Further Adventures Of SV Nutmeg

 4/30- Poquoson River to Godfrey Bay (Deltaville)    The wind was blowing hard this morning, so hard we had to motor the boat ahead in order to haul the anchor up. Once on board though we turned her around rolled out the yankee sail and away we went. The wind was right behind us which is not a great point of sail for my boat. That’s why we only used the yankee so it wouldn’t be quite so dangerous if we jibed. Of course we jibed right away. But after getting that untangled we cruised right along. We were doing about 3-4 knots but it was a pleasant day and we were not in a hurry. It died down a bit around noon and I thought about putting the spinnaker up. After hemming and hawing about it for a while the tide changed and so did the current. With that the wind piped up and we were off again.      The entrance to the bay is a long and winding channel which is not visible above the water but well buoyed.  We rolled up the Yankee and motored into the wind. G...

 4/29- Norfolk to Poquoson River   It was a beautiful morning when we departed and we caught the outgoing tide. This is a heavily industrialized port. We saw tons of shipping activity. We saw one container ship being loaded and all I could think of was somewhere in one of those containers is my package. Just think of all the sneakers and rubber duckies that must be tucked away in one of those containers.     Anyway we got into Hampton Roads and we raised the sails and turned off the motor. Well we tried anyway. We sort of stumbled through this just getting everything set up again. We were just plain out of practice plus we had 2 big container ships bearing down on us. We had every point of sail on this trip. We started running down wind and even tried a bit of wing on wing. Then it went to a broad reach then a beam reach and then finally a close reach. The wind was pretty much on the nose for the last 3 miles so we called on Mr Perkins again.     ...

 4/28- Coinjock to Hospital Point (Norfolk)     We had to use a crow bar and some lubricant to get the boat off the dock this morning. It was literally inches separating us from the boat in front and behind. After a bit of planning we let the bow line off and the bow drifted out into the current. I had someone toss me the stern line and away we went. Almost like we knew what we were doing.     The guys at Coinjock are professional boat handlers. They are not kids here for a summer job. They do an amazing job parking the boats.      Another interesting thing was the current. It was running pretty strong when we came in. It was so strong they had us turn around and go into the current to dock. When I asked what the current would be like in the morning he said he had no idea. It was not a tidal current. It was driven solely by the wind. Wind pushed water up in the estuaries and then when it relaxed down comes the water.      We sa...

 4/28- Deep Point to Coinjock     I really like getting up before dawn and seeing how still everything is. The birds are chirping and the water is still with a slight mist rising up out of it. We thought we would get a jump on everyone today and get out early. We were pulling up the anchor at 6:15 and when I looked up the whole rest of the anchorage was moving. We all motor sailed down the Alligator River in a line. The bridge tender must have gotten writers cramp from writing down all the info on the 10 or so boats that descended on him. He was good though getting us all through in 2 groups.     The wind was east at 10-15 and I thought these conditions were what this boat was made for. We ran up the mainsail for the first time in 3 or 4 months and away we went. We broad reached all the way across the sound. It was nice to give Mr Perkins a bit of a break.      We tied up at Coinjock Marina. Here they have a long face dock and as we were earl...

  Trip 4/26- Belhaven to Deep Point anchorage ( Pungo canal and Alligator River )       We backed out of our slip this morning like we knew what we were doing. The boat actually did what I expected it to do when we put it in reverse. The wind was blowing out of the northeast which was pretty much the way we were headed. It wasn’t too bad though and we were making 5.5 knots. We travelled up the Pungo canal which is a 20 mile long cut canal that mostly goes straight except for one turn in the middle. It traverses a huge wilderness area so there were very few houses. There is also no cell coverage so that is why I’m writing this now and will post it tomorrow.        When we got to the top of the canal the water was churning white with the wind. We crawled along until we got to the anchorage. There were already several boats here. The next real stop is 15 miles away which we could have made. The issue is that tonight the wind will change to the east w...

 4/25- Belhaven   We just hung out here today and did a bunch of boat errands. I went shopping at Food Lion which I think I’ve only been to one other. I did use the golf cart and drove there. As they have free laundry here I think we washed anything that we could carry up to the machines. We took a walk through town which didn’t take very long. I can’t help but wonder how some of these stores stay in business especially the ones selling clothes.     We got a history lesson from a guy in a closed store. It was actually an old museum and he had the door open and we stuck our heads in. Turns out this was called Toy Trains of Belhaven. Check it out on Facebook. They set up a miniature train display for Christmas. He was telling us some of the history of the town.     It was a big lumber town and they harvested tons of the long leaf southern pine. In fact they harvested so much they ran out and now most of the lumbering around here is done on plantatio...

