Category Archives: sailing

North Carolina has been a lovely place to visit!  We’ve seen the first palm trees of the trip, although I doubt they are native.  They look transplanted, but have adapted well to the climate.

There are flocks and flocks of pelicans!  People here must take them for granted as such a common sight, but I find them so exotic!  Yesterday Bob saw one sitting in the water, with the sun striking him just so that he could see the silhouette of the fish inside his bill!  A great big fish….just like the limerick!

Couldn’t count them all!

Almost every inlet we’ve passed going down the coast has brought in dolphins who play at the side of the boat.  One dolphin kept leaping out of the water right beside me while I was at the helm.  He (she?) kept switching from one side of the aft quarter to the other, and I kept flinging myself from side to side hoping to photograph him in mid air!  At one point he cleared his blow hole and shot water in our cockpit!  He was so close….but I did not get the photo!  I did manage to run aground….. new rule: the helmsman must stay focused, no taking photos while driving!

What a lovely soft landscape down here.  All low country, with pearly white sand beaches, beautiful marsh grasses that are a brilliant gold/green in the sunlight….just like the amber waves of gold in the Midwest!  Only these fields of gold are cut through with shimmering estuaries in an amazing color of bright turquoise.  When I look straight down at the water next to the boat it is a wonderful shade of sea green.  When I look out across the water, or into the winding veins of the estuaries, it is blue-green.  Lovely.  And there has been sunshine all week.

We’ve seen lots of Long Leaf Pines, the wood that Bob used to make my first loom 36 years ago.  We’ve seen flocks of egrets sitting in trees like big white pillows.  The fish are jumping everywhere, which makes us think there are dolphins chasing them.  Certainly the hunting is very good for the bird life.  There are so many birds.  I realized that some of the egrets I saw are really ibis. How cool!

And speaking of birds…. North Carolina is chock full of man-made birds too!  We have been inundated by military aircraft in these waters.  At Camp LeJeune I saw two Ospreys flying in formation for about an hour.  Quite impressive.  We’ve seen more of those huge troop carrying helicopters than we can count!  We hear them coming long before we see them!

We are in Southport, North Carolina, today.  This is a quintessential lovely southern town.  Big wide boulevards, gigantic live oaks (draped in epiphytic ferns called “resurrection ferns”) shading the sidewalks, lovely historic houses dating from the early 19th century.  Many of the houses have huge upper floor porches for looking out at Cape Fear.  That inlet is a scary piece of water, as its name implies!

Oh, how I’d love to sit on this porch with an iced tea!

We need to get away from here pretty soon due to hurricane Sandy, which will be arriving in the Bahamas in the next day or so.  We’ll continue down the coast into South Carolina, only a few miles further.  From there the ICW heads inland, and that should give us good protection from the coming storm.

I always check each port we visit to see if there is a knitting store.  There is one in Southport, so mark your map if you travel this way!  It is called Angelwing Needle Arts and carries embroidery and quilting fabrics as well as knitting yarns.  It is a pretty shop with lots of temptations. I’m sorry to report that I did not find them as friendly as Frivolous Fibers in St. Michael’s, Maryland….but hey…that’s what makes Frivolous Fibers so memorable!

As I wrote this Bob took a walk and has returned with a pound of large shrimp fresh off the boat!  They still have their heads!  $5.00/lb….for that price we can clean them ourselves.  Should make a great shrimp cocktail

Day 42, October 22: anchored in Mile Hammock at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina
Day 43, October 23: on mooring in Carolina Beach, North Carolina
Day 44, October 24: docked at “Fishy Fishy” Restaurant inSouthport, North Carolina (Cape Fear inlet)

What a place!  A quaint town with lovely houses dating from late 18th through the 19th centuries, on a beautiful piece of waterfront, where pelicans and dolphins play the waters, and wild horses graze just across the harbor on a bit of salt marsh!  It’s simply amazing!

This egret was hunting the marshes right next to the horses.

We have heard that at nearby Cape Look Out there is a good possibility of seeing loggerhead turtles, so we hope to go there today for a walk on the beach and turtle viewing!  Our plans may change though because the weather report this morning (marine forecast by Chris Parker via sideband radio) was all about the possibility of latest storm ‘Sandy’ coming up the east coast.  Parker’s recommendation is for everyone to use the next couple of days to get as far south as possible.

So we may just get underway….

I did block the ‘wingspan’ shawl a coupld of days ago….

What a lot of exotic names!

First, I want to say that we did get to visit the Museum of the Albemarle before leaving Elizabeth City, and what a treat that was for me!  Can you imagine my happiness at seeing a large floor loom in the entrance to the museum!  My kind of place!

I marched right up to that loom and fondled the warp….before noticing the sign that said “DO NOT TOUCH!”  Oh well….I’m sure they wanted to keep people from touching the loom, not the warp!  Whoever set up the loom did a brilliant job in choosing a warp that would look appropriate to the time period:  8/2 cotton flake that could almost pass for ‘homespun’ in colors that were quite similar to the natural dye colors that would have been available in 1760.  The rest of the museum proved equally fascinating to me.  There were plenty of domestic artifacts from the mid 16th century when the first Europeans arrived in this area, through the mid-20th century. There was an exhibit of Lewis Hine’s photographs of young children working in the textile mills in the 19th century.  Heartrending, compelling photos. The whole museum was lots of fun for me….

