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The
Return of Vagrant Sea
Vagrant Sea in North Carolina
Part 7
By Jim Miler
The section of the Intracoastal
waterway coming north into Myrtle Beach, North Carolina is one of the
prettiest. We spent a night in Prince Creek, and awake to find ice covering
the deck. The river is mirror-calm and the brilliant sun blinds us. The
water is comfortably deep as we meander through the many connected rivers
and cyprus swamps. There are plenty of different species of birds to watch
in this largely undeveloped area. All quickly changes at Myrtle Beach. Here,
the Barefoot Landing development offers the most expensive free docks on the
waterway. The docks are alongside a huge shopping and entertainment area and
few can resist at least a little spending. To give you an idea of the size,
the development was recently enlarged, including a new swing bridge to allow
access to its golf course on the other side of the waterway. The bridge is
privately owned, which means employing a twenty-four hour bridge tender
operator and maintaining a hundred and fifty foot bridge. We spend a few
days here in heavy rains and gales.
The weather clears lunchtime one day and we decide to move on. The anchorage
we selected with the aid of our charts and guidebooks turns out to be too
shallow for comfort, so we must go further. Heavy rain starts up again and
we get caught with no place to anchor safely. We are relieved to reach the
Pelican Beach Marina near Ocean Isle Beach, which has almost enough water to
keep us afloat at the docks. When I go in to register, the owner looks at my
Newfoundland Power cap and asks if I am from Newfoundland. When I reply yes,
he pulls out a photograph of a sailboat with an iceberg nearby. I turn the
photo over to find that Peter Cook (crew at the beginning of this trip) had
left the photo when he visited the marina in the early 90’s in his boat. The
marina owners had a Labrador cross breed that looked as if it had a bit of
Newfoundland in him. I wonder if Peter had his Newfoundland dog on board
when they visited.
We continue on our way, through Southport, a friendly fishing community, and
on through the military bases to Beaufort (pronounced Bo-fort), N.C. This is
the usual jumping-off point for sailors heading off shore when going to the
eastern Caribbean. The inlet is south of Cape Hatteras where shoals extend
far out to sea. The local Museum has free loaner vehicles for boaters,
several older station wagons that you can have for a couple of hours to get
groceries or just for sightseeing. We take the opportunity to visit with
some old cruising friends who live in nearby Morehead City. We also meet
friends of theirs who work at the local fisheries college. They are
experiencing many of the same problems we have in Canada with over-fishing
and marine pollution. At the anchorage in Beaufort, we meet Drew and Ursula
out of Halifax. Their boat Scandia was rescued form the scrap heap. They
spent six years rebuilding her, and now they are off for their sailing
adventure to wherever the wind takes them. We are invited aboard to share
the oysters Drew dove for earlier in the day.
Departing Beaufort, I hear an engine noise. It is the sound of diesel mist
escaping out past an injector. This has happened in the past. The solution
from the manufacturer, Volvo, involves expensive mechanics, marinas, and
thousands of dollars. My solution is to remove the offending injector,
replace an o-ring that is half way up the injector, and reinsert the
injector using a gasket compound. This system takes about forty-five
minutes, costs about sixty-five cents and works for about three years.
Volvo’s solution lasts one year and is much more expensive. We proceed on
towards Oriental.
Oriental was named after a shipwreck. Early in the town’s life, the state
government told the community that it had to have a name in order to get
postal service. About this time the Steamer “Oriental” was wrecked nearby,
and that’s how the name came to be. It is a very boat-friendly spot, nine
hundred residents with three thousand boats. Oriental is far enough inland
to avoid heavy seas, but readily accessible for sailors wanting to avoid
costly marina facilities on the coast. We are tied up at the end of the free
town dock. The chart tells us that there is eight feet of water, we read
five and a half. We drop the anchor off the stern and motor forward to tie
the bow to the dock.. The locals tell us the low water is due to a wind tide
in the nearby Neuse River. Several times a year when the wind blows from the
west for several days in a row, the water blows out of the river. We have
arranged a visit from George, KC9AC, the moderator of the Ham radio “Turkey
Net” I have been talking with for five years. It is good to put a face to
the name and also meet his delightful wife.
One of the requirements of using a free dock is to entertain the locals.
There is a constant parade of townsfolk checking to see who has come in and
from where. We celebrate our twenty- fifth wedding anniversary here. The
champagne is shared with John and Angie from Port Stanley, Ontario, who turn
out to be friends of friends from Newfoundland.
We are coming up to Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. These are two large bays
that each requires a long day’s sail to reach a good anchorage. We wait for
reasonable weather and have uneventful crossings, continuing on to Norfolk.
The wait has also given us a chance to firm up a location to leave the boat
for a few months.
We have settled on the Atlantic Boat Basin, just south of Norfolk, Virginia.
We will leave the boat here in late March, this being a fairly convenient
location from which to continue the trip home later in May. We have chosen
this marina as it is very sheltered, has convenient shopping for
provisioning the boat for the ocean passage, and it has been highly
recommended by other sailors. Norfolk has an airport with Air Canada
connections. The marina is inside a lock facility which means no tide and
good protection from the wind. The boat will be in a wet storage berth at a
cost of $150 US per month. The yard has a number of sheds providing
undercover storage while leaving the boats in the water. Our mast will not
fit under the roof, so Vagrant Sea will remain outside.
We spend our last few days on board getting the boat settled away for the
two months that we would be away. We take some time to tour Norfolk and
Williamsburg, a couple of hours away. The next leg of our route home
involves a twenty-four hour bus ride to Ottawa, where we catch a flight to
St. John’s. Cruising has developed our ability to adapt to different forms
of travel. When you pick up the boat in one place and leave it a thousand
miles away you cannot book return flights, and one-way tickets tend to be
prohibitively expensive. We have adapted to travel by train, bus, and by
delivering drive-away cars. On this occasion the bus was the most economical
route. The advance purchase bus fare is $60 US each, compared with over $800
by air. A fine saving by any standard!
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