Southall Landings Marina

 We arrived at Southall Landings Marina on June 20th. The approach was easy and we were amazed by the friendly people that we met in the first hours we were at the dock. We had offers to assist us in almost every way and even to borrow their car to provision and to visit the local attractions. We have to say this is the friendliest marina we have ever been to. 

I love natural beauty and wildlife. Southall Landings is located in a tidal marsh and is full of wildlife. We have seen many waterfowl and wading birds. We have also been lucky enough to see the local otters swimming between the boats. The other wildlife that I have taken interest in, are the crabs. I have been able to catch a dinner of crabs right from the boat on a couple days that I have tried. 

In this entry, I will focus on the birds. I spent most of one day with my big camera shooting the birds and other things flying in the area. Langley Air Force Base is very close to us and we see many very cool aircraft flying in and out of the base. This is the training base for the F-22 Raptor, which is a very cool new stealth fighter jet. 

We have a number of large Osprey in the area. We are thinking that they have been responsible for the missing ducklings. 

Osprey are amazing looking birds in flight

This little green heron eats the little fish and crabs in the shallows 

I saw this female Mallard Duck with two ducklings. I was told that they were a family of 10 just a few days ago.

Mom with two little ones

I think this is a juvenile Blue Heron

Just love this image

I watched this Blue Heron catch and wrestle this large fish. The amazing thing is they ate it. 

These look like angels to me.

These look like X-wing fighters to me. 

This is an F-22 Raptor

Another one at a distance

Cuteness overload

A flight of trainers

We are able to take our dinghy from our slip out to a beach. We have access to a pool and we are in a secure gated community. All of that for $300 per month. We really like it here and I can tell why many people we have met have chosen to stay here and live year round. I am sure it gets cold in the winter, but it is a very protected place from storms. 

We knew when we arrived that we had some work to do on the boat. We had to do all of our periodic maintenance on the engine after putting on 150 hours in our trip north. We also had to fix the staysail fitting that broke in the storm off of Miami. Then on the first morning we were here, the propane solenoid failed. Now we could not cook on the stove or oven. I ordered the part and then when it got here I needed some additional fittings. There is an Ace hardware close by and I asked to borrow a car. "No problem" was the replay and in a few hours, we were good to go. Have I told you how much we love this place?

In my next entry, I will write about some adventures we have been on since we arrived in Virginia.   

Coinjock, NC to Hampton, Virginia

 We arrived at the marina in Coinjock, NC on June 17th. We had not planned to get there until the following day, but the thunderstorm warnings motivated us to arrive a day early. The storms passed overnight and the wind blew a bit, but all was fine. We awoke on Saturday, June 18th to sunny skies with strong north winds.

We spent the first part of the day doing laundry and checking out the huge boats along the face dock in the marina. The Coinjock marina is a regular stop along the Atlantic ICW. It is the last stop for most boats heading for the Chesapeake Bay. The have a long face dock in the protected river. I am sure that a couple of thousand boats stop here each year. It was clear on this beautiful day that they could handle even the largest boat. We saw one that was way over 100 feet long and many that were close to that. They put us on the north dock, which allowed us to stay for the 2 nights without moving. Almost all boats come here for just one night. The main attraction here is the restaurant. The restaurant is famous for their Prime Rib. 

While I travel, I periodically post on Facebook a few pictures of where we are for friends that do not read this blog. A friend saw that we were going to be in this area, which is where they have a place on the Albemarle Sound. Merry contacted me to see if we could get together. We love catching up with friends, so I made contact when we arrived and arranged to try out the prime rib together. 

Merry and Chuck's place is over an hour away, so it was awesome that they were willing to make the drive. Merry and I used to work together back in the days that I worked for MICROS Systems. Chuck also worked at the company, but we had never met. We had an awesome time catching up and enjoying the good southern food. I opted for the fried chicken and Kim had the prime rib allowing us to try both. 

Merry and Chuck and Kim and I in front of the Coinjock, Marina 

 Merry and Chuck were nice enough to take us to a grocery store to get some provisions for the last legs of our trip north. We are hoping to see them again while we are in the Chesapeake Bay area.

Here is the look along the face dock. The two boats in front are around 80 feet long.

We awoke on June 19th to strong north winds. The winds from the north cause the water to move in the bays and rivers. This creates a strong current. So, we had both the current and wind working against us. We had to start the day, by going out into the open waters of the Currituck Sound. We headed directly north and were making just a little more than 4 knots over ground. It was painfully slow. About half way across the sound, we crossed over into Virginia. 

I tried to get a picture of the conditions as we crossed the Currituck Sound, but you can't see the whitecaps and chop very well. Trust me, it was not the best conditions. 

