Water, Water Everywhere . . . .

We are settled in for the weekend in Annapolis, MD, Lon's old haunt from his Naval Academy days.  We are going to take advantage of the proximity to Washington, D.C. to visit two of our nephews who live in that area, as well as revisit sites from when we lived there over 30 years ago. 

One of my stresses on this trip is thinking about the cruising that involves the larger bodies of water. I'm not a fan of big waves and rough waters, and I have been concerned about our experience on the Albemarle Sound being repeated on the Chesapeake Bay. The potential is always there, but I'm happy to say that we had three very nice, calm cruising days between Hampton, VA and Annapolis: Tuesday's (May 27) cruise was Hampton to Deltaville, VA; Wednesday (May 28) was Deltaville to Solomons, MD; and today (May 30) was Solomons - Annapolis. The weather was not good on Thursday, so we stayed in port in Solomons.

I can understand why those who have sailboats like the Chesapeake Bay--no bridges to worry about, deep water, and lots of area for boating. However, we've not found the Bay to be nearly as interesting as the "skinnier" passages and canals on the ICW. We're just too far from shore to see much of anything but all of the water around us.

Water, water everywhere

The only things to break the visual monotony were the occasional ship, a few lighthouses, and watching planes fly into Patuxent River Naval Air Station.

Fishing "mother ship" and net-casting smaller boats

Smith Point Lighthouse

Passing freighter

I've actually found myself pulling out a book during the cruises these last few days, something I've not done to this point.  Still, as I've said before, "uneventful" on a boat is ultimately a very good thing.



Deltaville, VA and Solomons, MD are popular boating centers on the Chesapeake. We didn't do much when we got to Deltaville--just relaxed on the boat for the evening. We biked into the town of Solomons, a center since the mid-1800s for fishing and boating. There were definitely lots of boats and an economy centered around tourism. Our marina occupied the former site of the first Naval Amphibious Training Base in the US, where between 1942 and 1945 over 68,000 servicemen were trained for landings in both the European and Pacific theaters. The bath houses at the marina were rather "rustic" and probably dated from that period.

Farm in Solomons

Lon by "On Watch"
 statue at Solomons Harbor

Boats and more boats in Solomons

Pat on Solomons main street waterfront

Friends and Family

Hampton, VA has been a "friends and family" stop for us. Hampton can trace its history back to 1607, but the city was burned to the ground during the Civil War, so there isn't a lot standing that is very old. However, the city does have some lovely Victorian-style homes.

Hampton is also the home of the Virginia Air & Space Museum-just down the street from our marina-but time slipped away from us this weekend and we didn't manage to make it there because. . . . .

. . . . the focus of our several-days stop was not history or museums, but visits with friends and family in the area.  On Friday, May 23, we had the pleasure of meeting Trevor and Laura Brazelton and their three children: Katelyn, Christopher, and Hunter. Laura is the niece of long-time Minnesota friends of ours, Rich Thorne and Jill Brustad. Rich and Jill have spoken of Trevor and Laura for many years, so it was a pleasure to finally meet them and now count them as friends. Trevor has been in the Navy for nearly 20 years (he retires October 31!) and he graciously took us on a tour of his current assignment location-the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach. This included a stop at an outdoor aviation museum, a park filled with aircraft from US Naval history. Truly nirvana for Lon.

Navy jets at Oceana NAS

Hunter, Laura and Trevor Brazelton with Lon at Oceana

Lon and F-4 "tombstone"

Afterwards we went to their home in Virginia Beach and had a wonderful dinner with the family and members of Trevor's Christian motorcycle group, the Remnant Sons.

Katelyn, Christopher, and Laura Brazelton

On Saturday, May 24, I had the opportunity to reconnect with a friend who was a co-worker of  mine when I was working in the forensic lab at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.  BJ Blankenship left Minnesota in 1999 to work as a DNA analyst in the Norfolk lab of the Virginia Department of Forensic Science. Minnesota's loss was definitely Virginia's gain. We've kept in touch from time-to-time through the years, and it was fun to have dinner with her and her husband Sven Hauksson. 

Lon, BJ, Sven, and Pat at Oyster Alley in Hampton

Sunday was family time. We hosted Lon's cousin (on his mom's side) Roy Dean Buetow and wife Marie for dinner on the boat. Roy Dean had a very distinguished Navy career and retired in Virginia Beach. It was fun to hear some of the Buetow family stories.

Lon, Marie, and Roy Dean

No visitors today, so we spent time on a variety of small boat projects that we had just never seemed to get around to doing. Weather permitting, we enter the Chesapeake Bay tomorrow with the goal of reaching Deltaville, VA, about 50 miles north of Hampton on the western shore. We're hoping that the day won't include "rearranging the furniture."

