Best Kept Secrets of the ICW Day #33

posted by Ardys

Bridge in Daytona Beach

Okay, these aren’t really secrets, per se, but before starting down the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) I didn’t hear about them.  Only one person in Annapolis told us that the ICW was a very special place and that it would be well worth staying inside to go south.  “Inside” refers to the ICW, inside the barrier islands which separate the mainland from the ocean.  “Outside” of course, means out on the ocean.  Outside can be faster if the weather is good for crossings. The weather rarely was right for us when we were at a convenient inlet to exit the ICW, and so we continued on.  Maybe on a future trip south, we’ll bring additional crew with us and go on the outside ALL the way to the Caribbean.  On this journey south, however, we’ve only gone outside twice, on overnight ocean passages of 70 to 80 miles each.

Surprising find--free dock available

We are nearing the end of our journey for 2015. Tomorrow we will arrive in Titusville, across from Cape Canaveral, on Day #34 of the ICW.  We will leave our boat there for a month while we visit family and friends over the holidays. Covering only 30 to 50 miles/day usually and resting for a day or two here and there, has made this a long trip. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any faster, at least not on the ICW.  I want to tell people why I will NEVER again refer to the ICW as the “Ditch.” 

Sunset north of Cumberland Island 

Fabulous sunrises and sunsets at quiet anchorages.  Not every single day (we did have rain a few times) but there are few sights as utterly dramatic and yet unique as the rise and fall of the sun. Quiet descends upon the anchorage and we hear the sounds of the water and whatever critters are out and about calling to each other, or feeding, or whatever they do in the dark.  With a moon shining on the water, we can see surprisingly well, even after full night.  

Fernandina Beach dressed for Christmas

 Charming towns that I would never have known existed, if I were not traveling down the ICW.  Fernandina Beach in Florida is a bit like stepping back in time.  Like many of these small towns on the water, it tends to be populated by the artistic sort of folks who bring their eye for beauty to the place, and maintain the historic houses, storefronts and museums for us travelers to ogle.  There are so many of these little towns on my list to visit next time going north or south.  And I’m shamelessly plugging a little family owned restaurant, Pablo’s.  I was served the best margarita I ever had in that restaurant; and the food was beautifully presented and delicious too, and very reasonably priced!

Best margarita EVER at Pablo's

Marinas that provide a great value for the money.  There are marinas that are absolutely beautiful with long, wide docks, resort-like qualities such as pools, fitness centers, much like you’d find at a 4 star hotel.  As you might imagine, the “resort marina” is the most expensive way to go down the ICW.  All marinas charge by the foot (boat length) so with our 43’ boat, this adds expense quickly.  We stay at a marina occasionally, when we need to get groceries, do laundry and get a pump-out.  On the opposite end of the marina spectrum are marinas which have old docks and few, if any amenities.  Perhaps you’d compare that sort of marina to a budget motel.  Most marinas fall somewhere in between the resort and the budget marina and generally, you get what you pay for.  We found our favorite marina ever yesterday at Marineland Marina north of St. Augustine.   Relatively inexpensive, very attractive, wonderfully helpful dock staff, dog friendly, and located a very short walk from the ocean.  We will definitely return there.

Jax enjoyed the beach

The ICW has made me into a birder!  We brought a bird book with us onto the boat and a pair of birding* binoculars but I thought we would only occasionally use them.  Hah! I can now identify at least 20 new birds, even in flight.  I can distinguish between dabbling and diving ducks although I haven’t had as much luck with nailing specific species.  I was already familiar with the cormorants, eagles and loons because we have those in Minnesota.  I started studying the huge pelicans and then thought that I may as well learn how to identify several egrets and herons too.  One thing led to another and now I’m hooked. The ICW is a virtual parade of birds all day long!

Beach at Marineland 

In fact, going south on the inside is a lot like a parade:  waterfront historic towns and cities, luxurious homes and folksy little houses in the wilderness, plants and trees, beautiful bridges and other unique structures, not to mention all the other boats. I can’t wait to tell the man who told us the ICW would be special, how right he was.  

Great Egret - note: yellow beak, black legs

*We carry two pair of 7 X 50 marine binoculars with internal compasses. A stronger magnification would be too unstable for a moving vessel.  Birding binoculars can be much more powerful. 

Jax Figures IT Out - ICW Day #28

posted by Ardys

Before we left

Shore at Beaufort, S.C. The grasses at half tide.