 4/24- Cedar Creek to Belhaven    I dragged Alayne out of bed before sunrise this morning so we could get an early start. Once we got the anchor on deck and headed out into the river I think she was awake. She was once we hit the Neuse River for sure. It was blowing good and there were white caps and rolling seas. We ran out the yankee just to see if it still worked and away we went.      We turned off Mr Perkins and enjoyed our first engine free miles in months. It wasn’t easy as the wind piped up and we rocked and rolled all over the place running down wind in the surf. It had been so long that we forgotten what it was like to sail heeled over.  We had all kinds of stuff sliding around in the cabin that had not been properly stored. The boat handles much better under sail even in rough weather so it was nice getting back to it.      We then crossed through a canal cut and the across the Plimico River and up the Pungo River.  These...

 4/23- Mile Hammock to Cedar Creek (Oriental)    It was another early morning as we had a long way to go and we wanted to catch the 8am bridge opening. The Onslow Bridge used to open on the hour and half hour but now they have reduced it to just on the hour. Thankfully the bridge was only 3 miles from the anchorage. It seems we were not alone in thinking this. As we were waiting for the bridge another 4 boats pulled up, all from our anchorage. It’s interesting to have 5 boats milling around in a narrow area. Especially as you cannot just stop and park a boat. It’s a good thing we went through when we did as they moved a crane barge into the main channel right after we got through. That left only 30 feet of space for the next crew through. Hopefully there will be no catamarans.      I don’t really understand what happened with the tide today. With all the inlets we were passing I thought we’d be going fast then slow etc. But the tide gods were with us(mostly...

 4/22- Carolina Beach to Mile Hammock( Camp LeJune)    We couldn’t see the dawn crack today so we just left. There was a dredge that was in the middle of the channel a little ways up from Carolina Beach. They must have had a mile or so of pipe laid out and buoyed with little red balls. Some people were getting confused by the red balls as you keep red to port here. But when we saw it it looked fairly obvious which side to go on. The dredge was in the channel and getting around him meant having to go into a shallow area but we had high tide on our side and got through with no trouble.     Several miles down the road we encountered another dredge and we called him as it was kind of confusing where to go. He politely gave us instructions and we were fine. We did take the turn a little wide and ended up in very shallow water but had no problem getting back on track. You have to get fairly close to the dredge and they have an anchor out off to their side and you...

 4/21- Carolina Beach     The weather caught up to us today. It rained a good part of the previous evening after most of the thunder went away. It sprinkled on us this morning when we stuck our heads out into the fog.  It did ease a bit around noon and I took the opportunity to head into shore and do some errands.     When I got back we went for a quick walk on the beach as how could we come to Carolina Beach and not go to the beach. It didn’t take long after we got back for the rain to continue. It should continue most of the night now.     It is also getting cold. Well it’s hard to call 50’s particularly cold but it’s been awhile so. The wind is now piping up.      After the ton of boat traffic we saw yesterday there was very little today. The morning had been foggy and then with the rain I guess there’s not much fishing to be done. Speaking of fishing the pelicans were having a field day around our boat today. It p...

 4/20- Carolina Beach     We took a hike today to the Carolina Beach State Park which was much closer than we thought. This is one of the only places on earth where Venus Fly Traps grow in the wild. We did meet up with a ranger and he pointed out to us several Fly Traps. Quite frankly it was underwhelming. You practically needed a magnifying glass to see them. But in an off hand comment he told us about a place near the visitor center that might have some. It turned out that there were piles of them there and they were bigger specimens. There were also pitcher plants of two different colors. There are 5 different types of carnivorous plants in the park. These three were the only ones we saw.     It was a busy day in the harbor with lots of runabouts just cruising around. There are many fishing charters that leave from here also. The town is starting to fill up with vacationers and was starting to get busy. There is no real town center near here. It is ...

 4/19- Myrtle Beach (Lighthouse Keeper Marina) to Carolina Beach    Cape Fear earned its reputation today if only that I have been scared of it for days. I’ll get back to that in a minute. Today we had the whole range of weather. First thing this morning it was bright and sunny. The wind was calm and the water just reflected the sky. We waited an hour or so in order to get to Cape Fear after the tide change. By the time we left the wind had piped up and fog had rolled in. It was not Maine fog though and with at least a half mile of visibility we took off.      If you remember the last time we left Lighthouse Keeper Marina we had our share of problems. This time however we had the crew from R dock come down and help us. It went much like we knew what we were doing and we got away without crashing into anything.      The fog eventually cleared and it became a nice sunny day. Unfortunately the wind stayed up and was right on the nose. It was ok ...