Our last stop on the way back to the boat was Quality Seafood, where you could eat in, take out, or buy raw fish.  We got a pound of large local shrimp that looked colossal to me!  We also wanted a dozen or so oysters, but that was not possible.  Oysters are sold by the bushel, 1/2 bushel, or peck.  The woman at the counter assured us that a peck was only enough ‘ersters’ for one of two people, so we opted for that.  When she brought out the bag though it weighed almost 20 pounds and looked like enough for a large party!  Bob had to carry that back to the boat!

Since then we have traveled down the Alligator River which was quite different than I expected.  While the Dismal Swamp was anything but dismal, the Alligator River was anything like its name.  I was expecting quite a lush jungle, and while I’d heard that there are no longer alligators there, I did expect to see lots of other wildlife.  We had heard from other sailors that they had seen both deer and black bear on the Alligator.  I think “dismal” is a far better word for this stretch of water.  There were lots of low stunted shrubs, and half the trees here were dead while the other half are not far behind.  It was very desolate.  A hundred years ago this was a well known place for whistling swans, but we saw none.  No ducks or geese either, in spite of the 20 or so duck blinds in the water and some unused camps on shore.  The only wildlife we saw, which was indeed quite impressive, was three bald eagles.  Two of them were sitting together on the top branch of one of the many dead trees.  I did not know that eagles would tolerate that kind of proximity.  I can’t imagine what they were hunting beyond little rodents because we saw no evidence of life.  It looked like the perfect place to originate ghost stories!

We ended the day with a platter of oysters on the half shell and a gin and tonic!  We had tucked into those oysters already when Bob realized we really should document it!  So we cleaned up the empties, refilled the platter and took the shot!  Doesn’t it look tantalizing?  I can assure you it was!

And those shrimp tasted like my childhood when I’d visit my grandmother on the Gulf on Mexico (the one who taught me to knit 50 years ago), and we’d eat the local shrimp for dinner…. sigh…

Both Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound are giant bowls of shallow water….not much to look at to my sensibilities.  When the wind kicks up these shallow waters really get choppy, and I had a good taste of that when we crossed the Albemarle two days ago.  Today Pamlico Sound is calm as bathwater, which I much prefer!

So how is my knitting going, you may ask!  I haven’t even spoken of it in about a week.  Well, I had a good five day hiatus from knitting which is quite rare for me.  I did not take it with me to our friends’ house in Williamsburg.  When we returned to the boat on Monday of this week, I finished the shawl and also finished the very interesting back assembly of the Ann jacket.  That wingspan shawl came together in only two knitting sessions, so I highly recommend it for a quick project, but the Ann jacket has been on the needles since before we left on this trip. It seemed quite odd to me to be casting them both off on the same day! Wouldn’t you know now that I have a shawl ready to wear the weather has gotten warm.  I don’t know if its just a warm spell or if we have gotten ahead of the colder fall weather.

At any rate, I have not been able to block the shawl all week.  The weather has been too damp, although not exactly rain.   I can’t take the chance that the shawl will not dry in one day since it will be pinned out on the bed where we must sleep!  Now I wonder if I’ll ever end up wearing it! I’ll be happy to have it if it should get colder again.  I know the next five days are supposed to be very pleasant, in the 70s.

Lastly, several days ago I discovered that I do have a solution to cold weather if we should encounter it again.  I have a mostly finished Einstein coat in one of my bins!  When I put is aside I was partway through the first sleeve.  I could, in a pinch, swallow my pride and actually wear it, with circular needles dangling off that one sleeve.  Depends on how cold I get….

As I write this, we are on the hook in Oriental, and back into pelican waters.  I’d better make good use of internet availability here to find me some ‘low country erster’ recipes cause we sure have a lot more to eat!

We have seen so much activity in the air since arriving in North Carolina.  We passed a Coast Guard air station full of helicopters and even Coast Guard planes which I’ve never seen before, as well as another new sight for me: a blimp hangar!  There was one blimp up in the air and one down on the ground, and yesterday we were entertained by an hour’s worth of crazy maneuvers by an F15 fighter jet.  I bet Bob posts photos….

Days 38 – 40    , October 17 – 19: Elizabeth City, through Albemarle Sound, the Alligator River and Pamlico Sound to Oriental, North Carolina.

We had another long, trying sail today….  we covered 70 miles in 11 hours.  We were under way at 7.30 am and entered the channel at Hampton, Virginia, as the bottom of the sun just touched the horizon.  By the time we got our anchor down, the sun was down too, and the horizon was soft rose, lavender, and pale blue.