Annapolis, most of our fellow southbound travelers told us that they were going to go down the ICW until Charleston or thereabouts, but certainly would not be continuing on the ICW into Georgia or Florida.  We heard, “Too shallow, too many bridges to get under, too hard.”  When you 

Darker green indicates where high tide was.

hear something enough times, you start to accept it as fact.  The other thing we heard a few times was, “I don’t think you (NORTHERN STAR) can do the ICW, referencing the height of our mast (63 1/2’) and our draft (6 1/2 ‘).  The usual fixed bridge height is 65’.  At high tide, there may be less room than that to get under.  Some parts of the ICW are notorious for shoaling and cannot be traversed at low tide.  Yup, we were pretty sure we were going to have to go offshore from Charleston and on.

Cruising Guide for the ICW

Then, we happened upon some fellow southbound travelers with a 6’ draft sailboat, Radio Waves.   They were planning to continue on the ICW and this made us reconsider our options.  Waiting for the right weather window for ocean passages is rather unpredictable.  And we are counting the number of days available to get from here to a safe place in Florida to leave our boat for a month while we visit family and friends in Tennessee and Minnesota around the holidays.  So we have ventured forward on the ICW following our new friends on Radio Waves.  We study the charts every night, noting the mile markers where there are bridges and where shoaling is a problem.  We have made good use of the Cruising Guide for the Intracoastal Waterway by Captains Mark and Diana Doyle.  

Garmin, Navionics and Active Captain, all on iPad

Those five manuals provide us with minute detail about the ICW mile by mile, describing anchorages, marinas and “trouble spots.”  We also are relying heavily upon the information we pull from our app, Active Captain, which is integrated with our Garmin charts.  Carl can see all comments from other boaters on his iPad and I can see all the same information on my iPhone 6+.  VERY handy.  We also have Navionics charts on the iPad and both Garmin and Navonics have the latest tide and current projections for various locations. When he’s driving the boat, I review the trouble spots and direct him on whether to hug the Green or the Red Marks, and so forth.  When I’m driving, he does the same for me. 

Birds' eye view of South Carolina ICW.  Lots of twists and turns.

Our review of the information available to us helps us decide what time we should get going in the morning so as to take advantage of tides.  Again I’ll say it—I continue to be astonished by the tides which are different every day, and different from one place to another.  I suppose that if you’ve grown up near tidal waters, your response to that might be, “Well, yeah—Duh!”.  For example, today, at Statute Mile (STM) 666, we pulled up anchor in Wally’s Leg (it’s a creek—I don’t name these anchorages, you know) rather late today (noon) because low tide was going to be at 12:12 PM where we were headed.  High tide would be at 5:17 PM.  We needed at least half tide to get through an area of shoaling in Jekyll Creek, at STM 680.  So, here’s the Math equation: If a sailboat leaves Wally’s Leg at 12:00 and needs at least half tide to get through an area of shoaling at 3:00 PM, how fast should the sailboat be motoring?  Answer:  No more than 4-5 knots/hr (or about 5 mph) Perfect.  We did just that.  We did run aground briefly but Carl was able to gun the engine and get us off again.  No big deal.  

American White Pelicans mixed with smaller Brown Pelicans

photo courtesy of Peterson Field Guide to Birds 

We have found some beautiful anchorages along the way.  The variety of birds is increasing and I am studying my Peterson Field Guide to Birds more and more.  We have seen large groups of huge American White Pelicans on sandy shores, a few Great White Egrets, lots of Terns bomb-diving the water for food, flocks of Brown Pelicans (much smaller than White), Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Cattle Egrets (which always look to me as if they are skulking—they would be the Mafia of the bird world) and today I 

Dolphins in the Brickhill River, in our anchorage

saw what I believe was a Tricolored Heron.  I described it as I was looking at it through binoculars and later went to find it in my book.  There was the bird I had just described.  Carl thinks I should not call that a confirmed sighting because Tricolored Herons are uncommon, but then what do I call the bird I saw?  Even a novice birder can see an uncommon bird once in a while, right?

Jax is curious about dolphins

Tonights anchorage is wonderfully quiet.  There is little wind and so we can hear all kinds of squawking bird calls all around us.  Kind of like a jungle.  The dolphins have been swimming in small groups of 2 or 3 on all sides around us.  Sometimes I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them expel steam from their blowholes.  Jax is enthralled.