After a couple of hours, we made it to the protection of the North Landing River. We then passed through the North Landing Natural Area Preserve. It was quite beautiful. The sides were lined with old stumps of cypress trees. No telling how long ago those trees were cut down. 

Cypress stumps along the waterway

We cruised along the river and then canal to the town of Chesapeake, Virginia to the Great Bridge. There is a free dock there that we decided to spend the night if they had space. It turns out that they did and we pulled in and tied up. We then helped two other sailboats get tied up. We had only traveled 32 nm, but that set us up for another short day to make it to our marina. There was a park and a museum there, but sadly the museum was closed. I did some reading and found out that this was the site of one of the earliest actions and a victory for the colonial rebels in the Revolutionary War. 

Just after we arrived at the free dock, two large motor vessels were waiting to open the bridge. This light blue one looked like a space ship.

A shot of SHIFT tied up at the free dock. There is a marina across the river, but we don't need power.

The Great Bridge. The following morning the winds were calm. We were waiting for the on the hour opening. 

Here is a shot of two other boats that were tied up at the free dock.

We made the 9:00 opening of the Great Bridge. The wind had died off and that made the process very easy. Next up was a lock. We had not been through a lock since Coffeeville in Alabama. This lock was very different. The total fall was only 2 feet. It is just put in the river to control tidal flow. Before long we were moving again and headed for Norfolk. 

We were now in the Elizabeth River. We had heard of a bridge that was a problem in this stretch. When we arrived at the bridge, there was a sailboat there that we had helped tie up the day before called "Just Us". He told us he had been waiting for over an hour to get the railroad bridge to open. As it turned out they were waiting for an AMTRAK train. It came and went and still no opening. After another 20 minutes it opened and the highway bridge just after opened and we were both able to get through. 

We started to see larger and larger ships. 

First we saw some freighters

Then we passed through the US Naval Shipyard. There is a Aircraft Carrier and some kind of a transport.

Here is a warship undergoing a refit.

We passed right by this older Aircraft Carrier that is a museum.

Then we passed through the town of Norfolk. They had a cruise ship on the wharf. 

Next was the actual base. Most of the fleet were not there, but they had plenty of ships around 

I had to blow this one up to see the two submarines. Our son Michael served on a sub for 4 years.

This is the largest US Navy base in the world 

One of the newer ships

The experience of passing through the base was awesome. The firepower of the US Navy is just amazing. 

It was then a 7 mile cruise out into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and over to Southall Landings Marina in Hampton, VA. It is an easy inlet and Steve was there to greet us and get us tied up. It felt so good to shut it down and rest. 

The Marina is in an estuary that has a tidal fall of about 2 feet.

There is a long dock that extends from land out over the flats to the deep water of the creek where the docks are located. 

SHIFT in her new home for the next 2 months.

We had been traveling for about 8 weeks since the time we left Marathon on April 30th. It was now June 20th. I have to admit, I was tired and was looking forward to some down time. I also knew I had some work to do to get SHIFT ready to go cruising in the Chesapeake Bay. In my next entry, I will show you more of our new home and tell you about our plans. 

Belhaven to Coinjock, North Carolina

 We left Eastham Creek on the 15th of June. We had a very short 18 mile trip to Belhaven, North Carolina. We were in no hurry, but arrived at Belhaven just before noon. We had a number of things that we wanted to do in Belhaven, so we got the hook down and then we dropped the dinghy. 

There was another boat at anchor that we had seen a few days prior, so we thought we would stop and say hi. As we approached, Kim noticed that the girl on the boat was sunbathing with no clothes on, ( I did not notice) and told me to quickly bypass going to see them. They were from Quebec, Canada, I guess that is a French thing. 

We headed to shore and tied up at the city dock. The guy at the marina told us that the public pump out system was $5 and we needed a token from him. We paid our money and then headed in town to find something to eat. We had lunch at a local cafe that was truthfully, not very good, but the people working there were very nice and we enjoyed our visit to the local place. 

The pump-out was located in a very tight little basin. I asked the guy at the marina if boats as big as ours go in there and he said "all the time". I said it looks a bit tight and he said he would revoke my captains license if I couldn't do it. Well, Alrighty then. I have been challenged. We got back to the boat and pulled the anchor and made our approach. We got it done without a problem. We pumped out and filled our nearly empty water tank. I think I am finally getting more confident with tight docking situations. 

When we headed back out to anchor, the other boat was gone. Too bad, I really wanted to meet those folks. We then went back to the marina with the dinghy and our two jerry jugs for diesel. The guy was at lunch, so we went to find some ice cream. That did not disappoint. It was a hot day and the ice cream was very good. We ended up doing two trips for diesel and got 20 gallons. That would be enough to get us to the Chesapeake Bay.

