The next phase of our trip would be very different than the first, where we transitioned from sailing in wide open waters to “driving” along miles and miles of dredged channel through some of the most remote marshland I have experienced on Andante. We entered the intracoastal waterway (ICW) at mile zero and would spend the next 200-ish miles carefully following a very narrow “ditch” through some extremely remote areas to our destination just north of Beaufort, NC. At times, it felt a bit like driving 95 south to North Carolina, requiring attentiveness in navigating other traffic in the confines of the channel, biding time waiting on bridge openings, looking out for hazards (like tugs pulling barges, free-floating logs, tree stumps and uncharted shoals) and generally staying “in our lane”. We were thankful for our autopilot, which allowed us to make small continuous corrections to our course without having a hand on the wheel, and for the bathymetric survey data provided by the Army Corps of Engineers, which warned us of areas that needed extra attention. And in case we got too comfortable at any given time, the ICW would throw us a reminder in the form of a half-sunk motorboat or an entire felled tree extending partway into the channel.
On a trip like this, you focus a lot on the weather and the state of the boat and her crew. Outside concerns, beyond getting safely from point A to point B, fall away rather quickly. In fact, time becomes somewhat irrelevant, beyond knowing how many hours until sunrise and sunset or high/low tide. Not so on the ICW. In our transit south to North Carolina, we would navigate under 14 bridges and through 1 lock. Several of these bridges and the Great Bridge Lock opened on a schedule and we encountered the majority of these in our first day in the channel, making for a very busy day. We arrived at the first low bridge at mile 5.8 around 10:50 Sunday morning, noting immediately that a small handful of sailboats were anchored just north of the bridge. Usually this bridge opens on demand, but on hailing the tender we were informed that the bridge was operating under a restricted schedule (beginning that day) and would only be opening at 8 am, noon and 6 pm. We were not the only ones caught unaware!
It’s not unusual to have to wait an hour for a bridge to open so we were prepared to motor in circles until its opening. But then I looked at my Apple watch, which was clearly paying closer attention to the outside world than we and our onboard instruments were! It told us that we had an extra hour to wait and we quickly realized we had completely forgotten to “fall back” for the end of daylight savings. There’s a lot you can’t control while cruising, so you quickly learn to make the most of ‘found time’. We joined our anchored friends and made the best of a few hours sitting still with the engine off. I took advantage of the first warm temperatures of the trip and enjoyed a shower before getting underway again!
Delayed bridge openings create bottlenecks and act to group boats together for subsequent legs of their journey. We would spend the next few days on the ICW leapfrogging the same group of boats, which was oddly comforting. The options for anchoring enroute were limited and we found ourselves relying on Dave’s track from his journey south a few years prior. The first night we anchored just outside the very narrow channel north of the Pungo Ferry Bridge and enjoyed a spectacular sunset. We left all our lights on to provide visibility for anyone brave enough to travel after dark (mostly tugs with barges). The quiet was deafening and like none I have ever experienced.
Sail Andante 