The Icy Dub Ya

Let me take this opportunity to expound on the merits, or demerits of the Intracoastal Waterway.  Fondly referred to as "the ditch" by those familiar with braving its waters, the ICW is narrow, shallow, vaguely signposted, and busy.  It is a marvel of human engineering, costs an exorbitant amount of money to build and maintain, and is a gross tribute to American consumerism... God bless it.  In many ways you could think of it as a 3rd world highway, here in America, made for possibly the strangest and oldest vehicles on the planet.

Like these::

So now that you've seen what we were up against, I'll return to the tale:

Antonio and I set out from Oriental riding the wind that was in our face the day before, and it took us maybe half an hour to cross a distance that had previously taken hours.  Then, as quick as entering an inlet- our wind was gone, blocked by the stupid trees and marshes that line the banks of the ICW.  Now keep in mind, that most people run their engines constantly to overcome these circumstances, which wasn't an option for us since our engine lasted about five minutes before suddenly and inexplicably shutting off.  We couldn't afford to be without the engine when we needed it most, so we had to rely on the minute amount of wind and the current to S.L.O.W.L.Y. move us along, thus saving the engine for when we needed to avoid a giraffe, or something else unexpected.

This put Morgan (comfortably) to sleep leaving only wine to comfort we humans... while we watched a lot of this go by:

At least until we got here:

Drum roll... the very first bridge Bernoulli ever went under (captained my me at least)...

At which point, so excited by the presence of something, we went a little camera crazy...

And those are just the ones I bothered to include here...

It's true, we were bored, you'll notice in the photos the utterly limp sails, clinging to the boat like shedding skin (gross, sorry).

But things were about to get more interesting, although the wind didn't.  The ICW opened up as we approached Morehead City a big state port.  We witnessed a champagne sipping couple who had just gotten their boat in the water after a year of being "on the hard", which is a ceremonious feeling I can associate with.  Of course their engine was working, so maybe I can't associate that well.  We got to see our first dolphin (which are incredibly hard to photograph by the way).  Historic buildings, or what was left of them:

Then the glory of glories to a bored yacht crew... really, really big fucking boats, oh and some more bridges we got to go under...

Yeah, I know this one runs off the page, but it really was that big...

There's even a photograph of genuinely looking around instead of the silly farce of earlier (and PJ pants):

Then we pulled into a marina to a rather beautiful cloudy sunset, I took Morgan for a desperate walk, where I showed my own crude canine nature on the beach (if you know what I mean) and we were all very relieved...

We took a nice walk to check out what was around, and found this:

 and then trespassed a little.

The Way to the Orient. al

Finally Underway!

Antonio and I set out from New Bern, and right out of the gate got a taste of what I'd be getting myself into a lot in the following weeks- a sandbank.  We hit bottom 2-3 times just getting to the main channel outside Duck Creek Marina.  Then we were greeted by fantastic winds that blew from the West pushing us out towards Oriental NC.

For such a wide body of water the actual "channel" seemed only inches wide- I have since learned how crucial a "depth sounder" is on the Intracoastal Waterway, which for you non-boaters is basically a sonar device that gauges depth immediately in front of the boat, which is yet another piece of equipment I don't have.

The state of my nerves aside for a moment, we were having a great time.  Here are two photos to prove it, which one of us looks more like a sailor?  Neither?  My thoughts as well.

This was the first day of referencing our charts to make sure we were in the sliver of water that was deep enough for the boat, which I have since discovered is deeper than most people need.  A 5' draft is pretty unheard of for this length boat, which really means two things (or more...), She is meant for deep water cruising, and She will not tip over when similar boats will.  I don't really know if either of those things are true, but I can tell you that I have to get somewhat special treatment when pulling into marinas for the night.  I get stuck out in the deepest spots, which are always furthest from the amenities like bathrooms and WiFi, making it seem like I'm some kind of "untouchable" class of boat meant to be kept at arms length... maybe I'm reading into it too much.

After a LOT of chart checking and cross referencing with the GPS phone we finally made the turn towards Oriental, which put us into the wind that we had enjoyed being pushed by earlier, and for an excruciating two hours we limped ever so slowly into the marina in Oriental.  Also, the engine quit on us suddenly almost as soon as we left New Bern, and was only turning on for about five minutes at a time before dying again.  This would prove to be a big problem in the coming days (and posts)

After walking to the nearest gas station and filling up our hobo gas tank we made our way back to the boat and feasted on pasta and (probably) poptarts in the dark (cuz we couldn't get electricity).  

So I finish on a view of Oriental from the slip (note all the masts, a testament to how popular sailing is in Oriental vs the rest of America):