It's Official

Thistle is for sale.

Last week the crew here at Port Annapolis Marina backed her into the slings and put her on the hard. Then we rented a car and spent two days getting our car back from Brunswick. We drove over the Governor Harry Nice Memorial Bridge that we had sailed under last spring when we went to Washington DC.

For the last week we've been cleaning out lockers, packing boxes, touching up varnish, and putting lots of stuff on the free-cycle table.

Hopefully by Friday we should be ready to head home. We've decided to take a northern route, up through Pennsylvania, New York, Niagara Falls, and Canada for a bit. Then back down to Chicago and South Dakota, and west on I90 to who knows where.

We might not be "afloat" any more, but the adventures will continue, so please stay tuned.

A Boat Delivery

Boaters often use normal words in odd ways, and the word "delivery" is just one example. To landlubbers it might mean having a baby, but boaters understand it as a fast, non-stop trip to move a boat from Point A to Point B.

And that's pretty much what we've done.

We've moved Thistle to Annapolis to put her up for sale.

Good weather windows are scarce during East Coast summers, but we saw a gap in the thunderstorms and went for it. We left Brunswick, Georgia on Saturday, August 4th, at 7:00am and dropped anchor here in Annapolis, Maryland Friday at 7:00am.

Our first leg was a fifty-one hour ocean passage from Brunswick to Beaufort, North Carolina. We decided to go up the ICW from there, and after a quick stop at the fuel dock, we headed north towards the Neuse River. By 6:30pm Monday evening we were anchored in Goose Creek, poised for Pamlico Sound the next day.

Tuesday's run took us across the Pamlico and up into the Pungo-Alligator Canal. This man-made canal is bordered by nature preserves, giving boaters a chance to see deer, bears, ospreys, and eagles. We saw deer, lots of birds, and hundreds of dragonflies, but no other boats.

After a rainy trip across the Albermarle, we anchored near Elizabeth City for the night. Leaving Elizabeth City Wednesday morning, we went through my favorite part of the ICW: the upper Pasqoutank River. Its narrow twists and turns between old growth forests of bald cypress, tupelo, maple, and pine trees is almost primeval. Again, we saw no other boats along the way.

Eventually the Pasquotank turns into the Dismal Canal. You know you've arrived when you see the lock gates blocking your way.

First you contact the lockkeeper on VHF 13 and let him know you'll be there for one of the four opening times: 8:30am, 11:00am, 1:30pm, or 3:30pm. We were early so we just touched the bottom with our anchor to hold us in position.

After opening the gates and waiting for you to enter, the lockkeeper takes your lines and loops them around the yellow bollards. Then he closes the lock gates, opens the upper doors to flood the chamber, and watches you raise about 8'. Then he opens the upper gates and you motor into the historic Dismal Swamp Canal. No need to hurry, the lockkeeper still has to drive 2000' to a bridge and open that for you too.

The water level in the canal had been inadvertantly lowered by almost a foot, so we banged and bumped along for almost four hours, hitting numerous submerged logs and branches. Then we did the whole bridge/lock thing again, lowering Thistle 8' down into Deep Creek.

Deep Creek connects to the Elizabeth River and ultimately Norfolk Harbor and Mile Zero of the ICW. We anchored for the night at Hospital Cove.

Early Thursday morning we lifted the anchor, washed off the mud of Norfolk, and headed north up the Chesapeake Bay. We saw plenty of boat traffic all day and night; mainly tugs pushing barges and anchored cargo ships. Thanks to modern electronics we know the speed and heading of these commercial vessels, but more importantly, we know their names so we can call them on VHF 13 if there's a conflict. Only two required a small course change, but they sure appreciated our co-operation.

Here's a shot of our chartplotter coming into Annapolis in the dark Friday morning. You can see five ships, but four of them are anchored, so we wove our way between them and into the channel, finally dropping our anchor in Back Creek just before 7am.

Six days, 577 nautical miles, three anchorages, two locks, five bridges to contact for opening, and 200 dead Chesapeake biting flies in the cockpit; all things considered, it was a pretty easy delivery.

Annapolis and the Naval Academy

October 24, 2017

Annapolis likes to call itself the Sailing Capital of America and while there are certainly lots of sailboats in and around Annapolis, Newport, Rhode Island, or San Francisco, California might disagree.

We toured the Naval Academy while we were there and its grounds and museum are steeped in history. Above you see Memorial Hall where all the cadets live. The yard in front is where they parade every day at noon.

The inside of Memorial Hall is as beautiful as the outside. Except the cadets' rooms; they're pretty spartan.

