed system with water drawn in from the outside source the boat is sitting in. A leak from the pressurized glycol system through the heat exchanger to the raw water system would not be seen as it would go out the exhaust with the raw water. It is not a good thing to happen, but we were in a good place for it to happen. Trans Atlantic Diesels, an old Perkins dealer, is across the York River from Wormley Creek Marina where we keep SummerTime while in the Hampton Roads Area. The mechanics at Wormley pull off the Perkins' Manicooler (Brits name) and I take it over to TAD. They rebuild the Manicooler in 2 weeks, and in mid June the Manicooler is back on the Perkins. After some short runs verify the repair is the cure, we move the boat to Hampton Public Piers dock where we spent a lot of the Summer of 2017. We are near our daughter and her family there if we need help of any kind. So it is Saturday, and we are trying to decide if the Chesapeake Bay is going to be calm enough for us to travel. About 12:50 we get away from the City docks. We are headed to what we plan to be an anchorage in the Great Wicomico River. The Coast Guard is having a busy day on the radio, and one of their watches is for a boat that just happens to be outside the mouth of the Hampton River. We contact the USCG, and report we are standing by with the broken down boat. The couple is worried about Thunderstorms. Barbara pulls up the NOAA radar screen on my phone, and Barbara tells them there are no Thunderstorms in the area to worry about for the next 3 hours. The VA State Water Police arrive after about 10 minutes, and we continue on our way. We round the corner of the Fort Monroe Point and head up the west side of the Bay. The land is sheltering the bay from the westerly winds, and we are having a relatively calm ride. Just prior to Wolf Trap Light, or about 3hr into our 6hr trip towards the Wicomico River, we get hit with sprinkles. The heavy rain follows suit. Barbara and I abandon the flybridge for the lower helm. We stay at the lower helm for about an hour before the rain has subsided enough to go back to running from the flybridge. We slowed down through the heavy part of the rain due to visibility. We abandon plans for Wicomico River and go into Godfrey Bay SW of Deltaville.

SUNSET OVER GODFREY BAY

This is the same area that the Bay kicked our butt last October. It is calm now, and while most boats are anchored in Fishing Bay, we stay in Godfrey Bay as it offers the most protection from any storms that might appear from the SW, which has been their route all week. We watch several groups of Cow Nose Rays swimming near the boat.

COW NOSE RAY

It is peaceful, and stays that way through the night.
        We wake on Sunday morning and try to get going early. I have it in my mind that we can get to Rock Hall, Md from this spot in one day. Rock Hall has a sheltered harbor, and a good marina to overnight at. We run hard most of the day, the wind is behind us, but we have half our time with the current of a rising tide, and half against the current of the falling tide. About half way through the day, I spot something large floating near the main channel. I go over to check it out, and determine it is the corpse of a large dolphin.

DOLPHIN CORPSE?

It is hard to identify as Barbara does not wish to get too close, and a good portion of it has been eaten by scavengers. Before we get to the Bay Bridge at Kent Narrows-Annapolis area, we are hit by sprinkles again. This time it does not get to be a hard rain, and we do not have to slow down, or move to the lower helm. It is unbearably hot (90s) today, and because the wind is behind us, there is no cooling breeze up on the fly bridge. Rock Hall is looking too far off. I look in the Guide Books to see what else may be near without taking a long trip up a side river. I find Podickory Yacht and Beach Club right on the Bay just N of the Bay Bridge. We call and make reservations. It is about 2hr closer than Rock Hall, and we get to their docks about 6:30. We tie up and check in. There are two parties going on there, so the place is noisy until about dark, when the parties break up. Barbara and I go to the main building and get a fresh shower, something we have not had for 2 days. The shower feels very good after this hot day on the bay.
       We leave Podickory early in the morning. It is a narrow channel from the marina through several hundred yards of 1-2' water. It requires close attention to get out as the wind is blowing a little more than the NOAA marine forecast. NOAA was calling for less than 10kt of wind with seas of 1'. We are in winds greater than 15kt and seas in the 2-3' range. Regardless, we follow the course laid out on the GPS to get us to the East bank of the bay. And there are lots of people out fishing, so it can not be too rough. We are however only able to run about 7kt due to the swells until we get land shelter from the wind generated waves after about 2 hours. We pick up speed and the rest of the trip to our destination of Delaware City Marina is pretty good. We get to the C&D Canal without much trouble. Just before we get to the canal, we are caught by a lot of boats and passed. We pass hardly anyone this day. Most of the boats are express cruisers, or what us trawler people call "go fast" boats. They are all in a hurry. The C&D is better to us this day than it was last September when we went to Philadelphia. The current is with us and we do not have to run hard to get through the canal. We do pass two sail boats in the canal that are flying the flag of Denmark. They are on the AIS, and one of them generally speaks for both. I finally get to pass a boat, actually two. I do this as we leave the "NO WAKE" zone by Chesapeake City. We continue to ease along with the C&D current pushing us. We get to Delaware City Marina on the "old" Chesapeake & Delaware Canal about 4:20. The dockmaster talked us in the last mile as the tide is at full low, and the channel entrance is narrow. The dock boys here do their usual marvelous job of using current and wind to get you secured to a dock. They are some of the most efficient dock personnel I have seen in 5 years of running SummerTime. We pull to the fuel docks first and take on the first fuel since Wormley Creek. It takes 147.9 gallons to fill SummerTime's tank. The second most fuel we have ever put in her. We secure the boat after moving to our dock after fueling. We walk into town (actually down the docks) for dinner. We eat at Lewinsky's on Clinton, a visitor favorite. Our two previous visits here we have hiked to La Matesina, which probably has the best "meat lovers" pizza in the country. We think we will for once get to the Delaware City ice cream parlor after Lewinsky's, but the dessert menu at Lewinsky's is too good. We have a leisurely walk back to SummerTime along Canal St.
        We are in a sluggish state when we get up on Tuesday morning. Both of us were up through the early morning with diarrhea. We do get going about 9:40 from the old C&D canal. We are bucking the tide on the Delaware Bay and a light wind. But the bay is being good, and we soldier on. About half way to our destination of Cape May the winds start to pick up. The tide is now behind us, and though bucking the wind, our speed has increased 20% to over 9kt. We are traveling with sail boats and power boats down the Delaware Bay. About 3 hours from the Cape May canal, the winds have kicked up substantially. The tide is with us going out the bay now, but is making some nice waves bucking the wind. About every 8th wave, SummerTime's bow is going in up to the rail.