Almost forgot—you’re wondering what Jax has figured out?  Yesterday morning, he did his business on the bow of our boat—49 hours after his last BM.  My husband was right—he did NOT explode.  And now, Jax uses his self-assigned “head” whenever he needs to empty his bowels.  Whew—what a relief for the humans onboard.  And for Jax, no doubt.

Beaufort/ It's BYOO-fert, NOT BO-fert

posted by Ardys

Narrow channel, in spite of appearances

The Low Country.  I used to think that “Low Country” was somewhat of a pejorative term.  No more.  What a miraculous marriage of water and earth and critters.  The salt water 

Great White Egret

moves upstream with the tide, flooding the wetlands till it appears as though we are riding on enormous lakes.  The salt water mixes with the fresh, making a brackish water which pleases many animals such as alligators, dolphins, pelicans, cormorants and 

egrets; all kinds of living things including biting No See-Ums and mosquitoes.  Twice each day, the current reverses and at low tide the mud flats reappear, which we on the sailboat, are trying to avoid, of course, so I don’t want to see those too close up.  

Mud flats

We have seen large areas without visible inhabitants, in fact the majority of this portion of the trip has been through and along various federal and state protected wetlands and wildlife areas. Often we have felt like the lone travelers in a wet and amazing landscape that does not exist on much of the east coast. Nonetheless, I have been amazed by the numbers of people that live right along the water in the Low Country.   Many properties 

Multiple docks several hundred feet from the houses they are paired with.

include a private dock that extends from near the front door and out several hundred feet over water at high tide, and at low tide, the long dock stands high over the mud flats.  It’s a long walk from a home in the Low Country out to its’ boat.  At the end of each dock, one will also find a small floating dock with an 

Large houses along the ICW in the Low Country

articulating ramp connecting the two.  The ramps angle of rise may go from only a few degrees at high tide, to a steep 45 degrees at low tide.  Imagine life without those little floating docks and ramps.  A boater would have to leap several feet down into their boat at low tide, clearly not a sensible thing to do.  The danger of the giant leap down, may be matched in foolishness by the climb back up the pilings covered with layers of barnacles, oysters and other mollusks. Sharp stuff!  

Oyster growth on piling

The tidal range in this area around Beaufort, South Carolina is 6 to 7 feet.  Tides are still a new phenomenon to this Midwesterner.  The novelty hasn’t worn off yet.  Maybe it won’t?

One of the old plantation houses on ICW

There’s another misperception that I confess to having harbored.  In the past, when I thought of the Carolinas, I usually envisioned a population that struggles financially.  Clearly, there is a lot more wealth in the Carolinas than I had imagined based upon the enormous houses we have seen along the water.  I suppose it’s possible that the wealthy folks all live along the ICW, but I suspect that can’t be true.  I am aware that the Carolinas are some of the poorer states in our country, but my image of at least a portion of the Low Country has changed

Probable late 19th century house

dramatically.  I told my husband that now I know who builds all those enormous houses that are featured in house plan books and glossy magazines.  They are here, and they have waterfront property along portions of the the Low Country.  

Rain coming

We were all day on the ICW again today, and after sweating over some portions that we expected to be a problem, we made it through without incident.  It was threatening to rain all day, and finally, an hour short of our destination for the night, Beaufort, South Carolina, the sky at last opened up.  Even with a heavy rain, it was not especially uncomfortable on NORTHERN STAR.  We are still astonished to find ourselves here on December 2nd, winter-time to be in a downpour wearing only light rain gear in 64 degree temperature.  This is so unlike my previous experiences with winter.  After settling ourselves in a very friendly little old 

Fillin' Station, Beaufort, South Carolina

marina called Lady’s Island Marina in Beaufort, South Carolina (and that is pronounced BYOO-fert, not BO-fert which is in North Carolina) we shed our rain gear and went to a little partially outdoor bar 

Outdoor grill and seating at the Fillin' Station

overlooking the marina where we enjoyed the Wednesday night special—a hamburger, hotdog, baked beans and potato salad for $4.00.  Yes, $4.00.  Not gourmet, obviously, but good.  Tomorrow night they’re serving a chicken fried pork chop dinner, but it’s $5.00.  We have taken an immediate shine to this place.  NORTHERN STAR likes it here too.  She is one of the larger boats in this little marina and feels more at home here than on the MegaDock with the multi-million dollar yachts in Charleston.  I could hang out in Beaufort for a long time.  Oh, wait, another mosquito bite.  Sigh.

Relaxing after dinner