On this Memorial Day we pause to remember those Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our liberties.  And we say a special prayer for our nephews who are currently serving in various branches of the Armed Forces: Peter Clausen (Navy), Matthew Clausen (Naval ROTC), Andrew Hatch (Air Force), and Evan Wojtowicz (Army).

The Great Dismal Swamp

Clearly, we need to rethink our approach to "securing the cabin."

Salon post-Albemarle Sound crossing

Stairs to galley post-Albemarle Sound

Live and learn.  In our defense, the NOAA marine forecast called for only one foot waves in the Albemarle Sound on Tuesday (May 20) when we did our crossing. Not even close. I am convinced that the forecasters must be female, because I can't envision men underestimating size so badly. Complicating matters were the hundreds and hundreds of crab pots in the Sound.  Bearings that would mitigate the wave action were often filled with crab pots and evasive action would cause us to meet waves in a not-so-comfortable manner. Once we reached the Pasquotank River the water calmed, although dodging crab pots was still necessary most of the way to Elizabeth City NC.

Crab pot--nemesis of boaters

Aside from a brief bicycle ride through downtown Elizabeth City, we were happy to just relax on the boat on Tuesday evening.

Wednesday (May 21) found us cruising the calm waters of the Pasquotank River on our way to one of the areas that we'd really been looking forward to seeing--the Great Dismal Swamp Canal.  Love the name. Apparently the early English and Scottish settlers in the area referred to swamps as "dismals." So I guess the current name really means "the Great Swamp Swamp." The Dismal Swamp Canal is the oldest operating artificial waterway in the country. It was hand dug by slaves from 1793 to 1805. Originally used to transport goods such as logs, since the end of logging in the middle of the 20th century and the establishment of a national wildlife refuge and a North Carolina state park in the Great Dismal Swamp, the canal has mostly been used for pleasure boat traffic. It's a few feet above sea level; therefore, access is controlled at each end by a lock. No-wake speed was required in the canal, which made for a slow, peaceful trip filled with bird songs and a really lovely fragrance from flowering bushes along the banks.

Water like a mirror in the Dismal Swamp

Lon and I cycled along some of the old logging roads in the portion of the swamp that is part of a North Carolina state park.

Lon on Canal Road trail

We took advantage of  free overnight docking offered by the Dismal Swamp visitors' center.  It was us and one other boat, "Epilogue", owned by Tom and Mary Stone of Oriental, NC. We enjoyed chatting with them over "docktails" and cruised in tandem with them much of today. 

Tom and Mary Stone on Epilogue

CARIB II and Epilogue at Dismal Swamp Visitor Center dock

This afternoon we transitioned to urban boating on the rivers in the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia. It was quite a contrast to the solitude of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Battleship on display in downtown Norfolk

Navy ships

Tonight we are docked in downtown Hampton, VA.  We are staying through the Memorial Day weekend, in part so that we don't have to deal with lots of crazy weekend boating on the waters around here, but mostly because we have friends and relatives in the area that we are going to meet up with.  Looking forward to it!

All is Wright with the World

A horrible pun, but today (May 19) we visited one of the few "must see" places for us while we are on the Loop-the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC. It didn't disappoint.  It was quite a thrill, especially for aviator Lon, to be walking the landscape where the first powered flights were made on December 17, 1903.

Lon and Pat at First Flight Boulder (take-off spot)

First Flight Boulder and stone markers for the first three flights (path, distance, landings). The stone for the 4th
flight  (852 feet) is quite distant from stone marker #3 (200-foot flight)

Wright Brothers monument on Kill Devil Hill

But you might be wondering, as I did, what "Kill Devil Hills" has to do with anything--didn't the first flight take place in Kitty Hawk? Well, yes and no. At the time of the Wright Brothers' flight, the town of Kitty Hawk--located a few miles north of the site of the first flights--was the only town in the vicinity. All mail went to Kitty Hawk, hence, the association of the flight location with that town.  The Wright Brothers had done some glider flights in Kitty Hawk in the years leading up to the powered flights, but they'd also done many glider flights from Kill Devil Hill, the 90-foot sand dune on which the Wright Brothers' monument is now located. Kill Devil Hills was not incorporated as a town until the 1950's. Therefore, Kitty Hawk as the location of the first flight was accurate as of the date of the flight, but the correct modern designation of the location of the first flight is Kill Devil Hills.

After a quick stroll on the beach at Nag's Head and a quick lunch we turned the car south and drove to Cape Hatteras. All of these barrier islands are part of what is known as the "Outer Banks." Heading toward Cape Hatteras there were a few smallish resort towns separated by undeveloped wildlife refuges and park lands of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The seas in this area have a history of being deadly and unforgiving to mariners.  A poster in the museum entitled "The Ghost Fleet of Cape Hatteras" stated that there had been 500+ shipwrecks along the Outer Banks.