UP TO THE RAILS

This goes on for nearly 20 miles until we are in the shelter of Cape May, and the waves subside. We get to Utsch's Marina about 4:20. I spend time rinsing the salt off of SummerTime before going for our own showers. We go to the Lobster House Restaurant  for dinner. We both appear to be over our earlier maladies. It was a good meal.
       We leave Cape May at a reasonable time, but not one that will help with tides. We do good for a ways, until we pass Hereford Inlet north of Wildwood. Either NJ, or I, has dyslexia on which side red markers are to be on. I run SummerTime aground at slow speed as I slowed for some fisherman near the channel. It is not a hard grounding, and with a little power we go across the sand bar between the two red markers and into the deep channel.

NJ WATERFRONT PROPERTY

We continue on our way, and the rest of our trip is uneventful until we get to Atlantic City, NJ. There are a number of low bridges crossing the NJ Intracoastal Waterway here. We are approaching the first one too early, and hearing other boats calling for a bridge opening, we realize from the answer of the bridge operator we might as well slow down. We only have to wait about 15min for this bridge to open and we are through. We are not so lucky at the next, or Albany St. bridge. The bridge tender states it is rush hour, and he will not open again until 6pm. It is a couple of minutes to 5. I move away from the bridge, and practice holding position against tides and with a beam wind for 55 minutes. We get through the bridge at 6pm, and proceed to Farley State Marina at the Golden Nugget Casino in Atlantic City. The dock girl is very efficient, almost as efficient as the dock crew at Delaware City. We have a nice evening eating on the boat.
       On Thursday morning, I check the engine before starting. The alternator belt feels a little loose, but I do not think it will be a problem. We motor across the harbor to another marina for fuel. After fueling, the alternator belt goes to squealing every time we try to accelerate the engine. I tighten the belt now, leaning over a more than warm engine. It takes three attempts to get the belt tight as there is really nothing to pry against, or way to get a long pry bar for leverage in the tight space. It is after 11 before we get away from the fuel dock. About 5 miles from the fuel dock, and just past a dredging operation, I feel a bite on my leg. It is a green head fly. And there is another bite. I look around, ant the flies are everywhere. There are tens of them landed on the underside of the bimini top. Barbara gets out a flyswatter and begins killing or shooing flies.

GREEN HEAD FLY INVASION

This goes on for well over an hour, until we change direction sufficiently to have wind off our side. Then the flies are gone. We proceed North on the NJICW passing through Little Egg Harbor and Barnegat Bays. The water coming in Barnegat Inlet is green as ocean water should be. It is a cool day compared to other days as the wind is blowing. We are headed to Canal Point Marina where we have had a reservation for over 2 weeks. We intend to leave SummerTime there while we take a short trip to Ohio. We get to Canal Point Marina at Point Pleasant, NJ at about 6. We had called and got a slip number as we knew we were not going to make their closing time of 5pm. It is a nice marina with fixed piers surrounded by condos and a canal system. The Pleasant Point Canal is obviously not a "NO WAKE" zone. We are rocked, even though off the canal, every few minutes by a passing boat.
      We get up on Friday morning the 29th, and go to the Marina office to check in. The staff offers to carry me to Hertz to pick up a rental car. I pick up the car, and we secure things on SummerTime. We leave Point Pleasant headed for central Ohio just before noon.

