Albemarle Loop

 We left our anchorage in Norfolk to continue south through the Great Dismal Swamp. We have been through here a couple of times before and it is quiet, scenic, but with the occasional deadhead that floats up as you pass over it. It is only 6 or 7 feet deep, so the hydrodynamics of a full displacement boat will bring up bottom debris. We had a handful of "clunks" but nothing serious. 3/4 of the way through this canal is a visitor center that we stopped at overnight. We watered up and got a good hike in. One of the things we observed were a few of the original stone mile markers with the mile number etched on the face. These are the original markers erected by George Washington's engineers 275 years ago.

Washington's mile markers

Pretty berries seen on our hike

After exiting the canal, we entered the Pasquotank River leading down to Elizabeth City on the north side of Albemarle Sound. We stayed over night at a free municipal dock, had a nice Grey Ghost ipa and wings at  a local pub, and left to do the Albemarle Loop. This is a path going around the circumference of the Albemarle Sound, counterclockwise. 

Next stop was the Albemarle Plantation Marina. These places are all basically free stops, no charge to stay, with both power and water hookups. Albemarle Plantation is a retirement community near Hertford. I've never seen so many golf carts in my life. All driven by old people. Lots of condos. We stayed 2 nights and had another good IPA. Met a nice couple on a big Chris Craft from Trenton, Ontario who expressed as much frustration with their government as I do with ours, vis a vis viral infections. Got a great hike in as well. Interesting placed we passed was Harvey Point, a restricted area. Turns out it is a place where the CIA and others do "stuff". 

Homes on our hike at the plantation

Long dock at Albemarle Plantation

Burntside docked at the Plantation

Looking out at the sound as we left

Next stop was Edenton, a really nice historical small NC town. We took the trolley tour, looked at a bunch of revolutionary war era homes and buildings. The municipal marina had a courtesy car, it was an old squad car, a Ford Crown Victoria. Really cool. Anyway, made a grocery run with the Crown Vic, and departed the next day.

Docked at Edenton with lighthouse in the background

Wings and beer at the Governor's Pub Edenton

The Crown Vic courtesy car

Toodle's mortuary cracked me up

Edenton Lighthouse

Edenton dock and lighthouse

                                        

Next stop was Plymouth, 5 miles up the Roanoke River. This town is pretty sad. Lots of closed store fronts and just looked poor. We hiked to the ABC liquor store and restocked. The next morning we planned on pumping out but had to delay an hour or so. This was Saturday morning and the bass tournament began at first light. Dozens of boats had to clear before we could get to the pump out station. 

Interesting restaurant on the hike to the liquor store, Plymouth, NC

Pretty church in Plymouth

Boat remnant at the Plymouth museum

Plymouth lighthouse

Sundown over the pulp plant, Plymouth

After storm at Plymouth dock

                                            

Docked at Plymouth

                                        

After getting that chore done we traveled most of the length of Ablemarle Sound to an anchorage just north of the Alligator River bridge. At this point we rejoin the Intercoastal Waterway and unfortunately the south bound migration of boats. This morning (Sunday) we are south bound on the ICW with a pack of boats behind us. 

Bridge that crosses the Albemarle sound

Sunset last night at the Alligator Bridge anchorage

We have made arrangements for storing the boat over the holidays at Lamb's Marina near Jacksonville and will fly home on November 17, in time to burn some brush and clean up ski trails before snow (I hope).

Back on Track

 It's been a year since I posted on our blog. We are back on the water and trying to get back on track with this thing. We left Ely for the boat Friday October 1. The trip to the boat was somewhat indirect, detouring to the Twin Cities for the Eagle's concert Friday night before heading back to Duluth to catch the plane to Norfolk, Virginia. The concert was amazing, Joe Walsh still has it. Just great fun.

The crowd at the Eagles Concert, full house, no masks for the most part and everybody happy.

After the concert we headed to Duluth. We caught 4 hours of sleep at Mike and Shirleen's house before flying out at 8 am. Our flights were fine but picking up the Enterprise rental at Norfolk was a pain. The line was almost 2 hours long. 

The boat was left at Zimmerman Marine in Mobjack Bay of the Chesapeake. They did some work on the boat, basic maintenance I was unable to do that needed to be done. We stayed at Zimmerman's through the weekend, then departed. They needed the dock space for other boats. But we still had work to do. Cindy wanted to get the brightwork varnished (2 coats) and we discovered the windless motor was toasted. We provisioned the boat and then anchored a mile from the boat yard, ordered a new windless motor which was delivered the next day. I then dis assembled the windless and installed the new motor while Cindy varnished. We planned on pulling out and heading north up the bay to tour the brewpubs of the lower Chesapeake, but weather had other plans and we found comfortable anchorages, met some interesting people and got some good hikes in. On one hike, we met a retired accountant from Richmond with a second home on the bay. He raises oysters off his dock in cages. He took an hour explaining what he did and then gave us a mesh bag full of oysters. 

Our friend showing us the oysters in his cages. He has different aged oysters in different cages.

