Sailing south from Annapolis

November 27, 2022

Sailing south from Annapolis

Southern Chesapeake Bay

We left Annapolis a couple days after the boat show with the goal of getting to warmer climes as quickly as possible. Halloween with friends Carla, Gordon, and Maya (whom we first met in Hope Town, Bahamas back in 2006, pre-kids) in Wilmington, NC was also high on the agenda.

Sailing south from Annapolis. Sunny but cold.

Hanging out in the main cabin while sailing, staying warm!

And staying warm (and always with the sun protection!) while sailing from the cockpit.

Our first stop on our southerly trek down the Chesapeake Bay was Solomon’s Island, MD at the mouth of the Patuxent River—our go-to place for crab cakes. It was a good sail with steady northerly winds and we arrived in Solomon’s in the late afternoon, just in time for a (very overpriced) crab cake dinner ashore. We woke up to a very cold morning and were, once again, grateful for our diesel heater. After I had an invigorating walk ashore, we weighed anchor and kept heading south. It was a windy day so we made good time to one of our favorite anchorages in the Bay, Mill Creek off the Wicomico River. There is definitely more development along the shores since the last time we were there, a mere 17 years ago on our delivery trip north on s/v Whisper, but it was still quiet with great views.

Matilda knows how to dress for cold weather!

a chilly dinghy ride to the restaurant

Mill Creek sunset,

and Mill Creek sunrise.

Happy Halloween from our particularly ghoulish skeleton.
His head became detached from his body whilst sailing south.

Deltaville

Our next (and last) stop in the Bay was at our friends’ Anne & Jon’s house in Deltaville. Anne & John sold us Whisper back in 2005 and we became fast friends. We’ve visited them in Deltaville over the years on our different boats and different trips, and they’ve watched our boat kids grow from one kid to two and from ages 8 months to now 11 years old. As always, those long term friendships are very special and bring a certain level of ease and connection.

motoring up the Piankatank River

And getting a personal escort up the creek to their dock by unofficial pilot boat captain, Jon Hutchings.
(Also fantastic boat broker at Yazu Yachting.)

Matilda greeting the sunrise.

Until next time!

ICW bridges and PW's air draft

On this trip, Anne and Jon also introduced us to another cruising family on s/v Beyzano. We all had dinner together and the kids had fun carving pumpkins and watching a movie. Alex helped Hans go up the mast to measure our air draft to determine if we could fit under the standard fixed bridge height on the ICW: 65 feet. With the antennas up we measured 64’11”. If we were feeling particularly reckless, I suppose we could squeak under with one inch to spare. Considering one bridge in North Carolina only measures 63’ off the water, we knew we had to drop the antennas. Antennas inverted, our air draft was 62’ so we felt cautiously confident that we’d make it under the bridges without dinging the girders.

The infamous Wilkerson Bridge in NC. showing only 63' height over the water.

We had a foot to spare but I still held my breath.

ICW: Norfolk to Wrightsville Beach

After a fast and rainy sail down the most southern part of the Chesapeake Bay from Deltaville to Norfolk, we spent the next few days getting a lot of ICW miles under our keel. The ICW is an easy transit down the east coast of the US, but it is almost entirely under power. Eight to ten hours a day of listening to the engine and watching the scenery go by at 7 knots gets rather tedious, to say the least. The inner banks of NC are a wild, undeveloped swath of nature along the east coast of the US. Part marshland part pine forest with lots of marshes in between, we saw a few houses and a quite a few fishing boats.

Sailing past the aircraft carriers in Norfolk.

Filling up the north and southbound sides of the lock in Coinjock, VA.

I always get a laugh when I look at the photos on my phone after a day sailing. The kids have certainly found a way to keep themselves entertained.

The iconic Alligator River swing bridge, just south of the Albermarle Sound and north of the Pungo River.

Our foggy anchorage near Bellhaven, NC.

Our numerous night passages have given us lots of experience using the radar and our time in Maine refined that skill. We felt perfectly comfortable navigating through the pea soup fog with the combination of our chart plotter, radar, and AIS.

An offshore jaunt? Not yet.

After a solid week of an ICW transit (which did save us from sailing around Cape Hatteras), we planned on sailing outside from Beaufort, NC to Wrightsville Beach, NC (Wilmington). We generally prefer sailing offshore instead of motoring along the ditch because it’s less mileage and usually faster (no need to wait for bridges to open), and also because we don’t need to spend 8-10 hours a day listening to the engine and burning a lot of diesel. But when we arrived in Beaufort the offshore forecast was not so great. The winds were forecast to be above 20 knots, usually a good situation for us, but the seas were forecast to be from the east and a sloppy 3-5 feet with only a five second interval. That sounded more like a washing machine than a smooth sail. The kids, especially Matilda, highly prefer motoring down the ditch because they can stay down below and the boat doesn’t heel—it basically feels like you’re sitting at anchor with the engine running. So we opted for the smooth canal-style transit over the washing machine run.

Motoring down the ICW in North Carolina. Surely in a couple years these houses will be wiped out by the increased flooding and storm surge from the stronger and more frequent tropical storms and hurricanes, courtesy of climate change.

Impromptu transit out the Topsail Inlet

All great, until we got halfway to Wrightsville Beach and the Coast Guard announced a bridge closure. The Figure Eight Bridge, just north of WB was stuck in the down position. Hans called the bridge tender; he had no idea when it would be repaired since it is over 100 years old and the part needed to be custom-machined. Aging US infrastructure for the win again! We had a few options: turn around and go back to Beaufort to go out the inlet or keep heading south and hoping for a) the bridge to be fixed in the next day or two or b) the bridge isn’t fixed and we go out one of the “local knowledge only” inlets. It was only a couple days away from Halloween so the pressure was high! We opted to keep heading south. The bridge wasn’t fixed and there was still no repair in sight, so, after many consultations with local Sea Tow captains and the Army Corps of Engineers hydrographic surveys of the inlet, we motored out the Topsail Inlet. I was literally shaking in my crocs. Hans piloted the boat calmly and confidently between the breakers and soon enough we were out in deep water. Within a few hours we were in Wrightsville Beach and the next day we were at our friends’ house ready to celebrate Halloween.

A google maps view of a big commercial and military inlet, Jacksonville Inlet. Note both the north and south jetties and clear east/west alignment of the inlet perpendicular to the coast.

And this is the Topsail Inlet. Aids to navigation are constantly moved by wind and storm surge and there are no jetties. You basically navigate out between the breaking waves.

A hydrographic survey from October was worth its weight in gold (or aluminum) with the clear depth readings and waypoints that I was able to input into our chartplotter and Hans could follow as he steered us between the breakers.

Halloween with friends in Wilmington, NC

with the kids from s/v Beyzano. Matilda was a three-headed dog from Harry Potter and Freja a rather anatomically-incorrect skeleton.

It was worth it, of course, because we got to spend a weekend with friends who work Monday to Friday and the kids had time to finalize their Halloween costumes and get properly hyped for the big evening of trick-or-treating. Our friends on Beyzano joined us and the kids had so much fun running up and down the street collecting their loot. The adults had an equal amount of fun talking, laughing, and catching up on life of the past six years.

Next blog post: waiting out Hurricane Ian in Wrightsville Beach and a 36 hour sail to Florida with steady 30 knot winds and 3-4 meter seas. It's always exciting on PW!