This building is called the Drydock and the cadets come here to relax and entertain visitors. The giant ship model above the doors was used to teach the cadets all the ropes on a sailing ship.

We also visited the museum which is a storehouse of Navy history.

If you don't think global warming is a real thing, check this out. This street next to the waterfront was flooded with a foot of water one morning at high tide.

Monticello

Friday, October 27, 2017

During our time in Norfolk we rented a car and drove to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. It's in amazingly good condition for being over 200 years old. And it's furnished with many items that Jefferson actually owned.

The typical tour takes you through the ground floor, and you can do a self guided tour through the dependencies and grounds.

The gardens are actively farmed and some of the food ends up being served at the visitor center cafe. I liked that.

It was a lovely warm fall day and we ended our tour by walking by the cemetery where Jefferson is buried beneath a granite obelisk.

Jefferson's chamber.

The chrome yellow dining room.

Tea room.

Norfolk and Portsmouth

There are lots of photo ops in and around Norfolk and Portsmouth. So much history and action.

And churches, lots of churches.

Norfolk and the Chrysler Museum

One of Norfolk's more famous residents; the USS Wisconsin, a WWII era battleship.

We've been anchored in Norfolk, Virginia for three days now waiting for good weather to travel South. The good thing is that the Dismal Swamp Route is supposed to open October 31st which coincides perfectly with the good weather. So, Dismal Swamp, here we come!

Norfolk has a huge commercial port that handles containers, coal, cars, and numerous other commodities. After the peaceful Chesapeake or ICW, it's always weird to come into this busy harbor with its huge ships, tugs, pleasure boats, and confusing array of navigation lights. And Navy ships, HUGE navy ships. Naval Station Norfolk is the world's largest naval installation and it's interesting to be so close to all these ships.

We haven't spent all our time looking at boats though. Yesterday we visited the Chrysler Museum of Art. They have a wonderful collection of American art like this Bierstadt

and this Renoir

and this painting by Gustave Jean Jacquet, who was a disciple of Bouguereau. You can see the influence, can't you?

The museum also has many gorgeous sculptures

and a huge collection of Lalique glass.

The museum also has decent displays of Asian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, African, and Precolombian art. Like this 3500 year old figurine from Western Mexico. Traveling through Mexico and Central America in the last few years, we visited lots of museums, but I never saw anything like this. Thank you Chrysler Museum of Art for a very interesting day.

C&D Canal

The last two days have been interesting and have represented big changes for Thistle and crew. We have moved from the protected brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay back to the big salty Atlantic.

Near Annapolis we passed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that connects Annapolis and the Eastern Shore. We also have a "Bay Bridge" back home in California that connects the East Bay to San Francisco. Although this is a nice photo, our bridge is prettier.

We anchored Friday night just outside Worton Creek and it was beautiful: calm, quiet, wooded shores; only eight other boats; and a pair of nesting bald eagles.

Saturday our goal was the little anchorage basin at Chesapeake City where boats typically wait for a favorable current through the C&D Canal. We dropped the hook around 1pm and settled in to watch the show.

Being Saturday, lots of locals came in for food and drinks at the Chesapeake Inn. There was plenty of swimming, music, fun, and laughing; it reminded us of our Delta back home.

As we watched the sun set, we determined that 6:55am Sunday would be the perfect time to ride the current through the C&D Canal.

Sunday morning we were up at 5:30 making coffee and ready to go by 6:30. The only problem was...at low tide this basin barely has 5' of water. We quickly ran aground, so we backed off and tried a different route closer to larger boats. We found 5' of water there and made our way into the canal at exactly 6:50. Close enough!

The C&D Canal has an interesting history. It was first proposed in the early 17th century!  After years of discussion and five years of construction it finally opened in1829; much narrower than it is now and with four locks. Barges were towed through using mules on towpaths. Over the decades numerous deepenings and widenings have resulted in a 14 mile long, 450' wide, 35' deep sea level canal. Many large ships use every day to shorten the trip (by 300 miles) from Philadelphia to Baltimore.

Our transit of the canal was easy and traffic-free. We saw one other cruiser going our direction, three powerboats going the opposite direction, and no ships at all.

Our planning paid off because we got quite a lift from the current. You can see our boat speed is 5.3 kts, but our speed over the ground is 8.3 kts - that's a 3 kt boost! Yippee!

The Delaware Bay was windless and flat, but we saw a few of these little lighthouses on the shoals, and we saw lots of ships heading north.

And then we saw the Cape May lighthouse, the sandy beach full of holiday makers, and finally felt the Atlantic swells. We were in salt water again, on our way north again after four weeks in the Chesapeake Bay.