 4/18- Cow House Creek to Lighthouse Keeper Marina ( Myrtle Beach)    It was another beautiful morning. The birds were chirping away and the water was like glass. Everything was so still and quiet and then the boat up the way fired up his generator. An ear splitting roar filled the marina along with a cloud of blue smoke. Well I exaggerate but still.  I had been waiting to get going but I didn’t want to disturb the peace but as long as the generator was going I would go.      The same thing happened last night. Everything was all peaceful and then 3 of the 5 boats started generators. How can you motor all day and still need to run a generator. These people are just power hungry. I talked to one guy who said he had 1 Kw of solar panels on his boat. What do you do with 1 kilowatt of electricity. The minute these people pull up to a dock they hook up to power. We are an anomaly in that we don’t have regular (120v) power on our boat. They are running multi...

 4/17- Awenda River to Cow House Creek    We waited this morning to let the dawn crack before we left. There was another very shallow section and we wanted more water underneath us. The tide was falling and we saw some very low numbers on the depth sounder but we made it through just fine. It seems this place must have a higher particle layer as the depth sounder seems to give depths that are to low. We saw readings of 5 when they should have been 8 or 9 feet. It is always a way to spank you awake when the depth sounder starts reading 4’s and 5’s.      We traversed through some very pretty country today. It is still mostly salt marsh but it has the occasional hummock to break up the scenery. We went through the Cape Romain wildlife refuge and then the Tom Yawkey ( yes the former Red Sox owner) wildlife refuge. There we passed by a cool floating swing bridge. Thankfully it stayed off to the side while we went through.     We have transitioned ...

 4/16- Church Creek to Awenda River     This morning was just gorgeous. It was a nice sunrise and the temperature was just right. There was no wind at all. The whole marsh stilled like a painting. Then we started our motor. This was to be a rather long day of about 45 nautical miles. That would be over 50 regular miles. We are doing longer days now as we have more daylight. I also figure as long as we have nice days we should get some miles under the keel.     We chugged along through more winding channels and rivers. This area has more development on the shoreline. We came out into Charleston harbor and it was like glass. We motored all the way across with our wake the only thing upsetting the mirror like finish on the water.     After going through the swing bridge on the far side of the harbor we came to the Isle of Palms. It is interesting that the swing bridge only has restricted openings on the weekends. During the week it opens on...

 4/15- Lady’s Island to Church Creek (outside of Charleston)    We waited patiently for the tide to change before we left this morning. That also gave us some time to say goodbye to our friends Mike and Ivy. After that it was back on the road or rather waterway again. Today was a pleasant trip through mostly undeveloped shorelines. We went past Camp Lejune which is an army training camp. Then we wound are way through various cuts and channels. We did have a long crossing of St Helena Sound. I think it was close to 10 miles we spent in the sound.      At one point we came across a pod of dolphins just lolling about on the surface. It was really hot in the sun and I think they were sunning themselves. They merely looked up as we went by and barely managed to get out of the way of the boat. I also watched one of the cormorants catch a rather large fish and just fling his head back and swallow it whole. The cool thing was I could see the fish flopping even when...

 4/14- Beaufort SC   The title has nothing to do with anything. Blogspot puts the first letter of the title word in large font by itself. I just wanted the letter Q to get a chance to shine in the big space.      We are still here at Lady’s Island enjoying some beautiful weather. Yesterday we met up with some friends of ours from Vermont. Mark and Jen were our neighbors at one time and Jen babysat for our kids. They are now living down here and we thought it would be fun to get together. We went out to lunch at Dataw Island which is a large gated community with a marina and restaurant. It was great catching up with them and comparing notes on what was happening back in Vermont.      Today was a provisioning day. I think I went to 3 different grocery stores and came out with multiple bags at each one. At least we won’t go hungry. The marina provides a courtesy truck for free that we can use. As they have no fuel here I used it yesterday to drive to...

 4/11- Cooper River to Lady’s Island Marina (Beaufort)    Last night was no picnic either. The wind howled again and when the tide changed it pushed the boat sideways. This in turn caused the boat to over run the anchor and the anchor line would catch on the spare anchor. Inside I could hear the clank when the line caught the anchor and so I would get up and try to untangle it. The line was now bar tight and so in order to get it unwound I would let out a little more line and race to get it untangled before it went tight again. All this in the dark with the wind blowing the boat bouncing and I’m out over the water on the bowsprit. Well by morning I had let out another 50 feet of line and I was getting close to the end. Fortunately the wind relaxed a bit and we made it through until morning with no further issues.     The anchor came up surprisingly easy wrapped in all these weird colored grasses. Reds and yellows and black grasses were like nothing I had seen be...

