Portsmouth, Edenton and More

Portsmouth

Ok, Ok. I didn’t want to write about our Portsmouth (VA) mis-adventure, but Ann says I have to. If I don’t tell the story my way, I am afraid she will tell it her way. So, okay, I am going to tell it, but first, the back story.

After the Hampton Snowbird Rendezvous we decided to visit Portsmouth, VA. It is the first place along the Intracoastal (mile marker zero) that we had never visited, so we made a reservation at the Tidewater Marina and as soon as the Rendezvous was over, we headed for Portsmouth. The marina was nothing to write home about, but it was okay. Interestingly, though, my top-notch Wi-Fi antenna wouldn’t work. I could pick up Wi-Fi through my computer itself, but not through the antenna. After experimenting with various fixes, I called the company’s service department and asked what was up. The consumer rep (who is also the owner) said, “Are you by chance in Virginia?”

“Uh, yea,” I replied in my most technically sophisticated voice.

“ … At the Tidewater Marina?”

“Right again,” I answered.

Apparently, between the Navy’s facilities in Norfolk, Newport News and Portsmouth, there are a lot of electronic signals floating in the ether. It doesn’t seem to interfere with low powered Wi-Fi receivers, but it does with the hi-powered antennas that we have – I guess it has something to do with the gain on the antenna or something like that. Anyway, as soon as we left Portsmouth, the antenna started working as well as before.

While in Portsmouth we also visited “Old Town Portsmouth.” There are certainly a number of old houses, most from the late 19^th century. They would have been more interesting if it has been possible to go in and looked around, but since most are privately owned, that wasn’t possible. I gotta say that after seeing a dozen or so houses built in 1890, they begin to look a little bit alike, so after that first day we decided that there was probably more to see in Norfolk than Portsmouth – and we were right.  We spent the next day or two visiting Norfolk, which is right across the river. We saw the Battleship Wisconsin and parts of the Nauticus – a major maritime museum that Norfolk sponsors. There was more to see in Norfolk so we will probably go back.

After that we hunkered down for a day or two because it was c-c-c-cold AND the wind was blowing at maybe 20 – 25 MPH. It was so old, in fact, that (are ready for this?) I even put on jeans and socks!! Finally, though, on the fourth day, I decided it was time to go. In case you were wondering, THAT was a bad decision.

The Incident (To be sung to terrible, terrible dramatic music like “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows the sorrow …”)

On that terrible day it was cold though a little less windy than it had been. We were in the slip, bow-in. All we needed to do was back out of the slip and pivot the boat by running one engine (starboard) forward and one (port) in reverse, which would, in turn, swing the bow to the left and the stern to the right. If everything had worked correctly, we would then have been facing down the fairway and ready to leave the marina. Moreover, since I know that our boat has a lot of windage aft, I was counting on the wind pushing our stern even more to the right. In other words, I thought the wind would help us turn.

Well, things didn’t happen the way they were supposed to.  For some reason – and I still don’t know why – I could not get the bow wouldn’t turn to port. We basically were sitting between the two rows of boats at about a 30 degree angle with the wind was pushing us down the fairway, away from the direction we wanted to go. We would come close to the boats in front and I would rev the engines in reverse, then we would come close to boats in the rear and I would rev the engines forward. This continued for an eternity or two until the ladder connecting our aft deck and swim platform got caught in another boat’s anchor. At that point all movement ceased (thank God!). While Ann and another gentleman worked to free the ladder from the anchor, I tried to get control of the boat. We both succeeded. I was then able to turn the boat around and leave the marina.

Ann thought that we might have bent one of the flukes on the anchor we snagged, so we called and offered to recompense the boat owner. As for Traveling Soul, we lost the top step of the ladder on the aft deck, which I think will be about a $30 repair. Overall, it was a fairly inexpensive finish to what could have been a much more catastrophic operation. At any rate, this was not an auspicious beginning to 2014’s journey down the ICW.

Edenton

Shhhh! We have discovered one of the best kept secrets in North Carolina – Edenton, North Carolina, a town on the northern bank of the Albemarle Sound. For cruisers, it has everything, several restaurants, a nice hardware store, a great deal of history, ice cream places and (are you ready for this?) a FREE DOCK! That’s right. Downtown Edenton has a marina with about eleven slips that are absolutely free for up to two full days. Moreover, they have one slip that is big enough to handle Traveling Soul.



