GL: Sanderling - Cruise north - 2008 - September 1 - 25 - Dismal Swamp Canal (long post)

[Bob McLeran]

We've been cruising the Atlantic Coast from Florida to New Brunswick, 
Canada, this summer. We left our marina in Florida on May 1st, and 
should be back in that area around mid-October. We've been sending 
emails individually to friends who have asked us to keep them up to 
date, but haven't been sending them to the T&T lists. Decided that 
perhaps it was time to send one to the GL List since we're now back on 
the GL route. It has been a great trip - one that I'd do again in a 
heart-beat, despite the fog, rain and price of diesel!

This email takes up after we went up the east coast to the St. John 
River off the Bay of Fundy and crossed the "reversing falls" into the 
St. John River, then returned to one of our staging points - Portland, 
Maine, where we have friends and met up with some relatives for a 
weekend get-together.

We departed Portland, Maine, on Monday, Labor Day, September 1st, and
were underway after filling the water tanks and deciding NOT to delay
our departure in order to get fuel. We had a good day on the ocean,
waved to Norm, Nancy, Charlie and Mujgan when we rounded Cape Elizabeth,
and put in at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about 7 1/2 hours later when we
took a mooring at the Navy marina at the Naval Shipyard at Kittery,
Maine (just across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The boaters there were a friendly bunch, and the dockmaster showed us to
a good mooring close to the dock. Judy had been experiencing
difficulties with her AT&T "air card" for the past week or so, and when
she learned that there was an AT&T business center in Portsmouth, we
decided to stay an extra day so that she could go to the center to get
help solving the problem (whatever it was). A lady from one of the boats
at the marina took her to the center, and 3-4 hours later Judy returned
by taxi; the problem was with the air card, but the business center had
just recently opened and didn't have replacement cards so they had to
order one to be shipped over-night by UPS. Since we didn't know where
we'd be by the time the card arrived, Judy asked them to send the card
to Norm and Nancy in Maine, who in turn resent it to us at a yacht club
a few days down the line.

When we departed Portsmouth on September 3rd (Wednesday) we stopped at
Wentworth-By-The-Sea, an old resort, for fuel, as that was the least
expensive diesel between Portsmouth and Scituate, Massachusetts. Turned
out to be the cheapest price we'd paid the entire trip up to that point
at $3.97 per gallon.

We were underway from the fuel dock at 0910, and by 1250 we were
entering the north end of the Anisquan River and Blynman Canal cutting
across Cape Anne on the north side of Massachusetts Bay to Gloucester.
After exiting the canal at Gloucester, we headed southerly to Scituate,
Massachusetts. The trip was a little rough, as the wind picked up a bit
and we had to "tack" back and forth across beam seas in order to reduce
the amount of rolling we would have done otherwise. By 1810 we had taken
a mooring in Scituate Harbor, and then learned that the harbor launch
stopped operating at 2000 so that if we wanted to go ashore for the
evening we'd have to take the dinghy - something that we didn't want to
do after a long and tiring day on the water. We ate aboard, instead.

The next morning (Thursday, Sept 4th) we were underway at 0750 heading
to South Dartmouth on Buzzards Bay. The day before Judy had let Norm and
Nancy know that we'd be at the yacht club at South Dartmouth tonight, so
they had sent the air card to her in care of the yacht club so we could
get it upon our arrival. The trip from Scituate to the east end of the
Cape Cod Canal was fairly peaceful, with only a few boats heading south.
By the time we entered the canal the wind had picked up a bit from the
south-west, and the ebb tide was heading westerly through the canal. We
knew this would present us with a rough ride once we got to the west end
of the canal, with the current and wind opposing each other at the
northeastern corner of Buzzards Bay. Sure enough, by the time we passed
the Massachusetts Maritime Academy there were small standing waves in
the canal which soon rose to 3-4 foot standing waves as we proceeded
west into Buzzards Bay. It seemed to take forever to reach South
Dartmough tacking back and forth to lessen the pitching. We were able to
duck behind a few headlands along the way, but for the most part we were
in exposed water with the waves rolling at us from the direction we
needed to go. It took us almost four hours to go from the western end of
the canal to South Dartmouth and the New Bedford Yacht Club. But, the
good news now, Judy's air card was waiting for her at the office when
she went in to register and pay for the mooring.

