Northern Phoenix blog

ICW Swan Point, New River Inlet Nov. 06

 Today was not the most exciting day, just more marshes and canals and bridges. For the first half of the day it rained on and off, and was very foggy out. The most excitement in the morning was the first bridge, where mom freaked out about height issues. But, like I told her, you find out if you are too high for the bridge fairly quickly. We did see dolphins heading out of Beaufort, but briefly.   Hmmm... Now I’m trying to remember what else we did, but since we were doing school work, I can’t remember anything. Coming into Swan Point, we passed through a school, or pod I guess, of dolphins, maybe around 15-20. These were more active than the first group, and were jumping and playing. We did get to take some pictures of these, with our uber duber zoom camera.
(line on dolphin is a reflection of the mast..the  dolphins were very close to the boat)

 When we got docked, which was not the smoothest docking ever, as we were fighting a current, Mom, Devon and I went out kayaking. We visited this small island, which was mostly beach, and was covered in shells. Mom was the only one wearing sandals, so Devon and I cut our feet a bit (Or at least I did, not sure about Devon’s feet). There were some pretty cool shells, and I had started to collect a few (Devon brought back a 50 pounds of them), however these were forgotten when mom found a skeleton in the grass. In case you didn’t know, I have a strange hobby of collecting bones. These were big, and hollow, so we figured they belonged to a heron or a pelican. I spent the rest of the time at the island cleaning them, and trying to figure out which ones to take back, which was a hard decision. Mom let me take back a few. As a told mom, the sign of how much someone loves you is not how much they take you shopping or buy you clothes, but how many bones they let you collect and bring back. By the time we got back to the boat-fighting the current, I might add-it was constantly drizzling. So even though we didn’t go swimming, we were completely soaked. Then-and here is the strange part- mom and Devon went to take showers. I mean, we just had a shower, so why take another one??? Alas, there are some things in this world I will never understand.
 
 

We traveled from mile marker 135 (Belhaven) to Mile marker 205, Beaufort, today.  Winds were 15-20 knots for most of the trip, but subsided at the most open water part!!!  The wind was helpfull today.  It was a North east wind that pushed along in the Neuse river.  With an early start, 6:30, we were able to have our anchor set by 4:00 and go exploring and see some wild horses!!!  Beaufort is a very busy marine area.  Commercial fishing and easy access to the ocean with well protected ports makes it an ideal fishing area.  
    The draw back to the area is shallow water.  There are places with  2 to 3 miles of open water with only 1 foot of water at low tide.  There was a sand bar in our channel at one point, and lucky for us, it was low tide and we could see it, however, at high tide, it would be a serious hazard.  Tides are 4 feet here.

We spent some time in the Adams creek Canal.  Had a favorable current and cruised along at 8.5 knots at times!!
Passed a bunch of commercial fishing boats, as well as deep sea fishing boats.

Kids went on shore to see what they could find.  They discovered some Wild horses.

We took a short 8 mile trip today from our peaceful anchor last night to Belhaven North Carolina.  The Night was so calm, not what was foretasted.  Another boat we have been cruising with was anchored at the other end of the Canal and had 30 knot winds!!!  We had 30 knot winds on the way here, but the river is narrow and although windy, it was not rough.  We got the auto pilot fixed (well.....ok, not fixed, but re corrected the pilot error of button pushing and reset the correct settings so now it works wonderfully).  We had not been able to use it on the crossing, possibly because of the weather, but no chance with the bad settings.  It was more in the Motor boat quick steering setting.  

Belhaven is a quiet little town built on fishing and farming.  We ate lunch at a southern dinner that only serves breakfast and lunch and had some nice simple sandwiches. Then checked out the museum (see kids posts after).  Quite a place, not what we had expected.  We recommend it to everybody.  You could go there over and over and see new things each time.  

Devon and I changed the oil as Tara and Sahara took the golf cart to go get groceries.  We have now put 100 hours on the engine since we started.  Usually don't need to change the oil till every 150-200 hours, but since the engine was completely rebuilt, we are using the "new" engine recommendations and changed it early for the first one.  It was not a hard procedure, but took longer this time. Devon and I added some valves and hoses so next time it will be a  quick connect to a pump and away we go.

Belhaven has a large break wall on the south end of the river.  Nice and protected.  You can see it past the boats in the picture.
 

Belhaven Memorial Museum

 

