Dear Everyone
It’s over two months since our first newsletter, and it’s probably time for number 2.
We are now on our way south to Florida, our jumping-off point for the Bahamas and, we hope, Cuba and the Eastern Caribbean. We decided that the opportunity of seeing the East Coast of the USA by going down the Intracoastal Waterway was too good to miss. The ICW follows a winding course along a series of rivers, lakes and coastal inlets, interconnected by canals and man-made cuts. The whole route, 1095 miles from Portsmouth (Virginia - not Hampshire!) to Miami, stays inland, though never more than a few miles from the Atlantic. Although principally intended for commercial traffic (mostly heavy barges), in practice the ICW seems to be far more for the benefit of private boaters like ourselves and it’s only occasionally that we see any heavy traffic. We aim to cover between 40 and 60 miles per day, mostly motoring unless a suitable wind springs up (which has been rather rare!), and we are now 50 miles south of Charleston. We are, of course, not the only boat heading south and on any one day we’ll expect to see up to twenty others - both sailing boats and power boats - all with the same objective. Many of the boat names are now familiar, as we leap-frog each other with different lengths of time spent at different stops, and we’ve met plenty of other crews. Northbound boats are few and far between. The scenery varies, from the heavily populated areas with waterfront mansions and condominiums lining the waterway, to remote and isolated swamp areas, partly tree-lined, partly marsh. We’ve stopped for a day or two in several towns and particularly enjoyed the welcome at Elizabeth City, at the end of the Dismal Swamp Canal, where a group of townspeople turn out every evening to welcome new boats with free overnight docking and a cheese and wine party and a rose for each lady crew member - a delightful tradition that goes back to 1983, when retired postman Fred Fearing decided with a friend to host a party for cruisers in memory of his wife, who had recently died. He still comes down to the city dock every evening and claims it is the highlight of his day! The Dismal Swamp Canal is typical of the many man made canals which connect the various rivers and sounds. 58 miles long, it was built between 1793 and 1805 to transport timber through a mosquito ridden swamp area. Most of the actual digging was done by slaves hired from neighbouring landowners and they eventually developed such an intimate knowledge of the swamp area that it became a haven for runaways. Today it is hard to imagine how it earned its name - it is a perfectly beautiful narrow tract of treacle brown water which reflects the magnificent autumn colours of the trees along its banks.
Hurricanes are never far from one’s thoughts during the late summer months, and we have seen many reminders of the damage resulting from Floyd in September. It crossed the mainland in North Carolina and deposited up to 18 inches of rain, causing widespread flooding and surge tides which killed large numbers of animals and washed away many substantial riverside jetties. Further north at Rock Hall, where we had left the boat while we were back in England for a couple of weeks, it rained 14 inches in a single day, with winds of up to 60 mph. Happily, Island Way was in a very secure marina, with friends to make sure she that all possible loose bits of sail and rigging were well tied down, and she appeared unperturbed by the passage of the storm. We are glad not to be in the Eastern Caribbean just yet, with Hurricane Lennie on the prowl!
Our journey down the ICW began quite late, on 3 November, as we had various jobs to complete on Island Way, which took us up to mid-October. We then spent nearly three weeks sailing down Chesapeake Bay, exploring as much as we could of its tributary rivers before the weather turned so cold that we realised we could delay no longer. Frost on deck in the mornings was not something we had bargained for!! Stops included Oxford - a delightful little town on the Choptank River, once one of the Eastern Shore’s major ports, and now a prosperous and peaceful backwater with wide, tree-lined avenues and beautifully restored 19th Century houses. Cambridge, just a few miles further along the same river, provided a complete contrast. The area around the Court House was liberally stocked with lawyers’ offices, and looked quite prosperous, but along the High Street, every other shop seemed to be closed or closing down and the adjacent empty streets felt more like a deserted Western film set than a Maryland harbour town! Further south, we had an invitation to spend a few days moored at the Gratitude Yachting Center slip at Deltaville, and we had a wonderful welcome from Tom and Barbara Miller, through whom we had actually bought the boat. They took us to Williamsburg, original capital of Virginia from where the British governor and his family fled at the start of Independence hostilities, and then to Yorktown, where the Brits finally surrendered to the Americans (assisted by those perfidious French!!). We both feel that we have learnt an awful lot about American history and some of the less salubrious aspects of British rule and are only glad that our 2 nations were able to make it up at a later date - a fact that is gushingly confirmed on a plaque at Yorktown signed by Reagan and Thatcher affirming our (their?) “special” relationship!
The quality of life on board - already better than we had dared to hope when we embarked on this enterprise - has been further enhanced by the addition of a bread-making machine. Fresh bread most days - delicious!! This is not (so far, at least) a life of deprivation!! Having said that, there are one or two things that we miss. It would have been nice to have seen some of the Rugby World Cup, which received no coverage here, though perhaps we were better off being spared the agony of British defeats! And Barbara still maintains that showers are no substitute for a good bath! There are, however, many compensations, including incredibly good weather, with only two or three days’ rain in the past six weeks. The rest of the time we’ve been treated to clear blue skies almost every day - though not yet warm enough for sunbathing! In fact, as we write this, the sun is just setting on a wide expanse of golden marsh grass which stretches as far as the eye can see. The water of the creek is glassy still; the only sounds are the occasional splash of the brown pelicans as they plummet into the water to catch their evening meal, and the huffing of dolphins as they come up for air. Last night the gentle popping noises under the boat, which might have worried us if we hadn’t already read about them, were the shrimps working away at cleaning the hull!
As you can see, life is treating us well. We hope the same goes for you and we look forward to hearing your news.
With love and best wishes from
John and Barbara