We awoke on Friday, September 5th, to - fog! Not a new thing this year,
but something we'd prefer to avoid. We waited about a hour, hoping it
would lift, but when it didn't we proceeded anyway. At this point NOAA
had been broadcasting weather warnings about the remnants of Hurricane
Hannah coming up the coast, and advising boaters to seek shelter on
Friday while the storm passes. NOAA was predicting rain and winds up to
50-60 knots as Hannah worked her way along the New England coast. With
this in mind, we wanted to get into Narragansett Bay as early as
possible, to get a mooring at a yacht club on Greenwich Bay where we'd
stayed earlier and we knew to be very sheltered from wind from any
direction. So, we set out in the fog, again, heading for the Sakonet
River and eventually Narragansett Bay and Greenwich Bay. The winds were
calm (hence the fog) and they really didn't pick up until we got into
Greenwich Bay around 1400. At that point we contacted the yacht club for
a mooring - they were full. We contacted several marinas near the yacht
club - they weren't taking any more boats because of the impending
storm. We contacted the Bristol Yacht Club (about 1.5 hours back the way
we had come) - they weren't taking any more boats because of the
forecast storm. Finally Judy reached a marina up the Warwick River and
they had a slip available for us in a very protected area. After a few
minutes thinking about it, realizing we'd be there for several days, we
called them back to take the slip despite the expense involved. Turned
out to be a good decision; when Hannah's remnants passed over
Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday night, we hardly felt a thing.
While waiting out the storm, I replaced the port and starboard running
lights with new ones I'd purchased while in Portland, Maine, and a great
inflatable dinghy repair shop on the marina's premises was able to fix
the leaks in our dinghy that had been a major problem ever since we
bought the boat.

We left the marina on Sunday about noon, to go to Wickford, Rhode
Island, closer to the mouth of the Narragansett Bay. The forecast for
the Rhode Island, Block Island, and Long Island Sounds was bad for
Sunday but much improved on Monday - so we'd start heading south on
Monday morning. We dinghied ashore for dinner, after taking one of the
town of North Kingston's free moorings.

Monday morning we departed Wickford Harbor at 0607, and at 0825 we
rounded Point Judith heading west. We entered the Long Island Sound
about 1130 and at 1915 (just as the sun was setting behind the trees) we
anchored in a The Gulf behind Charles Island along the north shore of
Long Island Sound, at the entrance to the river that leads to Milford.
We spent a rough night, with a combination of current and wind rocking
Sanderling all night long!

We were happy to weigh anchor and get underway at 0720 on Tuesday,
September 9th. We had decided to get as far as we could west on Long
Island Sound, in order to catch a fair current down the East River and
through Hell's Gate the next morning. The wind was coming from the west,
and made the sound extremely rough - again we tacked across the waves to
the southern shore, ducked into some of the bays on that shore, and by
early afternoon were in fairly calm seas heading to Manhasset Bay. We
anchored there in a beautiful, quiet, calm area at 1600 and spent a
peaceful night.

Wednesday morning we were underway by 0645 and passed through Hell's
Gate at 0845 at a top speed of 10.9 knots! Had a quiet passage through
New York City, and avoided the wakes of the high speed ferries all the
way through Verazzano Narrows and into Great Kills Harbor on the south
side of Staten Island. There, we met up with friends Mark and Joyce on
Winnie-The-Pooh who had anchored there the day before, and eventually by
Kevin on Dreamweaver who rafted to us for the evening. The five of us
had a nice community dinner together and talked and laughed into the
late evening.

Thursday, September 11th, we dropped the mooring (Kevin and Dreamweaver
were still attached) and headed south along the New Jersey coast. The
wind and waves weren't too bad considering that the New Jersey coast is
frequently rather nasty and difficult to predict and we boosted the rpms
a bit to 1800 rpm so we could make a little faster transit. We made
Absecon Inlet (Atlantic City) at 1830, and by 1850 (again, the sun was
setting - this time over the casinos) we were fast alongside a dock at
Gardner's Basin Marina. A short time later Mark and Joyce on
Winnie-The-Pooh came into the inlet and anchored on the north side of
the river. After unsuccessfully trying to find someone to pay for the
dock for the night (we'd been told by telephone earlier that there would
be a dockmaster available until late in the evening) we went to dinner
at a nearby restaurant and then came back to Sanderling, filled the
water tanks, and turned in to get a good night's sleep anticipating an
early morning departure the next day.

We left the dock on Friday at 0620, just as dawn was breaking. The sea
was rather rough again, but we didn't have to tack across waves as we'd
done in the past. We boosted the engine rpms a bit to make better time,
and at 1220 we dropped the anchor by the Coast Guard station in Cape
May, New Jersey, to spend the rest of the day and await better weather
for the transit up Delaware Bay. Shortly after we anchored,
Winnie-The-Pooh motored by; Mark and Joyce indicated they were heading
on up Delaware Bay.