The Chowan Country Courthouse (ca. 1767) in Edenton.
The oldest government building in continuous use in NC

Edenton has quite a history. In 1658 adventurers from the Jamestown area, drifted south from Virginia, eventually settling on a natural harbor on the northern bank of the Albemarle Sound and founding the first permanent settlement in what is now the state of North Carolina. Officially recognized as a town – and as the first capital of North Carolina – in 1712, its first name was the Towne on Queen Anne's Creek. It later became Ye Towne on Mattercommack. In 1722 the location was incorporated and renamed “Edenton” in honor of Governor Charles Eden. Edenton’s claim to fame (other than having several native sons as signers of the Declaration of Independence) was when, in 1774, fifty-one Edenton women, led by one Penelope Barker, signed a petition agreeing to boycott English tea and other products, in what became known, decades later, as the “Edenton Tea Party.” According to Wikipedia, “The Edenton Tea Party is the first known political action by women in the British American colonies. In fact it so shocked London that newspapers published an etching depicting the woman as uncontrollable.”
 Downtown Edenton has a bunch of 17^th and 18^th Century homes, many of which have a story associated with them. We took a trolley tour where Ann swears it took the li’l ol’ lady wiiittthhh a reeaaalll south’n drraawwlll a full minute or more to get each word out. On the tour they told us all we ever wanted to know – and a whole lot we didn’t – about the houses in Edenton. Although we complain a little, it is wonderful to see a small town on the water succeeding where so many others have failed. Today Edenton is a thriving town of about 5,000 people in a county with a population of 15,000.

One of the many historic homes in Edenton

Ok, Ann says I gotta tell you my bike riding story, too. North Carolina publishes as handout entitled, “Biking the Albemarle,” which sounds like something I would love. It has various routes around the northern Albemarle and distances associated with each. One route was labeled a 22 mile ride in and around Edenton. Sounds good, right? Well, apparently the states and the locals do not coordinate the names of the roads and streets around the county. I swear to you (with Ann as my witness) I was supposed to get onto Yeopim Street, go a couple of miles then turn onto Indian Trails Road. Well the town did not have a Yeopim Street, but as I traced the highway connections, it appeared as if Church Street was the local name for Yeopim. So, I took off down Church Street. I zigged and I zagged, I looked for the other roads I was supposed to find. I zigged some more and I zagged some more, and after about 15 miles I took a road saying Edenton was 2 miles away. Then, about three miles down the road, I took another road saying Edenton was two miles away. Then another. Finally, I found a street named Yeopim that was probably 10 miles away from where the state map proclaimed it to be. Just so you know, I had left Edenton long ago. I was in the North Carolina countryside riding alongside cotton fields. I finally did make it back, but it had nothing to do with that darn map. In short, my 22 mile ride turned into a 30.33 mile ride, part of which was on Highway 17 – a major highway that I generally like to avoid.

Even after all that, I still like Edenton.

Alligator River, Morehead City and More

Sunset at our anchorage in the Alligator River, North Carolina

After we left Edenton, we anchored out one night just south of Albemarle Sound in the Alligator River. The following night we anchored just off the Pungo River inside the seawall that surrounds Belhaven, NC. I really didn’t want to take my bike ashore in the dinghy so I decided to take the dinghy ashore and jog a little. Well, I learned something. Being able to bike a few miles does NOT translate into the ability to jog a few miles – at least when you are sixty-something years old. I did it, I jogged a couple of miles, stopping more times than I care to admit, but I am no longer a jogger. I am a bicyclist.

After Belhaven we traveled to Morehead City, NC where we had hoped to meet friends of ours, Shay and Elizabeth Glass on their boat Escape. Unfortunately we forgot to tell Shay and Elizabeth that we were coming. They had already left Morehead City and were on their way to Florida. So instead of visiting with them, we stayed one night at Morehead City (where I got in one short bike ride), refueled and headed further south.

When we set out the morning of October 30^th, we heard that some bad weather was coming, so our plan was to anchor for one night at Mile Hammock Bay, then get to Southport, NC before the front arrived. Before we got anywhere, though, we had to pass under the Onslow Beach Bridge. It really shouldn’t have been a problem. The bridge opened on the hour and half-hour and we were there at 25 past the hour. Of all the days, of all the times, of all the organizations, someone decided that the bridge should be inspected by some contracted Navy Engineers. Most of you know that I really don’t have time for Navy anything, but Navy Engineers? Who even knew the Navy had engineers (other than Seabees)? If the Navy has engineers, why is it that the Army Corps of Engineers runs the ICW, the major ports, etc. Now that I know the Navy has engineers, I gotta ask who would give them anything important to do?  But Noo-oo! At the Onslow Beach Bridge, some genius of a navy “engineer” decided to inspect the bridge when no fewer than a dozen boats were waiting for it to open so we could all pass under. AARRGGHH!!!

