Welcome to New Jersey!

I kid you not, this is our first view of New Jersey after exiting the C&D Canal: a nuclear power plant. Not exactly a welcome-wagon sight. It didn’t help that it was a cloudy, rather gloomy day. We pulled into Salem, New Jersey, just across the bay. It was still early, so we went scouting for a market to get fresh fruit. Alas, there were no nearby markets. A neighborly woman directed us to a deli that might sell fruit, but it turned out to be a convenience store with a few sad bananas. Luckily, they sold subs (or hoagies, as they’re called in New Jersey), and we contented ourselves with a thoroughly unhealthy lunch of a steak and cheese sub and fries. Both were hot, fresh and yummy. We ate them sitting on the curb outside the store, which just about summed up our first impressions of New Jersey on this trip.

The C&D Canal

Once you reach the northern end of Chesapeake Bay, it would be a long slog back if not for the C&D canal. The canal is only about 14 miles long, but there’s a world of difference between the western and eastern ends. The western end is part of the Elk River off of Chesapeake Bay, a pretty waterway that winds between forested shores, and the occasional high bluff. In some areas, farmland can be seen: planted fields, barns and silos. It was not uncommon to see large, beautifully landscaped houses, such as those pictured in the previous blog. It was in front of these that we anchored on the night prior to entering the canal. The canal itself is about 40-feet deep and relatively narrow, but wide enough for us to have plenty of room when passing a ship going in the opposite direction. This cute restaurant by a small marina was about the only place to stop within the canal. En route, the forest-and-cottage scenery gave way to more open marshlands as we neared the eastern end, Delaware Bay. After all the beautiful sites we’ve had recently, Delaware Bay was a bit of a shock, but I’ll deal with that in the next blog.

The Chesapeake Bay is Big, B-I-G, BIG

After coming through Norfolk, Virginia, we emerged into Chesapeake Bay. And I’ve got to tell you, it was pretty overwhelming. Tampa Bay is large, but it’s a day trip from end-to-end. Chesapeake Bay ended up taking us nearly four days to traverse from south to north. We had intended to go offshore from the mouth of the Chesapeake to either Ocean City, Maryland or Cape May, New Jersey, but once again, adverse weather forecasts dictated that we stay inside. And we’re glad we did, because we got a taste of the great Chesapeake Bay cruising grounds.

After leaving Norfolk, Virginia, behind at about noon, we motorsailed north to Deltaville. As seems to be our wont, we raced a thunderstorm to the anchorage. It’s well-protected, snug, and pretty. However, something about the bottom sediments about half-way down the channel made our depth-sounder go wonky, not encouraging since the display is brand new, but once we were outside again, it was fine. The second day we passed by the mouth of the Potomac River, and boy, were those opposing currents strong! At one point we were down to 2.8 knots, which is barely strolling speed on land. But we managed to make Solomons Island that night. It wasn’t really an anchorage where we were—we just pulled out of the channel with some other boats—but we had a beautiful early morning sunrise. During the following day we heard a warning for a horrendous thunderstorm heading our way, and ducked into Eastern Bay. The storm never materialized, and we lost 2 ½ hours of travel time, so we didn’t get as far as we had planned (but we did find a nice anchorage for future use!). In the late afternoon, the winds increased as predicted, and we pulled into the Back River. We spent the next day here, too, to avoid the strong north winds, and continued on to the Elk River the following day. The Elk River leads to the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal, and we anchored by some really spectacular homes along the shore.