 4/11- Cooper River anchorage     We stayed right here today. Like there was any way we could actually leave here. The wind started howling around 3am. I know because I left the port open right over my head and the rain just poured in right in my face. The boat took turns first one side faced the wind and rain and then when the tide changed the other side felt the wrath. It wasn’t too bouncy though but it did pour all night.      It was still pouring when we got up and the wind would heel the boat over and keep it there. All morning we walked around like we were sailing.      We have a Mantus anchor and boy have we put it to the test the last couple of nights. It has done great so far. It will most likely be a struggle to get the thing off the bottom tomorrow. But that is what anchors are supposed to do so three cheers for our Mantus.      I always hate when storms happen at night. If bad things happen during a storm in th...

 4/10- Wahoo Island to Cooper River (Savannah)    It did not go well for those of us who were hoping for a good nights sleep last night.  The wind blew stronger than predicted and with a contrary current it made for a very bumpy ride.  The anchorage was exposed to the open Sapelo Sound and the wind came from that direction and with the wind against a falling tide the waves built up a fair amount. The boat flopped to one side and was held broadside to the waves until the wind let up so it could flop to the other side. The anchor held fine but it kept me up a good part of the night.     We got up at dawn and hoped to head right out except the anchor was so buried that it took quite a while and a bit of a boost from the motor to get it out. After that it was a fine day and we caught the tide for most of the morning getting to our anchorage before 11:00. We again decided to push on. In typical Georgia fashion we got boosted by the tide and then held b...

 4/9- Jove Creek to Wahoo River (Sapelo Sound)    We got up to a beautiful morning. The river was like a mirror it was so calm. This is one of the reasons we like traveling through Georgia. A lot of folks find this section of the ICW boring as it winds back and forth sometimes almost doubling back on itself. It’s all mostly spartina grass marshes that stretch on endlessly. That’s just what we like about it. There are much fewer boats here as many people decide to skip Georgia by going outside. After the busyness of Florida this is a welcome reprieve. There are anchorages everywhere. There are plenty of small rivers that are 10-15 feet deep with room for swinging. Because of the current that goes through most of these rivers your anchor comes up clean most of the time.      I like to think of this as finding the magnificent in the mundane. Yes it can be incredibly boring looking at the same grass shoreline all day but if you look close there is a beauty ther...

 4/8- Cumberland Island to Jove Creek (Brunswick)    Today started out well as we had the tide going with us for a few hours. There was a submarine coming out of the base and we got visited by the Coast Guard to tell us how to act when it comes. They tell you to maintain your best speed and don’t point your bow at the “asset”. Turns out we were past it before it came out but it sounded like the CG was having trouble convincing some boats to yield. There was a very high volume of radio traffic with some getting quite heated.      It wasn’t long after this that the tide turned and we plugged along at 4 knots. Once we cleared the northern end of Cumberland Island we really got slammed. We were only doing about 1 1/2 knots over the ground. We were nervous about Jekyll Creek which is a notorious shallow area and we wanted to get there with some tide under us. We were going so slowly that I was worried that we wouldn’t get there today. Once we cleared the bridge ...

 4/7- Fernandino Beach to Cumberland Island     We had a short 5 mile run today to get to Cumberland Island. We had passed on this place on the way down because we had spent 3 or 4 days at Jekyll Island which is just up the river a bit. At the time it seemed like one couldn’t be much different from the other. Wrong! Jekyll has all the big live oaks but it is very developed. It’s kind of like being in a theme park. It was fun and interesting but Cumberland is a much more natural place.     We anchored just off the Sea Camp dock and dinghied in where we met a couple who pointed us in the right direction. The trails wind through some gorgeous and very old live oaks which were dripping with the Spanish moss. We walked down to the ruins of the Carnegie mansion. The descriptions of what this place must have looked like were amazing. Only 200 years later and the place lies in ruins. It was easy to imagine as you stood next to the rubble of one of the houses w...

