- Local News for Southern Sailors - February 2002 Next Story
Circumnavigating Eastern North America Part Two: From Florida to Chesapeake Bay See Part 1 : Part 3 : Part 4
By Ron and Eva Stob
In the morning we left the safety of the marina at Fort Lauderdale, FL. The Intracoastal Waterway is benign, but to beginners like us, it was all new, all challenging, and all uncomfortable. With us was a captain who would instruct us for a day, then jump off at West Palm Beach. We went on for the remainder of the day and docked with fear and trembling, but without incident. Day one was behind us. Day two would be our first day solo.
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Ron Stob photos |
The area north of Jupiter is a mix of piney woods, palmetto palms, and mangrove, and we began to relax. This is natural Florida—a subtropical wilderness of great diversity.
Three days out the boat fell apart and required a double cardiac bypass, hernia surgery, and a kidney transplant. Then she said, "I'll be good for the rest of the trip." And she was, although she left us with bills that reduced our luxury life-style to a Spartan existence.
The Indian River north of Titusville is as broad as a lake. We took the man-made channel into Mosquito Lagoon, a heavily forested area that is wild and primitive. Crabbers were tending their pots, and pelicans and laughing gulls hung around the boats reading the menu. Fishermen were everywhere.
We had a pleasant passage to St. Augustine, a romantic city rich in Spanish, English and French history. We walked the streets of old town, which is touristy but amusing nevertheless, and visited Castillo de San Marcos, the only Spanish fort on the American mainland.
There are hundreds of miles of marshland and barrier islands going north toward Savannah. We picked our way through small creeks, rivers and sounds that form the ICW. Range markers resembling sights on a rifle guide boaters through shallow areas. At eight knots we were experiencing the endless grassland of the coastal lowlands, moving like pioneers across the western prairies. The experience was both richly indulgent and boring. We got into the trawler mode and relaxed, remaining quiet and being receptive to an environment that is unconquered and uninhabited.
The cities of Savannah, Beaufort (SC) and Charleston set our minds to thinking about the next place to live. These are beautiful cities. Hopelessly transient in our affections, we dreamed of leaving our home on California's central coast for a waterfront abode. The water and the rich historic ambiance of the East were flirting with us.
As we left Charleston Harbor, waves sent our boat pitching, coming up in time to dive into the next wave. It was the first time that spray came over the bow and hit the windshield of the flybridge. To most sailors this kind of boating would be sporty; to us it was threatening and uncomfortable. Gusts shook the bimini and rattled us like a Rottweiler shakes a rag doll.
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When we approached McClellanville, we were exhausted. A lone sailor in his sloop stopped short of town, dropped anchor along the channel and let the day go by. We went past him and headed into the harbor. Gaggles of shrimp boats mugged us as we made our way to Leland Marina, a working man's dock.
We took the bikes down and wandered on terra firma, riding past 19th century homes with large porches and vacant lots that remain vacant because there is no urban sprawl here. These people have their wealth in shrimp boats, and their bank accounts are the yet-to-be-caught nets of shrimp. We bought seafood from the Carolina Seafood Company and retreated to the boat for shrimp and scallops sauteed in butter, garlic, onion
and wine.
The marshland is a nursery for shrimp, and everywhere along the ICW we encountered shrimpers and villages dependent on the bounty of the sea. Entering North Carolina, the coastal scenery turned more toward maritime forests. We got to know the other Beaufort, this one in North Carolina, and it was the same love affair. A few hugs and kisses and we were on our way again to encounter sounds the size of oceans. Pamlico and Albemarle sounds are expansive, shallow, and pin-cushioned with crab pot buoys. The object of our culinary affections became the bane of boating as we plied the wide waters and kept a keen focus on crab pot buoys. This is the way of life on the water continuing through Chesapeake Bay.
At Elizabeth City the Rose Buddies greeted us at the free city dock and invited us to a wine and cheese party on the lawn of Fred Faring, a longtime resident and originator of the good Samaritan hospitality.
The Dismal Swamp is not dismal at all, but rather a scenic corridor through cypress trees standing knee-deep in water. The estimated depths were 4-5 feet, a bit shallow for our forty-foot trawler, but the scenery was too delicious to pass by. We went for it and paid the price, catching a snag and having to be hauled at Portsmouth. No damage done, but an unnecessary $100 haul-out bill.
Chesapeake Bay lay before us, at times spooky and foreboding, at other times romantic and mysterious. We wandered like a drunk from the Eastern Shore and back across the bay, trying to savor it all: Onancock, Tangiers Island, Solomons, St. Michaels, Annapolis, and Baltimore. Each city was intriguing, beguiling, enticing, and we found ourselves thinking that someday we would retire along the shores of the Chesapeake.
But there were miles to go and the intrigue of Philadelphia, New York and the Heritage Canals of Canada pulled us away. Next time: New York, Lake Champlain, the Canadian Heritage Canals, Georgian Bay and the North Channel.
Ron and Eva Stob are the founders/directors of America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association and authors of Honey, Let's Get a Boat...a cruising adventure of America's Great Loop. For more information, see www.greatloop.com. |
Copyright © 2001 Southwinds Media.
All rights reserved. 03.03.02