Shucking the oysters after steaming them on the grill to open them a bit

Ready to eat

Our house plant Luigi the basilian

One of a pod of dolphins keeping us company

Bunch of mushrooms on one of our hikes.

Up close mushrooms

We pulled up anchor and moved to the next bay over, still waiting for weather and took the dinghy to shore, hiked into Gloucester and a brew pub for pizza and beer.

Gloucester Brewing Company

Over the past couple of days, Cindy told me the anchor roller needed replacing. It was working ok but clearly worn, and I new it. The weather broke and we went up the bay to Urbanna, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River. Had a nice meal (and beer), went to NAPA, and a thrift store, got our holding tank pumped out. It was urgent, then left the next morning to anchor at a little town across the river and down stream 7-8 miles, at Irvington. Enroute I called the name I had for getting a new anchor roller. he was located in Deltaville, 12 miles further down the river. He returned my called and emailed me a CAD drawing and said he would have it ready that afternoon. Well we had anchored by this time so arranged to pick it up the next day. We moved to the anchorage at Deltaville and hiked to his house  a mile away. He works out of his house with his wife, a fascinating couple. He's South African, worked on a boat in the Norwegian arctic, is building an airplane, re modeling their home they bought at auction, just a fascinating guy, and he reconditioned our old roller as a spare for nothing. I installed the new roller and the next day we had a weather window to move down the bay, so we headed  to Hampton Roads.

 

Old worn roller

Beautiful homes at Irvington. We anchored off these places

The trip down the bay was uneventful and anchored off Fort Monroe, a place we had always passed by, but I wanted to visit. We took a hike to the grocery store, picked up a few things, found a pharmacy for some antibiotics I needed and a brew pub on the way back to the boat. The next morning, we toured the Fort for 3 hours, then pulled out for a more protected spot off the Elizabeth River passed the naval yard at Norfolk. This was a delightful anchorage among private homes, very quiet, but only a couple of miles from the busiest shipyard in the world. I new we had weather coming, but even so, our anchor drug with the passage of the front with 50 knot winds. We just re anchored with a lot more rode and all was good. 

Making an anchor roller

Lawn Chess piece made by the fellow that made our anchor roller

                                                

Light house at Fort Monroe

Moat around the fort

Church at the fort

A Really Bad Day

 Tuesday, November3 we left the anchorage at Dupont Bridge at first light, with the plan being to go to Carabelle and fuel up and wait for a weather window to cross the gulf. I monitored weather as I do every day, and assumed we may have a long wait. Another storm was brewing, this time Eta, down in the northwest Caribbean was looking like it would impact the northern gulf over the next week. But watching the forecasts, it looked like we might be able to cross tonight and tomorrow, Wednesday. As the day progressed, things continued to look good, monitoring websites NOAA, Windy, PredictWind and Marvs weather service which specifically looks at conditions for crossing the gulf. It would mean pushing on through the night and the next day, it's 150 miles plus across and would be a 20 hour crossing at our speed. We decided to go for it, fueled up at Carrabelle and headed out in the dark at 7 PM into the gulf. This would put us in Tarpon Springs early afternoon. The forecast was for 1-2 foot seas on our port beam, which the boat handles well. The forecast said things might build to 3 footers by afternoon, not a big deal, and  we should be across by then anyway. We departed in pitch black but around 8:30 the moon rose in the east and gave us good light. It was beautiful. I napped for an hour, Cindy drove, then I took over around 10. Shortly after that, it started to kick up. The seas gradually built to 4's the 5's and some 6's. The boat did well, rolling a bit but the stabilizers did their job. Cindy was queasy and laid on the couch in the salon where the ride was better. The sun coming up at 6:30 was a welcome sight. At about 8 in the morning, things continued to get worse, and I smelled something funny. I was going down into the engine room to check on things when all hell broke loose. The smoke alarms went off and the engine room was full of smoke. The engine temp was fine, but burnt rubber was everywhere. Keep in mind we are 2/3 of the way across the gulf, but still 50 miles offshore. There is no cell phone coverage and marginal VHF radio. I wrongly assumed it was the rubber coupler off the drive shaft to the stabilizer hydraulic pump, because they were being stress, so I turned off the stabilizers and pointed the bow into the waves, lots of bucking, but we were at least safe. Things settled down a bit but there had to be a change in plans. Beam seas without stabilizers is not do-able in this boat. Heading towards the Florida coast would add at least 40 miles to the crossing but we didn't have a choice at this point. We progressed towards shore slowly, and everytime I increased speed, I would smell more burning rubber and the engine temp would climb, so I just kept the throttle at 1500 RPM instead of 1800. after 10-15 miles, the sea state improved a bit, waves were now 4-5 footers and I tried to edge the helm into a more southerly direction. This was working ok, but then the shit really hit the fan. The engine temp climbed to 215, normal is 185, so I had to shut her down. We were in 35 feet of water, 35-40 miles offshore at this point, so we dropped the anchor to re assess. Our serpentine drive belt had failed. It was in fragments under the engine. So while bucking the waves, I had to change the drive belt. In doing so, I found the cause of all of this, a seized pulley for the belt, with the bearings toasted. There were ball bearings in the bilge. At this point I didn't think I had a spare pulley, so I installed the new belt without it. There is a belt tensioner that picked up the slack in the belt enough for us to get underway again, and amazingly we were able to use the stabilizers again. The engine temp was now normal and we resumed our cruise to Tarpon Springs with no more difficulties. I did call the Coast Guard letting them know of our compromised situation. They could hear me but my reception of them was pretty garbled. They did follow us on the radio over the afternoon checking on our progress, and they let Eric know we would be 6 hours late from the float plan we had filed with him. We arrived at the anchorage in Tarpon Springs in the dark Wednesday night at around 7 PM and tequila never tasted so good. We are still anchored today, Friday, but will be going into the Turtle Cove Marina this afternoon, where we will leave the boat over the next couple of months. Eric and Shawn are about 25 minutes away, and will get to see them a ton over the next week, and Eric will help me install the new bow thruster batteries. I just had a call from Tampa Bay Batteries, and they have what I need much cheaper than West Marine. Finally, as an addendum, while cleaning up the engine room from all the rubber debris, I went through my spares box, and there was a new drive pulley that I had forgotten I had, so it's installed and the boat is back to normal.