On Saturday, September 13th, we weighed anchor at 0750. The trip up
Delaware Bay was as quiet as we had ever experienced with a following
current, until we were about half-way up the bay when the wind picked up
a little and the tide changed - nothing bad, but the upper bay part of
the trip was more like what we normally experience on the entire bay. We
entered the C&D Canal at 1600, passed Chesapeake City at about 1830 with
the current running against us, and anchored in Veazey Cove a little
after sunset at 1930. All in all, a long, but good day on the water.

The next day was a short cruise down Chesapeake Bay and up the channel
to Baltimore where we put in at Henderson's Wharf Marina (where we had
stayed for several days on the way north) and the home of Wayne and Lyne
on SkinWalker. Mark and Joyce were already in Baltimore at a wharf at
Fells Point (they'd passed us in Cape May). We had dinner with Jennifer
at a Fells Point restaurant, and the next morning Judy flew to Orlando
and home to attend some meetings. While Judy was gone, I worked with
Jennifer on some projects at the house she is remodeling, and did some
work on Sanderling (replaced a heat exchanger and shower sump pump).
Jennifer and I had dinner together every night, and one of the nights
met up with friends Karen and David who live on the Magothy River
(David and Jennifer were across-the-street friends when we lived in
Bristol, Rhode Island, in the late 70s and they hadn't seen each other
since David's family and ours met in Austria and Germany in 1982).

In spite of a mediocre weather forecast for Chesapeake Bay, we departed
Baltimore on Friday, September 19th, to head down the Bay to Solomons,
Maryland. By the time we turned south on the channel leading to the
Chesapeake Bay, we realized the Bay itself would be quite rough and we
wouldn't want to be there - so we pulled into the Magothy River and
anchored about 1115 behind Dobbins Island for the remainder of the day.
No reason to beat ourselves up when we now have a rather flexible schedule!

The next morning we departed at 0815. Chesapeake Bay was fairly calm
with light winds. By 1550 in the afternoon we had taken a mooring at
Zahnizer's Marina in Solomons. Early in the evening we walked to a
restaurant for dinner. We turned in early, as the next day was going to
be a long one - we hoped to get all the way to Norfolk by sunset, and
once we'd gotten about 2/3rds of the way down the bay from Solomons
there weren't any good places to stop close to our route without going
an hour or more off the bay. We debated starting in the dark and using
radar to help navigate out of the Patuxent River, but in the past there
had been so many crab pot markers that even the radar couldn't help
avoid them. We decided to wait until first light.

We dropped the mooring on Sunday, September 21st, at 0645. We were
pleased that we carried a fair current that boosted our speed to as much
as 8 knots until we had passed the Potomac River, about 25 miles south
of Solomons. Then we gradually started slowing down. When our speed
dropped to 6.0 knots, we boosted the rpms to 1900 in order to make a
faster transit over the 80 plus nautical mile route and (hopefully)
arrive in the Norfolk area before sunset. We did, in fact, reach the
anchorage at Old Point Comfort just before sunset - at 1900 - after
traveling 88 nautical miles in 12 hours and 15 minutes. The wind was
relatively calm from the north, so we had a quiet night at anchor along
with another trawler that was there when we arrived and a sailboat that
came in much later than we. The NOAA weather forecast was starting to
issue warnings about a storm front that may cause problems on the
Albermarle and Pamlico Sounds, so we were starting to think about where
we should be the next few days.

By Monday, September 22nd, NOAA was advising that the sounds along the
coast (two of which we have to cross) would be very nasty through the
week while the storm passes. The storm wasn't associated with any
tropical activity, just a "northerner" that frequently passes through
this area this time of year. Winds were forecast to be gusting to 30-40
knots through Friday - this would make the Albermarle Sound, the
Alligator River, and the Pamlico Sound (south of the Pungo River) nearly
impassable for us due to the short, steep waves that develop in any
winds over 15 knots in these areas. We had already decided that we'd
take the Dismal Swamp Canal alternate route heading south from Norfolk,
and with the storm forecast we decided that we'd once again hold out in
the Dismal Swamp Canal. The canal locks are currently operating on a
twice-daily schedule (normally, it's four times a day), and because of
the restricted hours from the bridges going through Norfolk it is
difficult to make the 0900 lock opening. We planned to go through the
Deep Creek Lock (north end of the canal) at the 1500 opening. We got
underway from Old Point Comfort at 0850, stopped for fuel in Portsmouth,
Virginia (coincidence alert: the last fuel stop was also in Portsmouth -
New Hampshire), and were waiting at the canal lock at 1245. We anchored
just downstream from the lock and waited along with a sailboat that had
arrived sometime earlier. About the time the lock was opening, two other
boats arrived to be locked through. We all entered the lock at about
1500 and tied to the west side with a starboard tie. Robert, the
convivial lock master, told us how he wanted us to tie and hold our
lines, then about half an hour later water level had risen to that in
the canal, the gates on the canal side opened and we all went through.
Three of us stopped at Elizabeth's Dock (we tied up at 1540), just
inside the canal before the lift bridge that boats must pass through in
order to enter the main body of the canal. We've been here ever since!
On Tuesday two other boats joined us, and yesterday afternoon a sixth
boat came up from the south and rafted to one of the other boats.