After doing all of that, the wind came up, so we decided to stay in the bay at Glenhaven for the night. There is a breakwater at the front of the bay, but the wind and waves were coming right through it. We rocked a bit that night, but we still slept well. 

The old City Hall in Belhaven

The main street in Belhaven. We went to the hardware store to pick up a few items.

The view of the waterfront of Belhaven from our anchorage.

There are some stately old homes in Belhaven left over from the years that the town was a rail head for the timber industry. You can see it was not a calm night. 

We got up the next morning and headed out on the Pungo river. It was very calm with almost no wind. We then entered the Alligator river - Pungo river canal. It was a very straight and calm ride. We saw lots of wildlife.

Beautiful calm cruise up the Alligator River - Pungo River Canal

Lots of pine and cypress trees

We made one turn in the 20 mile canal. Other than that we just went in a straight line. Then we came out into the Alligator River. The river is wide and has some room. The wind had picked up a bit and the sailboat that had been in front of us all day, put up his sails. We had planned to stop just outside the canal, but I could not resist doing some sailing ourselves. 

We all know what happens when two sailboats are on the water together. Yep, it is a race. The name of the other sailboat was "Joy for all Seasons".  He had about a mile lead on me, but I put up both the main and genoa and we started moving quite well. We closed on the much larger boat and then passed them. I now had to look for a place to stop for the night, but first we had to open a bridge. There is a very long bridge over the Alligator river mouth that has an opening span. I called the bridge and let them know that we were fine waiting for the other sailboat. He said he appreciated it and we waited a few minutes and let them catch up and we went through together. We then took a hard right and headed for our anchorage in East Lake. It was about an hour trip to get back in to protected waters. We were now on the south edge of the Albemarle Sound. 

I was hoping for more protection, but the anchorage worked out fine and put us in a position to cross the sound the next morning. The Albemarle Sound is a large body of water that opens up to the Atlantic Ocean. If you have strong wind from the east you can have huge swell in the sound due to it's shallow depth and rush of incoming swell from the ocean.  We ended up traveling 53.1miles that day, which was much further than I had planned. I went to bed thinking about the following day's challenge. 

In this shot it looks like we are a long way from shore, but it gets shallow about 100 feet in front of us.

It was a beautiful place and we were all by ourselves.

We awoke to south winds blowing about 20 knots. We raised the anchor and then slowly motored through the many crab pots to get back to the ICW. We then turned north and headed out into the sound. The wind was almost behind us, so we just unfurled the genoa and shut off the engine. We cruised along at about 4 knots for a while. I looked on AIS and "Joy" was out in front of us. And the race was on. He had a big lead and I was never able to catch him, but I did close the gap quite a bit. The wind shifted out of the west and we had a beautiful beam reach for the last hour. I raised the main and we were moving over 6 knots. We had a great sail. The trip across the sound is only about 11 miles, so it only took about 2 hours, but then we sailed up the North river for about 5 miles. 

The only picture I took while crossing the Albemarle Sound was of the only channel marker that was covered with birds. I guess I was just having too much fun sailing.

The river got small and we decided to anchor for the night. We sat there for a couple of hours in a nice calm anchorage and then my phone went off with some severe thunderstorm warnings. They were headed right at us and we would see them in about 3 hours. Our plan was to go to a marina the following night in Coinjock, NC. The marina was only 4 miles in front of us. I gave them a call and they said we could come in and stay 2 nights. We got the anchor back up and headed that way. The storm did come in later that night and blew about 30 knots, so not too bad. We were happy to spend the extra $100 to be safe and sound tied up to a dock. 

We had plans in Coinjock. We were going to meet up with a friend I have not seen in many years and I was very excited about it. I will write all about our time in Coinjock, NC and the final legs of our trip to the Chesapeake Bay in my next entry. 

Up the North Carolina Coast then Inland

 We left Carolina Beach on June 12th and motored about 10 miles to Wrightsville beach. There is a bridge there that opens on the hour. We tried to make the 9:00 opening, but did not make it by about 2 minutes. We hovered for an hour and then were ready to go through at 10:00. Another sailboat was coming but it looked like they were not going to make it. The bridge tender held the opening for 5 minutes to let them go through. Oh Well, I am glad they didn't have to hover like we did. 

After getting through the bridge, it looked like a fairly straight forward day along the ICW. 

This shot shows the transition of the weather for the rest of the day. The boat out in front of us just passed us after the bridge in Wrightsville Beach.