The North Carolina/Virginia ICW

Going through the ICW from Beaufort, North Carolina to Norfolk, Virginia, is day tripping; I would not want to be travelling through some of these passages at night. We had no problem finding nice anchorages along the way. We stopped the first night in Pungo Creek, near Belhaven. We were racing a thunderstorm to get in (we lost), but the rest of the night it was calm and protected, and the sunrise was beautiful, as you can see in the picture above. The second day we travelled up the Alligator River and canal (unnerving when there are branches and/or logs in the middle of the channel) and across Albemarle Sound, anchoring in the first inlet. Good holding and pretty, with nice houses and trees all around, but talk about an obstacle course to get in! Having blue- and stone-crabbed for years as part of her job, Anne is partial to crabbing. But the sheer density of traps seems unfair to any crab living nearby. On day three we reached Great Bridge, Virginia, and stayed on the town’s free dock. Since we’re on a budget, free is great! It also was useful because provisioning, banks, a library, and other services were only a few blocks away. The first night we (the crews of Mr Mac, Freedom, and Blue Blaze) went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, El Toro Loco, and had a terrific meal. The next day Anne, Roberta, and Laura hunted down a birding trail to hike on while the guys worked on boat projects, and we all did potluck on Freedom for dinner. Our final day took us through the Great Bridge Lock (see picture)—our first, and pretty uneventful, since the water level only changes a couple of inches—and up to through Norfolk, Virginia.

Boy, what a change from the pastoral scenery we had been passing through! The southern section of the ICW in Norfolk is highly industrialized, loud, and smelly, with many, many large ships about, as seen here. Farther up the industry paled and it became more urban. The cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth look like interesting places to stop, perhaps on our way south.

The Intracoastal Waterway

We had originally planned to go north from Beaufort on the outside, around the Outer Banks, and head straight up to Ocean City, Maryland. This is opposed to travelling on the inside, along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The ICW consists of natural and man-made waterways that stretch from the northeastern U.S. to Texas. In some areas, the ICW is exposed to outside waters, such as the stretch between Apalachicola and Clearwater, Florida, where you just travel offshore. Elsewhere, the ICW runs through natural waterways, such as behind barrier islands. And in other areas, the ICW is a narrow canal dug soley for the purpose of allowing boat traffic to move in protected waters. Thus far on our journey, we have not travelled much on the ICW, except in sections of Hawk Channel in the Florida Keys. Considerable shoaling has been reported along much of the ICW in northeast Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, so we avoided those areas by going offshore. Also, numerous bridges cross the ICW, and while some are 65 feet high and easy to go under, others are much lower and require that you wait while the bridge opens for you. This can require complex timing on the cruiser’s part.

Anyway, the weather gods ultimately decided that we really needed to see the ICW through North Carolina and Virginia, and they never produced a weather forecast conducive to traveling north on the outside. Our friends on Freedom and Blue Blaze were headed up the ICW, so we tagged along. The water depths along this section were pretty good, and there weren’t too many bridges to deal with. We had a good time, and got to sleep every night. The scenery was great, and included:

bucolic middle of nowhere,

lightly residential,

urban,

and highly industrialized.

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Great Epitaph or Sad Ending: You Decide

The most highly decorated grave at the Old Burying Ground was the one pictured here. All it says on the grave stone is “Little Girl Buried in a Rum Keg.” Little toys and dolls and shells decorate the grave, so even though she doesn’t have a name here, she is not forgotten. Chris decided that being buried in a rum keg would be a pretty cool way to go out until I reminded him that he wouldn’t get to drink any of the rum himself.

Waiting for Weather in Beaufort, North Carolina

While waiting for a good weather forecast to continue, we spent nearly a week in Beaufort. What a great place to wait! Since the Taylor Creek anchorage is so close to town, we dinghyed back and forth between the boat and town with wild abandon (OK, perhaps not with wild abandon, but we did it often). Beaufort has enough to do for a month here, so we only sampled a bit. The downtown area is just a few blocks, with big old houses, and lots of restaurants and interesting shops such as Scuttlebutt, which has more nautical, cruising, and boating books than I’ve ever seen in one place. Great place to browse, and we bought a cruising guide for the mid-Atlantic waterway (more on that in the next blog). We also visited the Old Burying Grounds (Anne is particularly partial to old cemeteries), the laundromat for a couple of hours (woo hoo, clean clothes!), and the North Carolina Maritime Museum. The museum has terrific displays on all things water-related in North Carolina, such as the fishing and crabbing industries, boat building, life boat stations, and the ecology of the area, and an exhibit-in-progress with artifacts presumed to be from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship. They also have a beautiful little library where we sat for a bit and caught up on the latest boating and cruising magazines. I imagine if you’re a local you can check out the myriad books that line the walls.