WEEK #35, 25-31MAR017, TRAVELING COASTAL SC, FINISHING IN NC

      On Saturday morning I am up first and decide not to run the generator to make coffee. I use the microwave running on the inverter to heat water for instant coffee. it was a peaceful night considered we were on a river leading to the ocean. I think I expected outbound fishing boats to rock us after daylight, but it did not happen. We get our quick breakfast of cold cereal, and then we prepare the boat to weigh anchor and get under way. We are off anchor by 8:50 and headed into Charleston. As we head up Elliot Cut, I glance back and see a big tour boat gaining on us as we head North up the cut. There is a drawbridge with enough clearance for us, but he has to wait for it to open. My worry of having to be passed in this narrow cut by a large vessel is ended.

TOUR BOAT HEADED FOR CHARLESTON HARBOR

We pop out of the cut, and into the Ashley River leading into Charleston Harbor. The tour boats are the main movers in Charleston Harbor this morning. As we pass Fort Sumter, a tug is coming in from the ocean towing a barge.

FORT SUMTER

On the ICW route, we are not near the navy base as other ports have been. The only naval ships we see are the ships on memorial duty at Patriot Point. The aircraft carrier "Yorktown" is still impressive, even from over a mile away. A couple of turns, and we are in the narrow ICW channel. This channel is pretty open to travel. But near Isle of Palms, I must have missed a "No Wake" sign. I see a jet ski tour operator motioning for me to slow down and not wash his craft sitting on a dock. I slow down, and feel bad as he is going to get some wake anyway. I am just glad I saw him as he signaled me. We are headed to Georgetown, SC, and for half the way we buck tides. We are able to run only 8.3kt at 2240rpm (normal speed @ 1800rpm), but when we hit tides the other way, we are running over 10kt at the same 2240rpm. The only looper we see on the route is "Cway", most of the other boats are small fishing boats and runabouts. We arrived at Harborwalk Marina at Georgetown at about 4:10, a little over 69mi from where we weighed anchor in the Stono River.

GEORGETOWN WATERFRONT

       On Sunday morning, we got up and walked to the Duncan Memorial United Methodist Church. It is another old church building with a lovely interior. And it still looks good because it has been well cared for.

PIPES for ORGAN IN DUNCAN CHURCH

After church we walk back over to the main street to look for a place for lunch. We settle on a "soul food" café called "Aunnys". It lives up to the hype, and we leave stuffed. For a little over $10., you get a meat entrée and three side.

AUNNY'S SUNDAY BRUNCH MENU

And I had peach cobbler for dessert after that big lunch. We spend the rest of the afternoon resting on the boat. On Monday  I do miscellaneous chores on SummerTime. I do find the fuel leak I have been looking for. The mist has become an occasional drop where the throttle shaft enters the injector body. I wash the boat, the first time it has had a good soap wash in several months. We are only a few days from finishing the loop, and SummerTime needs to look good. We have dinner in the old town at a very nice Italian restaurant, Alfresco Bistro, that we looked at on the way to church.
       On Tuesday morning we get ready to leave. The holding tank gets pumped, and we fill the water tank. We know we probably have at least one night we will spend on anchor. We get away from the marina at 9:30. We run about 1800rpm, and the rising tide helps to push us up the Waccaamaw River at about 9-1/4kt. For the first hour we are mostly looking at saw grass swamp areas, and then the plant life starts to change. The river narrows, and there start to be cypress trees along the banks. Some are quite big. We saw some eagles flying in this area.

EAGLE OVER RIVER JUST NORTH OF GEORGETOWN

I think now that we may have seen eagles in every state we traveled through except for New Jersey. This part of the Waccamaw has very little development. One side of it is a "National Wildlife Refuge".  The river is relatively deep, not too crooked, and there are plenty of large cypress trees lining the edge. About 30 miles north of Georgetown, we stop at Bucksport Marina and RV park and fueled up. They are cheapest in area per "Waterway Guides" fuel listing. We put 92.9 gallons of fuel in the tank to fill up for the first time since Savannah. A few miles after leaving Bucksport we come to the place where the Waccamaw River splits from the dug canal that becomes the ICW. We decide to go up the Waccamaw River for a short ways to check out its reported beauty. A few people have told us it rivals the St. John River in Florida for natural beauty. It is impressive, mostly a large cypress swamp with a river in it. We go about 5 mile up it to marker "4", and start to see signs of civilization. We turn back for about 2mi to anchor near a creek branch.