We cruised along for a few miles and then we started seeing the storm clouds growing over the land to our north. We saw a few passing showers and then we had a big ugly one form right over us. 

The wind went from about 10 knots to over 30 in just a few seconds. The good news is we did not have any sails up, so the boat was very stable. My only problem at the helm was visibility. I could only see about 50 yards in front of us. This was an area that was not very populated and all of the pleasure boaters had taken cover. I felt it was best for us to continue on and get through it. The only problem was that we were approaching a bridge. It was a 65 foot bridge, so I just needed to find my way under it. Just after we came through, I had two adrift sailboats right in front of me in the channel. I guess they had broken free from their moorings. I did not see anyone aboard. I worked my way through and did my bet to stay in the channel. I could see some channel markers, but I had to rely on my electronic charts to confirm my location. 

After about a half hour the storm eased and all we had was a steady rain. Then we saw another one on radar just behind us. It was coming fast and hit us with a 25 knot gust. Not too bad, we just kept motoring along. It rained hard for about 30 minutes and I was soaking wet, but we were fine. We continued on to our anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay. 

Mile Hammock Bay is an interesting place. It is right on the edge of Camp Lejeune, the Marine base.  You can't go ashore here because the docks and boat ramp are part of the base. There was great protection and we were anchored for the night with 4 other boats. There is plenty of room in the small bay for many boats. We had a calm and restful night after our stormy day.  

Mile Hammock Bay

Just us and 4 other boats in this large anchorage

The following day was going to be a challenge. It was a Monday, which usually means less traffic on the ICW, but there was a very large Bill Fishing tournament at Moorhead City that was 35 miles in front of us. The plan was to arrive in the Moorhead City area around noon and get through while all of the boats were out fishing. They had over 400 boats registered for the tournament this year. Most of those were very large Sport Fishing boats that go very fast and make huge wakes. 

I looked at the tides and resulting currents and it looked like we were in luck. If we left at dawn, we could have current behind us until we hit Moorhead City, then we could get through the Beaufort, NC inlet and then we would have current against us for the rest of the day. We were hoping to make it to Oriental, NC. 

We were up at dawn and moving shortly thereafter. Right away, we had to open a bridge, but that went smoothly. We did have current with us and we were moving well over 5 knots. Kim took the helm as we entered the Bogue Sound. We had about 15 knots of breeze right on our tail, so I brought up our genoa and we were motor sailing at close to 7 knots. 

As we approached Beaufort, we had a very strong current behind us. We saw speeds approaching 8 knots over ground. At one point I did see us going 8.2 knots. 

Just as planned we cleared Beaufort at about noon. There was very little traffic. We did hit the opposing current just after we cleared the city. We slogged it out at about 4 knots for the next 4 hours. We were now heading inland directly north on Adams Creek. This is a connector canal for the ICW. We did see some large boats pass us later in the afternoon. I guess they were leaving the fishing tournament early. 

I called two different marinas looking for a place in Oriental, NC. Neither of them even called me back. I looked at our options and decided to anchor in Cedar Creek, about 5 miles short of Oriental. 

As we approached we saw about 5 boats in the anchorage. It turned out to have plenty of room and we were able to drop the hook outside of all of them. 

We had a nice sunset over Oriental while we were anchored in Cedar Creek.

As it turned out we heard them talking on the radio the next day, and think they were all part of a club or at least sailing friends from the area.

We got up the next morning and decided to bypass Oriental. We were just about 5 miles from the Neuse River. We put up the genoa right after we left the anchorage and sailed for the next 4 hours with the motor off. It was one of the best parts of the entire trip. We were able to keep sailing as we turned to port and went up the Bay river. It was only when we turned to starboard up Gale creek that we had to furl the sail and start the motor. We cruised up the creek for about an hour and came to Eastham Creek. We carefully pulled in and dropped the hook in 7 feet of water. The wind was blowing about 15 knots, but it died down over night and we had a great night in Eastham Creek. We had one of the best dolphin shows we have had in a long time. There was a pod of about 10 dolphins that stayed around the boat for about 2 hours and did tail slaps and jumped clear of the water many times. I did get one tail slap on video that I will try to publish at some point. 

It always feels so good to get the sails up and shut the engine off.

Our view in Eastham Creek

We had a great dolphin show at Eastham Creek

And a beautiful sunset

I think that is enough for this entry. We had made it 150 miles since we left Carolina Beach. We now had about 150 miles left to get to the Chesapeake Bay, but we had one major obstacle left to overcome. The Albemarle Sound is a very open and shallow body of water that we will need to cross. We have heard horror stories about this body of water. In my next entry, I will tell you how we did.