We spend three nights at a dock at Treasure Cay in the
Abacos while the weather settles down.
Friends anchored about 20 miles further south have reported seeing wind
gusts in the 60’s, but our sheltered harbor sees considerably less.
With the passage of this front we have an extended period of
fair weather and feel it is best to begin the journey back to the States. In addition, we have friends on another boat
with similar plans, so we will have good company during the passages and
layovers. Our first hurdle is getting
through the Whale Passage which exposes you to ocean waves and tidal rips. With the improved weather there is a
veritable parade of boats at slack tide heading to the northern Abacos.
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| Distant island in the northern Abacos |
It would be nice to stop for a day or two to
explore this area, but we are determined to make the long passage while the
weather is benign. Thus, these islands will have to wait for next year. We head north until the chain of now mostly
uninhabited islands turns west into the Little Bahamas Bank. We pass the last significant island at sunset
and proceed over the bank of shallow, flat water for another 50 miles until we
find ourselves in deep Atlantic waters, about 60 miles east of Florida. It is here that the Gulf Stream laps the Bahamas, and here
where we make our turn north into the fast flowing current. The Gulf Stream
is a conveyor belt for sailboats. At
times under sail we see speeds of over 11 knots, not bad when your hull speed
is somewhere around 8 knots. Through the day and the following night we click
off the east coast ports we so laboriously passed last fall. At one point, we
have several small birds take up residency on our boat when we are about 100
miles off shore. We wonder what they are
doing out here and suspect they have been blown off course to the ocean and
need a resting spot.
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| One of our little hitchhikers - it would sit on your shoulder or on a finger |
By the next day they appear to have left, but later we
find one has died in the forward stateroom. By sunset of the third day we have
left the Gulf Stream and are heading into Charleston,
SC. We cover 460 miles in just under 60
relatively painless hours. We drop
anchor in the Ashley
River and first thing the
following morning, check in with Customs and Boarder Protection at the nearby
marina.
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| The pineapple motif of this fountain in Charleston symbolizes a welcoming spirit - we felt very welcome to be back in the USA |
We are legally home and now it is time to reacquaint
ourselves with civilization. Since
leaving Nassau
in December, we have seen only one working stop light. We have been bicycling with little traffic,
and traveling on the left hand side of the road. Charlestown
on bicycle is a whole other story. We have many errands to run: groceries, West
Marine for missing supplies and parts, and a mall for a variety of other needs.
The heavy traffic takes some adjustment, and happily we live through the
experience. It is difficult to describe
the numbness you feel when you finally arrive in the land of plenty. The grocery store is overwhelming – you walk
down the aisles with your mouth agape and struggle to limit yourself to
purchases that can be carried by bike. The laundry is located in a nice dockside
restaurant where you have breakfast while monitoring the new, high quality
machines that don’t eat your clothes.
There are so many choices at the mall that you struggle to make
decisions. In the evenings we dine out with our friends, but have difficulty
choosing where to go; again, we are not used to having so many options. We also have a little free time in Charleston to bicycle
through the historic sections of town.
Not much has changed since we visited last fall except for the pervading
fragrance of jasmine that is currently in bloom. Everything seems so green and
lush in marked contrast to the arid landscapes of the Bahamas.
A weather window opens up, and we leave Charleston for another ocean passage. This
time we are too far west to take advantage of the Gulf Stream, but we have a
comfortable passage of 30 hours and 213 miles to Beaufort, NC.
It is mostly a motor, but the trip is
enhanced by several encounters with pods of dolphins. They play in our bow
wake, they dive under the hull and reappear on the other side, they swim along
side our cockpit and roll on to their sides to glance at us, and, once in a
while, they jump totally out of the water.
It is a thrill for us, and we suspect they are trying to make some sort
of contact with us, another species of mammals. In all, our two passages have covered a
distance that would take us close to a month to do on the Intercoastal Waterway.
We arrive at Beaufort mid-day and find the anchorage to be
very crowded. Rather than risk swinging into the channel and being asked by the
Coast Guard to move at an inopportune moment, we decide to take a dock on the
town waterfront. We relish the
opportunity to have unlimited electricity and fresh water, and spend an entire
day cleaning the boat. Over the past
months we have accumulated copious amounts of salt on the deck, rigging, and
canvas, and since it rarely rains in the Bahamas, Mother Nature has not
assisted with a washdown. A clean boat
is a happy boat, and we’ve got one happy boat!
With chores completed, we wander the waterfront boardwalk
past many tourist oriented shops and restaurants. The place is hopping as this weekend is
Beaufort’s annual wooden boat show. On
display are some beautiful home built wooden boats that would be equally as
appropriate as fine furniture.
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| This one person trimaran kayak was used for fishing - seems too beautiful for that! |
It’s hard
to believe they will ever see water, but their owners take pride in describing
the experiences they have had. One young
builder of a trimaran tells of a race he participated in that circumnavigated Florida. Also on display are several beautifully restored
Lyman run-abouts, manufactured in our hailing port of Sandusky.
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| One of several Lymans on display |
The boat show is sponsored by the North Carolina Maritime Museum,
so we stop by there to see the displays.
This is an extensive museum with the central focus on the ongoing aquatic
archeological dig of the Queen Anne’s
Revenge, Blackbeard’s primary pirate ship that sunk just off the entrance
to Beaufort. A large maritime library and display of model boats also capture
our attention. Across the street, the
museum sponsors a school of wooden boat building. The large shop is full of interesting hand
tools, and docked outside the facility are a number of traditional sailing craft
that have been built on site.
Occasionally, we see them under sail through the surrounding
anchorage.
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| This gaff rigged sailing skiff works its way through the harbor traffic |
Perhaps the biggest draw is
the boat building contest taking place under a tent next door.
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| Activity in the boat building tent with a finished example from last year's contest |
Twenty teams are given the raw materials and
four hours to build a simple rowing skiff. After the gun goes off, we hear
screaming power tools and see billowing clouds of saw dust. Four hours later, with the finish gun, over
half of the boats are complete, and the rest definitely resemble the finished
product. The contest scoring is three-part,
with credit for the time taken to completion, quality of workmanship, and a
follow-up rowing race between the functional boats. It is entertaining to say the least.
We enjoy the ambiance of Beaufort with its streets of
antebellum homes and frontage on Taylor Creek which separates the town from
Carrot Island, part of the Rachel Carson Nature Preserve (under the auspices of
the National Park Service) and home to a herd of wild horses which can
occasionally be seen on the island’s beaches.
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| Wild horses on the distant beach |
Traffic is light so bicycling is
a good way to see the area by day and in the evenings we enjoy live music at
several of the restaurants along the water front.
We could happily stay longer in Beaufort, but we need to
continue northward. We bid farewell to
our cruising companions, Linda and Roger on Sandcastle,
as they are heading to New Bern,
NC to dock their boat for the
summer. We have traveled with them off
and on since leaving Georgetown
in the Exumas, and parting ways with good friends is one of the downsides to
cruising. We will complete our journey to the Chesapeake via the Intercoastal for the
remaining 200 miles. Otherwise, we would
need to round Cape
Hatteras, often referred
to as the graveyard of ships – not a very enticing description from our
perspective.
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| A typical anchorage scene along the ICW in North Carolina |