By Tuesday the wind was picking up and blowing the tops of the trees on
either side of the canal. NOAA is now calling the storm a "nor'easter"
and the wind has increased steadily each day. Early this morning
(Thursday) the rain started and it continues as I write this mid-day.
Fortunately, we did some shopping at a little shopping center with a
Food Lion less than a mile away, and on Monday night we ate with a
couple from one of the other boats at the Mexican restaurant in the same
shopping center. We're certainly not going to hike over there today in
the rain.

The forecast for the sounds to the south suggests that the first
passable day might be Saturday. We're planning on departing the canal
tomorrow (Friday) heading towards Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River
about 20 miles south of the southern canal's locks, and then we'll try
Albermarle Sound on Saturday. If the sound is decent on Saturday, we'll
hope to get as far as an anchorage at the south end of the
Alligator-Pungo Canal on the Pungo River by Saturday night.

Julie seems to be gaining weight after her visit to the Animal Emergency
Clinic in Portland, Maine. She's eating Judy's specially prepared
cat-food concoction every two hours all day long, and was actually
running around the boat a bit this morning. Khepera has learned that he
has to wait to clean out Julie's food bowl until she has finished and he
gets our OK to proceed. Judy is working on various projects for American
Heart Association and the Florida Legal Nurse Consultants organization;
Bob is reading, writing this journal, and otherwise pretending to be
busy with various little projects.

Unless we're further delayed by weather, our tentative itinerary is as
follows:
Date:                   From:           To:
Sat, September 27, 2008	Dismal Swamp	Elizabeth City
Sun, September 28, 2008	Elizabeth City	Pungo Creek anchorage
Fri, September 26, 2008	Pungo Creek 	Smith Creek, Oriental
Sat, September 27, 2008	Smith Creek    	New Bern, NC
Sun, September 28, 2008	New Bern, NC	 Smith Creek, Oriental
Mon, September 29, 2008	Smith Creek	 Mile Hammock Bay
Sat, September 27, 2008	Mile Hammock Bay Carolina Beach Anchorage
Mon, September 29, 2008	Carolina Beach 	 Barefoot Landing
Tue, September 30, 2008	Barefoot Landing Georgetown
Wed, October 1, 2008	Georgetown	Graham Creek
Thu, October 2, 2008	Graham Creek	Charleston City Marina
Fri, October 3, 2008	Charleston	South Edisto River
Sat, October 4, 2008	South Edisto River  Beaufort, SC
Sun, October 5, 2008	Beaufort, SC	Wright River
Mon, October 6, 2008	Wright River	Kilkenny Creek
Tue, October 7, 2008	Kilkenny Creek	Queens Island
Wed, October 8, 2008	Queens Island 	Little Cumberland Island
Thu, October 9, 2008	Little Cumberland Island  Fernandina Beach
Fri, October 10, 2008	Fernandina Beach  Jacksonville
Sat, October 11, 2008	Jacksonville	Jacksonville
Sun, October 12, 2008	Jacksonville	Jacksonville
Mon, October 13, 2008	Jacksonville	St. Augustine
Tue, October 14, 2008	St. Augustine	Mosquito Lagoon
Wed, October 15, 2008	Mosquito Lagoon	Manatee Cove Marina

-- 
<><><><><><><><><><><><><>Mozilla Thunderbird<><><><><><><><><><><>
Bob McLeran and Judy Young              Cruising the Atlantic Coast
MV Sanderling                               Defever 41 Trawler
Blog: http://sanderlingcruise2008.blogspot.com/
Photos: http://public.fotki.com/rmcleran/
Currently: Elizabeth's Dock, Dismal Swamp Canal, Virginia