Waiting for summer on Nags Head Beach

Sand dunes on Cape Hatteras National Seashore

We like to climb towers when the opportunity presents itself, so we did just that in the historic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. The lighthouse was finished in 1870 and is the largest brick lighthouse in North America. Our climb took us up nearly 200 feet. The current location of the lighthouse is about 2900 feet from its original location. It was moved in 1999 because the shifting shoreline had come within 150 feet of the lighthouse and it was feared that the lighthouse would eventually be destroyed if nothing was done. Moving a structure that large and heavy was an amazing feat of engineering.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

   

Lon atop the lighthouse-view toward original location

Not much to say about Saturday and Sunday (May 17 & 18) except that we cruised about 50 miles each day.  We had a little bit of excitement on Saturday, when the Weather Service forecast of "light chop" on the Pamlico River turned out to be anything but light. The bar stools slid across the salon and we dropped a few things on the floor, but the rolling was over after about 45 minutes and we had a restful evening at the Dowry Creek Marina just east of Belhaven, NC.  On Sunday the water was smooth-smooth-smooth on our cruise down the Pungo River, Alligator-Pungo Canal and, finally, the Alligator River.

Alligator-Pungo Canal

Quiet and secluded Dowry Creek Marina

A "glassy" Pungo River 

Getting Rocked in North Carolina

On Tuesday morning (May 13) we left Snead's Ferry for the cruise to Morehead City.  Not long after getting underway, CARIB II was rocked by the fast--and close--passage of three armed river boats with Marines in full combat gear. Talk about a bad time to NOT have the camera on me. It definitely got our hearts pounding.

It was much more impressive close up and at speed . . . . 

  As we cruised through Camp Lejeune we saw lots of reminders of the active military presence.

Warning sign for Live Fire 

Evidence of target practice in Camp Lejeune

The rest of the cruise was uneventful, which is a good thing when you're on a boat. We spent the evening in Morehead City, one of the larger towns on the NC ICW and an active port. Its neighboring town, Beaufort (BOW-fort), is the older of these two southern "Twin Cities" and is supposed to be the more picturesque of the two, but with both of us being under the weather on Tuesday we didn't have the energy to investigate first hand. Morehead City has made some effort to preserve its history, even if it is just in the form of commemorative signs that only note what used to exist and not what currently exists.  We found the "stood here" signs rather humorous and wondered why they bothered.

Morehead City is a big center for sport fishing and hosts a large annual marlin fishing tournament. The evidence of the fishing culture was everywhere.

The first purple hulled boat we've seen

"Marlin" on the Morehead City Dock

Better name than "Unsanitary Restaurant", but not by much

The Portside Marina in Morehead City was nice except that we were moored on a face dock that was exposed to the wake of boats entering and leaving town. We have found that many of the captains of the large fishing convertibles don't seem to know the meaning of "no wake zone", so we were hit by some substantial wakes until sunset and again early on Wednesday morning.

We had gorgeous cruising weather on Wednesday (May 14); too bad it was a relatively short trip (around 25 miles) to our next stop, the village of Oriental, NC. We had originally planned to just stay one night, but with wind and a line of thunderstorms scheduled to be in the area Thursday and today, three nights seemed a better idea. Lon took advantage of the time to do some needed preventive maintenance on the boat (oil changes) and I took Zipper to a local vet for a blood draw to monitor her thyroid condition. And then it was time to "rock and roll" as the wind picked up. The fixed docks didn't stabilize us very well, and I had to leave the boat for a bit Thursday afternoon because I was getting queasy.

Whitecaps on the Neuse River

The wind continued until lunchtime today, and after the clouds moved on we had a glorious afternoon and evening. It's so nice to have a stationary floor under our feet! Zipper even dared to venture out, something that she definitely would not do yesterday.

Crab pot retrieval at sunset

Brave Zipper

We are starting to encounter larger bodies of water in our cruising, which makes weather a bigger factor in our day-to-day planning. Wind speeds that wouldn't cause a problem for us in some of the narrower ICW channels could make cruising rather uncomfortable in the larger bays, sounds, and rivers. It will be interesting to see what the ratio of weather days to cruising days turns out to be.

1000 Miles Down . . . .

The main reason for posting today is that we passed a milestone - 1000 miles since we started this trip on April 2.

Wait for it . . . . .

1000 miles!!!

I'm not sure how many more miles we have until we pull into St. Paul, MN, but it's probably in the 3500-4000 range. 

Tonight we are in Snead's Ferry, NC. Probably its main claim to fame is that it is on the south edge of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. The ICW in the area adjacent to the base is subject to closure on any day that the marines are firing live ammo over the waterway. Apparently we won't have to worry about that tomorrow.

What follows are some random images from today.

Wish we could get Zipper to do this

Patriotism on display in Snead's Ferry

Osprey nest in derelict boat

Now that's pink!!!!