Today we went to the Belhaven Memorial Museum, as it was a cold windy day and we had nothing better to do. The entire museum is a collection of some kooky lady, though it’s actually very interesting. She collected EVERYTHING. Literally. But before I tell you about that, I’ll give you some history. This lady, who people called Mrs.Why, collected for 70 years. She died at age 93 in 1962, which was old for that time. Though I think she could have done something better with her life than collect 30 000 buttons. Her husband- yes, someone was crazy enough to marry her- was an international shipper, so that was how she collected most of the stuff, for lack of a better word. Her collection consisted of petrified bodies- such as a fawn, 3 human embryos at different stages, frogs, 2 headed pigs, 1 eyed pigs, 8 legged pigs (yes, I feel bad for pigs) – spoons, a bear bitten bucket, shells, guns, a dress that would fit a 700lb lady, and I shouldn’t go on for you will be reading this for 6 months. But my most favourite collection- and I’ll admit that I was jealous- was the bones. Cow skulls, dolphin skulls, whale skulls, many many skulls, snake skeletons, and cow horns. And I think that there was a mammoth tusk or something on a wall, but I was not aloud to investigate. Oh yess, and how could I forget- the fleas dressed up as if for a wedding. I will never think of weddings the same way again. I mean, who really wants to devote time to play dress up with little jumping blood-sucking itchy creatures?? Anyway, I wouldn’t want to eat at her house, especially if what I was eating came out of jars. Oh, and she didn’t have to worry about flooding, as she had a 1000lb anchor in her collection too. Don’t ask me why, i really don’t know. Actually, I don’t think anyone knew. But if you ever get the chance to visit the museum, you should, as it’s a must see to believe thing. And the guy in the museum could probably use some company.  

Belhaven memorial museum

When we arrived at Belhaven, we went to the museum. At first we thought it was a normal museum, but after we got inside it was about a really insane woman who collected nearly everything. But what I really liked was the 45 pound German machine gun that was in World War 1, the 2 headed pig, the Cyclops pig, the eight-legged pig and a lot of other things. Some other cools things like a whale skull and anchor from a British warship from the early 1800s (probably 2-3 hundred pounds).

 

Devon.
 

Today we crossed the Albemarle sound in some rough conditions.  The forcast for "1-2 foot waves" was a little off.  The winds were 15-20 knots, out of the Northwest.  Gusts up to 25. (50 km or 28 miles). We had lots of company on the trip.  The sound and then the Alligator river are VERY SHALLOW.  A body of water that is 15 miles across, but i couldn't find a depth greater than 15 feet on the map.  And the river was only 9 feet deep.  This makes the waves stand up straight!  So we were shaken around a bit, but the boat does great. Kids slept most of the crossing, reading in their beds.  No seasickness in this family.  They got good genes from "Hurricane Bob" Grandpa.

Here is a picture off the back of the boat of the following seas.  Waves never look good in pictures.  Hard to get the perspective.  And kicked up a froth on the water.
 

Then we entered the narrow North Carolina Cut.  20 miles with only one small turn.  Nice wooded country, few if any houses were scene.


At the end, we found a very nice protected place to anchor.  We were expecting winds that would be even stronger....20-25 knots, but the forecast changed (doesn't it always).  We are sitting  with 0-3 knots of wind.  It is so calm the boat does not feel like it is on the water.  Perfectly still.  Although....we all feel like we are still shaking around.

We are 5 miles from the town of Belhaven NC.  We plan to get there early tomorrow, dock, and explore the town. Take a day off from traveling.  We Covered 130 miles in 2 days, a great distance down the ICW and will rest and have fun tomorrow.

We got out of the Chesapeake bay finally.  We delayed one extra day because of the high winds, that was the Norfolk day.  We left at 7:00 in the morning to get a good start on the day so we would have plenty of time to dock before dark. The ICW, or Inner Coastal Water way (A.K.A. the big ditch) can take us all the way around Florida to the Mississippi river if we wanted to go that way.

We had to go under 5 or 6 bridges that we had to wait to open, plus the one lock.  No very high, just 2 feet.  Having been to Peterborough Ontario, and watching the worlds largest lift lock (65 feet), this was a little on the dull side.  But we can now say we have been in a lift.
And most of the passage was not very wide.  Leaves are starting to turn colours down here.
 
But then you have to deal with Barges.  This was the only one we saw today, and of course we met it right at a bridge.  We were in a group of about 4 boats, having just waited for a different bridge to let us through, so we were clustered together.  So we pulled over and let him by.

Nov 1st

We spent the day seeing some of the attractions in Norfolk.  We went to the USS Wisconsin, and Iowa Class battle ship that was retired not too long ago.  It last served in the Iraq war.  Some cool facts, the 16 inch guns could shoot a 2,000 lb bomb over 20 miles, and in later years had Tomahawk missile that could shoot 1,200 miles.  To put that in perspective, from Norfolk VA where it is now, it could hit Toronto.
 
Big guns and missile launchers

Around town there are a bunch of mermaid statues.  They are all the same shape, but each is painted and decorated differently.

October 31st.
Norfolk is an old town that has been so built up in the last 100 years, it is hard to find the "old town".  There are huge shipping lanes going right in behind the city (away from the ocean side).  Giant tankers, military ships, aircraft carriers, battle ships, etc... are all traveling in the little river way.  Along with a 1-2 knot current and not much room.  Then the constant calls by the Navy to boat that are too close to the Navy ships.  Quite a busy place there.

Here are some of the ships we passed on the way in:
 
There are 2 aircraft carriers in dry dock, there is another just to the right of this one.
 
Lots of helicopters and fighter jets over head.
 

old WW2 Wisconson Battle ship.  Now a museum we are visiting tomorrow.
 


We ook this picture, not really knowing what it was.  But when we zoomed in, we realized it it is 2 modern boats that have smashed into one another.  It is in an unusual place, not much water there, only a few feet.