PANORAMA OF OUR ANCHORAGE IN WACCAMAW RIVER BEND

There are lots of Osprey flying in this area. Turtles and jumping fish are the only other wild life we see on this wild river. We cook on the grill. It is a peaceful night without much wind, but cool enough we do not need a genset and AC, or heat.
      We get up on Wednesday morning, and after more microwaved hot water for coffee, we head out the river. There is not as much mud on the anchor as I was expecting, in fact almost none. We follow the river back to where the ditch split from it, and follow the dug ICW north. We pass through Myrtle Beach, which is now putting development on both sides of the ICW.

ONE OF MYRTLE BEACHES GOLF COURSES ALONG THE ICW

We travel at 1500-1800rpm to keep our wake in a more acceptable range in the ditch.

TOUR BOAT AT MYRTLE BEACH OUTFITTED FOR YOUNG BUCCANEERS

A little after 1 we get to Little River. Here we somehow get into a pack of lunatics. It starts with the boat "Capt. Rick" that comes barreling down a marina fairway from the side, and nearly "T-bones" a small skiff traveling south on the ICW. The "Capt Rick" turns north and drives on the left side of the ICW, going slow now, and impervious to any boats headed south bound on the left (inland) side. I am following to the right side of the ICW, and trying to think where, or if to pass him. A high speed, 40+ passenger thrill tour boat and a charter boat come up behind me. A Charter boat is returning from the inlet to the north. The skipper of Capt Rick, in the returning boat's path, steps out of his pilot house and starts to make gestures to the north bound boat. Right after he passes, the thrill tour boat and charter boat come by me, and head past Capt Rick. He is having none of it, and pours on the throttle.

LUNATICS HEADING OUT TO LITTLE RIVER INLET

The two boats are now forced to follow Capt Rick as he moves side to side to block them. They all turn out to the inlet, and I am glad. I see more unprofessional "professional captains" in this 10 minutes than all the rest of our 8month trip. We come to Calabash Creek, and decide to go up Calabash Creek thinking we will try to anchor on it. We do not see a place that looks acceptable, mainly due to development. We decide to head north towards Southport NC.

WIND BLOWN SANDS AT LOCKWOOD FOLLY INLET

We call St Jame Marina and make reservations. I program the GPS to extend our route to them from Shallotte where we had programmed to earlier. We pick up our cruising speed to 2500rpm, which gives us about 12kt +/- depending on current. We get to St James about 4:30pm, and get checked in. We eat in the Marina Restaurant for the evening. This is a very nice marina, part of a large resort area featuring several golf courses along with the marina. There are 4 restaurants within Jamestown Plantation, but only the restaurant in the marina is open to the public. And the marina has a nice deli where you can buy meats, cheeses, and breads for your day on the boat.
       On Thursday morning, we decide we are not going to delay completing our loop until Friday. We know we are close enough to Carolina Beach, and our beginning spot on the ICW to easily complete. It takes a little bit to get ready and get away, but we do it. We actually get moving fairly early for us, before 9. In less than an hour at moderate speeds, 1500rpm, we are in Southport, NC.

SOUTHPORT WATERFRONT

We go through this old fishing town/ seaport and make a NW, or left turn onto the Cape Fear River. We have the tide with us and are making good time. We pass by Sunny Point, a munitions storage and shipping depot for the US military. It is being guarded by several small boats, what I would have expected. There are no ships at their docks, but they do have a dredge in their channel deepening it. We go on by, passing a couple of commercial fishing boats. We come to the point where the waterway departs the path of the ship channel in the river. We bear east into the ICW channel, and in a few minutes we are in Snow's Cut. We pass on by the State Park Marina and head to the intersection of the channel at the Carolina Beach Inlet  and the ICW.

INLET WATCH MARINA WHERE WE STARTED WITH SUMMERTIME MAY, 2013

We go slightly past this intersection to make sure we have crossed our starting point. We have officially "Crossed Our Wake", completing our loop. We started our loop when we left the Inlet Watch Marina at this intersection on 25May, 2013 headed to New York with SummerTime.
       We record the moment, we have crossed our wake at 12:16pm on Thursday, 30 Mar017.

CROSSING OUR WAKE AT CAROLINA BEACH INLET CHANNEL & ICW

We did 23.2 miles this morning to get here. We have done over 5000 miles total, but it is going to take looking at some saved routes to get the actual mileage. We turn around, and head to Joyner's Marina which we passed a mile back. We fill up SummerTime with fuel so that the tank does not sit partially full and sweat inside. We leave Joyner's and back track to the Carolina Beach State Park Marina. We arrive and check in for two days on their "A" dock. Barbara's brother Kenny comes and picks us up, along with some of our belongings. We will come back another day to get some other belongings off of SummerTime ad we move back to shore.
     Friday we come back to SummerTime and take some more clothes and dirty laundry off. I also take the slip for the month of April so we have a place to rest SummerTime while we figure out what we are going to do yet.

END OF OUR LOOP JOURNEY