But that wasn’t all. The anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay, where we had planned on spending the night, is part of the Marine Corps Base at Camp Lejeune and is really a wonderful anchorage. In fact, we have stayed there every time we have traversed the ICW – sometimes in pretty bad weather and fairly high winds. Well, we had heard that this year there were some military training exercises taking place and that this particular stretch of the ICW might be problematic. We watched all the notices that the Marines are required to publish and picked dates when we shouldn’t have had any problems.  Just to make sure, though, we called range control who told us that “yes’” the ICW was open but Mile Hammock Bay itself was closed to anchoring.  Now this was a problem.

There are really no good anchorages that we know about within fifteen or twenty miles of Mile Hammock. Neither were there many marinas within a reasonable distance. Making matters worse is the fact that we weren’t the only ones who were surprised by the closing of Mile Hammock, there were several other boats looking for a place to stay. What to do, what to do. We got out our cruising books and found a small marina that was designed to serve a specific community, but that would be happy to provide space for transients – for a price. Ok, so the price wasn’t exorbitant, it was still higher than we wanted to pay and certainly higher than we had planned on paying! We stayed the night and were up and gone early the next morning.

The only good thing about the closing of Mile Hammock was that it put us closer to our intermediate destination in Southport. The front that was on the way was forecast to be a strong one with very cold weather – possibly even with that four letter word that begins with “s” – and gale force winds. They were even telling people to get their porch and patio furniture inside so it didn’t blow away. We decided we’d hunker down in a marina that we know and at which we have spent some time before, St. James Plantation Marina just outside of Southport.

In the event, it was certainly cold and windy, but we did not see any gale force winds, any furniture flying off porches or patios, nor did we see any frozen precipitation. In short, it was pretty much a non-event. Meanwhile, I took advantage of the opportunity to ride a couple of times. St. James Plantation is a very large, very nice housing development built around a couple of golf courses and a marina. It is also just a bridge away from the North Carolina beaches. AND it has some very nice biking paths and since most of them are kind of “loops” that stay within the development you CANNOT GET LOST!

We still have to cover a couple of more places before we are completely caught up, but we know you have other things to do than read our blog.  We thought it we kept it a little shorter, you might actually get to read most of it.

The first (of what I am sure will be many) of
this year's dolphin pictures

ANN’S NOTES: I will have to admit this trip down the ICW has been on the chilly side. Most of the time that would not be a problem for me, as I like cold weather. The down side of living on a boat and in charge of most things outside in or around the deck is the wind. Wind, cold air and water do not mix well first thing in the morning when I have to bring up Big Bertha (the anchor) and give her a shower. I am getting rather good, and fast, at bringing up the anchor.

When we are doing these chores we need to stay in contact with each other. Michael is at the helm with a large window between him and me when I am at the bow of the boat. In the past, we have used headsets to talk to each other. They worked well, but they didn’t last long because they were on the cheap side. We had already gone through sets of the less expensive ones. The solution was to do some research talk to few other cruisers and ask what kind of headsets they use . Now we have a new pair of headset that are much lighter, have a longer battery life, and makes me look like a rock star at the bow of the boat. That all works for me. Rock on Traveling Soul… a good title for a song I think.

I won’t say anything more about getting out of the slip in Portsmouth..I was on the aft deck. I call it the back porch…Michael just shakes his head when I call it that. I think Michael did a great job trying to get out of that slip. I just made the best decisions I could in a bad situation and kept our boat from doing any more damage to other boats.

Our visit to Edenton was interesting. The town has that Mayberry-feel. I was waiting to see Opie and Aunt Bee with Sheriff Andy walking down the street. The town has lots of old live oak trees, Spanish moss and slave stories. I would go back just to see a few more places we missed this time around. And that tour guide really did talk southern...aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnd tttttttttttttooooooooooo y’alls leeeeft …(hand pointing left)…you get the picture…correct???

So now Ladies and Gentlemen…it is time for the Wildlife count.

Now that we are back on the ICW all my dolphin friends are back and playing with us and wanting to be counted…so here we go…

Thursday 30 October 2014

·         1 single dolphin
·         1 pod of 3 dolphins
·         1 pod of 4 dolphins playing in our wake
·         2 pods of 5 dolphins playing in our wake

Friday 31 October 2014

·         1 single very playful dolphin in our bow wake
·         2 pods of 2 dolphins
·         Thanks for reading
·         Traveling Soul

Traveling Soul … OUT