 4/6- Fernandino Beach    Well today we walked to the beach of Fernandino Beach. It was a very pleasant if somewhat cool morning so we left for the 2 mile walk across the peninsula. First we stopped at the farmers market that was on the way. This is a nice one except they don’t have a ton of produce.  It’s more people selling stuff like spices and insect spray. On down the road we went until we came across a flea market. We perused this for a while but couldn’t find anything we just couldn’t live without. Plus we would have had to carry it and store it on the boat. We finally got to the beach. It’s a nice beach fairly typical of the beaches we have been to in Florida. We did see some people combing the shore and asked them what they were looking for. Sharks teeth was the answer. I had been thinking about sharks teeth for a while and this man showed us what to look for. We almost immediately found a couple. He says sharks will go through some 80K teeth in their lifeti...

 4/5-Sisters Creek to Fernandino Beach    Today was a perfect example of an ICW day. We left this morning slogging into a pretty good current. We were doing about 3.5 knots and the suddenly we are doing 7.5 knots and then again back down to 4 and then up to 7 etc etc. Every time you go by an inlet depending on what the tide is doing you either slowdown or speed up. It was a shorter day for us of only about 20 miles as we were hoping to get a mooring. It turns out that there were plenty of empty moorings when we got here. It was certainly a lot calmer than the last time we were here. Last time we waited out a big frontal system that lasted 4 days. We were here almost a week but couldn’t get off the boat for most of those days.     This time we had a nice walk through town. It is a cute little town with lots of historic architecture but it is not as crowded as St Augustine. After the debacle of moving last Saturday we will sit tight here and see what the town...

 4/4- St Augustine to Sister’s Creek, Jacksonville     We departed St Augustine in time to catch the 8:30 opening at the Bridge of Lions. The tide was with us so we flew through there and down into the inlet until we turned the corner to Vilano Beach. There it was like we threw out an anchor. The current had us going around 3 knots. We had thought we could make Fernandino today which is about 50+ miles. That idea got put to rest pretty quickly. Not only did we have the current against us all day but the wind was , while not quite on the nose, it was close. I had run out the staysail to try to develop some oomph but the track was too twisty and I eventually gave up. We puttered along at around 4 knots most of the day. Of course by the time we neared the next inlet the tide started flooding and we were against it again. It took 7 1/2 hours to go 33 nmiles.     Sister’s Creek is a small bump out of the ICW. It is near the St John’s River and has a nice pa...

 4/3- St Augustine     Today was the day we’ve been hiding from. It didn’t really get going until around noon when the wind piped up a bit. The rain started not long afterwards and it rained pretty hard until around 3. It rained off and on until about 7 when the sun tried to make an appearance and made a spectacular sunset. We did get off the boat this morning and walked over the bridge just to see what was on the other side. There was nothing of note except for a couple of stone lions.     I have been noticing while walking through the marina that there more larger boats than ever. At 36 feet what was once a big boat is now one of the smallest in the harbor. It seems 40 and up is the new go to along with catamarans. With marinas charging by the foot it’s no wonder they can’t be bothered with a mere 36 foot boat. I guess if you’re living on your boat then you need to cram your whole house into that 45 foot boat. Damn my house is barely 45 feet long. I ...

 4/2- St Augustine     We did some provisioning and stuff to get ready to move. There is a weather system that’s supposed to hit here sometime tomorrow afternoon with big winds and rain. We hope to be hunkered down by then. We walked about a mile and half to the grocery store which is not bad at all. The thing is we ran out of bread yesterday and try as I might I could or find a store to buy a loaf of bread on the island. Even bakeries were hard to find. There are restaurants on every street but you can’t buy a loaf of bread.      My friend Pat posted an article on Facebook the other day that was discussing the monetization of tragedy. People post rants and conspiracy theories on the internet because they get clicks. Clicks turn into likes which turns into dollars. It doesn’t have to be true it just has to fire someone up to make a response and wallah you make money. It’s not just tragedies either. There are tons of sailing video blogs that make incred...

 4/1-Fort Manataza to St Augustine     We waited this morning to leave with the tide. It was interesting that within a half hour of the tide change a whole bunch of fishermen came rolling into the inlet. Some would anchor and throw a few casts and then take off for somewhere else. Others sat and relaxed. The outcome as far as I could tell was the same. Nobody caught anything I could see.     We had a short run of only a couple of hours before pulling in at St Augustine and picking up a mooring. This time we are pretty close to the dock. Last time we were here we were the furthest mooring out. We took a short walk into town and while the town is definitely not as busy as it was at Christmas time it was plenty busy. St George street was crowded with tourists as always. We plan to spend a couple of days here to wait out some weather and reprovision.      There is a line somewhere between Melbourne and Daytona that marks where the weather be...