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Bridge adventures and boat tales

Bridges aren’t always truthful; can say they are 65 ft yet in certain conditions they are less. If a bridge is listed as 65 ft, that means it has that much clearance at high tide. We need 63 ft (plus a few inches) and cautious us, we want the bridge to have at least 64 ft. Looking up as one approaches, is so deceptive. You would swear the mast was about to hit, but no, you’ve got a few feet to spare. As I’ve said before, I hate looking. If the mast ever hit; damn that would ruin our day and then some.

We left Tidewater Yacht Marina in Portsmouth, Friday morning around 10:15. The forecast for today and the next 6 days was low winds and sun. Sounds good to me. The official start of the AICW is here and you spend your first day adjusting your speed to meet the bridge openings. The first 20 miles contains six scheduled opening bridges and one lock. Those hanging a right at mile 7 for the Dismal Swamp route contend with more locks and fewer opening bridges. The area closer to Portsmouth also has several lift bridges that are usually up.

Making friends is always a good thing to do and you never know who might help you out some time; paths cross a lot along this waterway enjoyed by so many. At the least, temper your judgments and criticisms – we clearly recall being newbies only last year!  A 44’ Hunter left the marina a short time before us; nearly smashing into a piling and another boat’s dinghy as they motored out the fairway. We caught up to them at the first opening bridge and followed them until we anchored. They managed to entertain- and I use that word loosely and only in the kindest way- us a few times with the usual monohull going aground antics- minor, very minor.

ALL TREATS AND NO TRICKS AT THIS LOCK

At the Great Bridge Lock, the lock tender warned the sailing vessels that the 65’ bridge at Pungo Ferry – gotta love these low country names -might have less than 65’ due to recent high winds and the gales that kept us in Atlantic Highlands. A few miles south of the Lock, we and the 44’ Hunter approached a 65 footer with no height board- sigh. As they inched closer, me watching with the binoculars, I thought for a moment they weren’t going under, but they did. I immediately hailed them on the radio to ask about their total height above the water. 64’2”- ouch that is way to close. See? Friends. We crawled under. I stood on the side deck, binoculars glued to the top of the mast. We cleared with what looked like 8” to spare. Oh boy, can’t wait for the Pungo Ferry bridge.

Our selected anchorage for tonight was Blackwater Creek, 2 miles south of the bridge. We knew from last year that anchoring north of the bridge was only possible just off to the side of the ICW, not in any creek or bight. All shoaled or filled with deadheads and wrecks.Ugh.  As we turn the bend we see 2 sailboats anchored off to the side just before the bridge- uh oh. The one in front was a Shannon 53- motorsailer nearly as wide as Ortolan with two masts, one taller than ours. The Hunter tested the bridge and turned around. The Shannon, Moon Tide had AIS so I hailed them, no reply. As we came up, they were heading back in their dinghy and we asked about the bridge clearance. Yep- height board on this one currently displaying 63 ½ ft. We think we are 63′ plus a couple inches.
What did we do? What would you do?

Anchored with the pack of course. The 63 ½ was a one foot improvement over yesterday; passing under tomorrow would be doable. Negligible current, light winds, no problem. I proceed on my usual boat check out with binoculars –  want to know whose around. Don’t you know I look at the other sailboat anchored behind the Shannon and guess what name I see on the stern? Think. Ok, now go back to my last post. None other than s/v Golden Eye; 40ish foot classic lines monohull with two wooden masts. One guy is fishing. We launch the dinghy to set a stern anchor and keep us out of the channel; getting hit by a barge is not on our to-do list. Now, here’s our chance to get the complete story.

Russ goes over and comes back with: yep it’s them. Left in the gale as had a schedule to keep. Sailed 50 miles offshore, tacking because they didn’t have a good angle heading due south. No VHF turned on and of course no cell 50 miles off! The owner’s son called the Coast Guard when he didn’t receive the scheduled phone call. I snuck a shot through the strataglass; no point in being too obvious.

VISITING THE INFAMOUS S/V GOLDEN EYE

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41 Hours: spotter and spottee

The weather window opened and we jumped…. oh if only we did not have to make any overnights- and THEN we nearly lost our senses and turned the trip to Norfolk into two overnights. See what happens when you’re out at sea (well not quite)? The mind is the first to go.