Moonrise over the gulf November 3

Sunrise over the gulf on the day from hell

Negligent Blogger

 I have been really quite negligent in updating the blog this trip. The past 3 weeks we have come back down river from Chattanooga all the way to the gulf, stopping at Florence where we met and made friends with two boats, absolutely delightful people. Phil and Marita are a couple on a Heritage East 36, and Mark is single handing his Great Harbor 37, both boats comparable to ours. We went out to dinner with them a couple of times and had several happy hours, and Mark cooked dinner for us on his boat one night. We pulled over at Bay Spring Lake for a couple of days in northern Mississippi, then continued downriver to Demopolis, staying there several days waiting out hurricane Zeta. As soon as the storm passed we went down the Tombigbee with 8 other boats, locking through together. They were all faster than we were but at the end of the day ended up at the same place. The river had good current, making the trip quick, but a little hazardous with all the flotsam from the runoff due to the hurricane. We were going to stop at Dog River Boatyard at Mobile and put in new bowthruster batteries. One of our paired thruster batteries is failing, and my resources say to replace them both. The current batteries are West Marine brand and I was going to get them at the West Marine at Dog River. It was just across the parking lot. However, the manager there failed to get them in a timely manner despite ten days of lead time, so we just continued on across Mobile Bay and down the gulf intercoastal waterway, anchoring along the way. We were entertained at the Dupont Bridge anchorage by F16s from Tyndall AFB doing maneuvers overhead. We anchored at Destin, Florida and dinghied to shore for a meal of wonderful smoked oysters with bacon and cheese, and shrimp ceviche, and a couple of good beers. This part of the trip was all pretty low key. We were headed to Carrabelle to wait for a weather window to cross the gulf.

A refrigerator was part of the flotsam floating down the river

evening on Bay Spring Lake

These houses along the gulf ICW all have plastic on their roofs as a result of damage from hurricane Zeta

Beer and oysters at Tail Fins, Destin harbor

Moonrise over our neighbors boat in Destin harbor

Next stop Florence

 he past couple of days we've moved each day and had some beautiful anchorages. Wednesday was a longer day, and it started with what I thought was going to be a long delay. We had to get through the Guntersberg Lock and just as we were going to pull the anchor, a tow headed for the lock head of us. Normally this would be a delay of at least an hour, but the fog had rolled in and he had to pull over because he couldn't see the lock ahead of his 600 feet of barges in front of him. I called the lock and the lockmaster said he'd lock us through if we could get to the lock through the fog. I only had to see 50 feet in front of me, so with radar and GPS chartplotters, no problem. After locking through, the river remained souped in but we were able to putt safely but slowly down river until the fog lifted an hour later. We anchored in a nice bay on Wheeler Lake mid afternoon, then yesterday only moved 10 miles or so to another bay just above the Wheeler Dam. This anchorage I think is one of the prettiest we've had yet. We watched a 6 point buck come down to the water, and a couple of raccoons as well. Eagles, ospreys and kingfishers. Today we have two locks, Wheeler and Wilson, but only 20 miles of actual travel, then to the marina at Florence, Alabama for a couple of days. Our absentee ballots were mailed by Dan and Barb to the marina, and I have ordered a bunch of stuff for the boat that will be there. The other thing we have done is firmed up a place to leave the boat in Florida, at Tarpon Springs, 13 miles north of Eric and Shawn's house, and it's up the Anclote River a bit, so the boat will be in fresh water for that time, always a plus.

Last night's anchorage

residual fog in the hills

Pretty thick soup approaching Guntersville Lock

Inside the lock it wasn't as bad

15 turtles on a loog

Leaves are changing