This is a lovely city, but I’m afraid I was a bit too tired to care.  Although, now that I have complained, let me say that I am NOT going to complain!  Lots about the day was so much better than the previous day!  After once again getting dressed in every warm thing I could find, I stepped into the cockpit and realized that although it was cold it was not damp!  By mid morning there was one small hole in the thick overcast sky through which a beam of light was dazzling a spot of water just ahead of us!  I had high hopes of sailing right into that light!  …and we did!  By mid afternoon the sky was half cloud, half blue, and it was a gusty, brilliant fall day.  It’s that gusty bit that made sailing so hard…

Eleven hours later we planned to celebrate the fact that we had arrived at a place further south than we had ever been before by boat.  I had two enormous lamb chops thawed and a bottle of sauvignon blanc.  We were both exhausted and the oven took forever to come up to temp.  I guess I was asking more than it could deliver by setting it at 450.  I finally gave up after almost an hour and put the chops in at 375….somehow they turned out just fine!  And it did pick up our spirits to each such a wonderful meal….even it was 9pm by the time I got it on the table!

 We are anchored just off this lovely clock tower.

I got lots  of knitting done on both my ‘wingspan’ shawl and my ‘Ann Jacket.’  No photos yet.  They just look like blobs on the needles anyway!

Excitement of the day!!!…. we saw lots of pelicans!  And we saw a very large sea turtle floating on the surface, checking us out as much as we were checking him! Alas, we have a firm rule that the camera must stay zipped and buckled in its case at all times when it is not actually in our hands, and that means that we miss many shots in the time it takes to get it out of bondage!  We have to balance access to quick shots vs. safety of the camera.  Safety wins.

Today we explore Hampton: the Air and Space Museum, and an art gallery for certain.  We’ll spend the weekend in Williamsburg with old friends who happened to live right across a small pond from where my parents lived, while Pandora waits for us here on her anchor.

The weekend promises to be quite bittersweet for me since I’ll be seeing my parents’ old house.  This has been an emotional year and a half, with the death of my father, my mother being declared incompetent and having to face her long history of mental illness, getting her into a safe place up in New England much against her will.  I know this is becoming quite the norm for people in my generation.  It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done….

It’s October 11.  We have been away for one month…

Day 30, October 10: Glebe Creek on the Potomac to Hampton, Virginia
Day 31, October 11: sightseeing in Hampton!

We were under way at 7.00am this morning, which I believe was just after sunrise, but I sure couldn’t tell.  There was just shy of 20 knots of wind, gun metal grey turbulent waters with white caps, and a sky only slightly lighter than the water.  The wind was coming from diagonally behind us, which made Bob happy, but also made the boat roll from side to side….ugh.  I watched the ‘levo-gauge’ go from 25 degrees on one side of level to 30 degrees on the other side of level.  Bob realized within our first few minutes out that he’d better find the stugeron for me.

Should I also mention that winter is nipping at our heels as we hurry south?  For the past two days we’ve awakened to temps in the mid 40s with the highs for the past two days in the mid-50s.  Have I mentioned that I only get warm showers, at best.  Sometimes I’d say they are tepid showers.  I’m getting seriously cold….

So today when I huddled down below, wrapped in a blanket on the settee, wearing my warmest clothes: one of only two full length pants (my summer weight jeans), one of only two turtleneckes (I wore the other one yesterday), my pullover fleece (why didn’t I bring any of my wool sweaters???), and luckily one of several of my hand knit wool socks, I began to think about what I could do to remedy this situation.  I have a number of sweaters that are near completion with me onboard, but, although they are wool, they are not what I’d call useful sweaters.  They are all cardigans with no buttons….jackets and such that are meant to be fashionable, not serviceable.  I began to think about the yarns I brought with me and the projects they are slated to become.  I remembered some yarn that I saw in the top of the first bin (easily accessible in the madly rolling conditions) and the ‘wingspan’ shawl pattern that goes with it.  I managed to get it out.  I opened up my iPad and found the pattern and the requirements, found the appropriate needles and some stitch markers.  I found my earbuds and opened up a Cast-On podcast to begin my shawl.  This project was to be for some future situation when I might hear about someone who might need a little love in the form of a knitted shawl which would represent my hugging them….  Well, sometimes you have to wrap yourself in your own hug to stay WARM…..

No photos of where we went today.  I spent the whole day down below!  We sailed until 5.30 pm and tucked into the Potomac River, into an estuary called Glebe’s Creek.  I learned in the guidebook that ‘glebe’ is an English word for a plot of land given to clergymen.  They could farm it or let it for extra income, and it’s another example to me of how much closer were the south’s ties with England than the north’s.

Two firsts today:  Bob saw a pelican!

What a marvelous bird is the pelican
His bill can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak enough food for a week
I wonder how in the hell he can! 

And we have crossed the line from Maryland to Virginia. Glebe Creek is a quiet little spot, and we are enjoying the peace after a week in Annapolis! The wind is howling but we are in a snug little spot in calm water.  I made a dinner of comfort food…penne with my best effort at Alfredo.  How can you go wrong with cream and fontina?  We cut the fat with a salad that included a ripe tomato that I picked totally green from my garden a month ago.  I never imagined that they would ripen before rotting.  But they are perfect!

Here are the last two FOs (finished objects) that have made their way to their rightful owners.

And here is the beginning of my ‘Wingspan’ shawl.  I finished two sections and started the third today.  Could I wrap up in it by this weekend??

Day 29, October 9: Annapolis to Potomac River