We slipped off our mooring ball at 5 am Monday and found the Lower Bay waters calm. Rolled up one of the front panels for better visibility. 45 mins later we reached Sandy Hook Channel; wide and well lit with large buoys it was empty of boat traffic and we motored at 8kts with the current helping us along.  Once around Sandy Hook, seas were a friendly 1-2 ft and by 8am the wind allowed us to raise Ortolan’s sails and scream along at 9-10kts. Average speed for the first 45 nm was 9kts; much better than the 7.2kt ave we needed to arrive at Norfolk by 6:30pm Tues.  As you know, good things don’t last and by noon we were motor sailing with plans to drop the main as soon as the wind and waves calmed down more. You know, like the forecast predicted. Wrong. Not only did the wind pick up to 15 +, our angle to it worsened so that we couldn’t even motor sail. I wouldn’t let Russ go up on the roof to do his usual assist the main down and fold into the stack pack.

So if the story is starting to sound like we’re not going to arrive on time; you are right about that. By sunset we decided that in order to leave the main up and not damage it, we’d need to tack. Great, lose more time.  Dodged around another s/v and a few commercial fishing boats, then finally (can you sense the relief?) the wind died down to 11kts, we dropped the main. Amazingly it dropped on its own nicely into the stack pack and Russ secured the reef lines near the end of the boom without having to go up on top. We’d make it pretty later.

Jumped back on that straight line course and spent a very long time getting by the Delaware River entrance. Several shipping channels converge there with ships on the move or anchored out waiting for a pilot. AIS let’s us keep track of them and radar shows objects and vessels without AIS. All buoys are large and lit; thank goodness.

Once past the Delaware entrance, Russ caught a nap. I was too wired to sleep but managed to catch a couple hours after he got up.

The final leg, along the coast of Maryland and Virginia is unremarkable. No big cities, just 100 miles of basic coastline devoid of pots. This part would be ideal for nighttime; very worth doing considering for the Spring trip.

Now I’ll get to the point of the title. At 10:10 am, with a 10:11 pm arrival time displayed on the chartplotter, I looked over and was delighted to see- no not a whale- a dolphin! In fact a bunch of them who put on a great show, mostly while I was down below getting the camera- naturally. They didn’t follow along and the waves cause so much motion, making photography difficult. Dolphins this far north- wow. Looked at the big paper chart- well wouldn’t you know it; we were on the edge of Porpoise Banks!

This next part needs some background. I know you’ve all good imaginations so I’ll toss out a few key phrases then get to the good part. Ready? Night time, passing the Delaware, Coast Guard calling s/v Golden Eye, calls other vessels in area asking if they’ve seen s/v Golden Eye.  Sounds like an overdue boat situation. Fast foward to 1pm Tues. The Coast Guard calls “sailing vessel southwest of sea buoy suchandsuch.” Um, us? Check the chart. No we aren’t SW of any buoy we can see on the chart, but then again we are 5 miles off the coast and the chart only goes shows a few more miles out. A few minutes later we hear the distinctive chopper sound and the CG is hailing us, “This is the Coast Guard Helicopter calling the s/v off suchandsuch inlet”. Yep, sure is us. Within seconds they are 60 ft behind us, the sound so loud we can hardly hear the VHF as Russ responds and tells them our boat name. I look up, camera nearby and forgotten, and can see the men at the chopper door looking at our stern through binoculars. They tell us we aren’t the boat they’re looking for and fly off.  Since I didn’t have the presence of mind to grab the camera, here’s a pic I found on-line showing pretty much how it looked to us.

SPOTTED BY THE COAST GUARD OFF VIRGINIA

Later, more announcements confirmed that s/v Golden Eye had departed Sandy Hook the day before us with 3 men on board, bound for New Bern, NC. We hope they turn up safe and sound and only had communication problems.

Night fell as we began the long 4 hour trip around Cape Charles and up into Norfolk. More ship channels, more well-lit buoys, more vessels of all kinds. Fortunately, the water smoothed out a bit, helping us do 6kts against the outgoing tide.

Dropped anchor at 10:15 pm Tues, in Point Comfort anchorage. A medium-sized, mostly protected spot next to a military base. Five other boats anchored and still plenty of room for us in 13 ft.  No pots like we found in the Spring; thank goodness.

Exhausted, we slept well and uninterrupted except for that one time I made Russ get up to check the anchor because I’d heard a few new chain noises. hey, better safe. ..