PETE GOSS SAILS USA
Cruising the Intracoastal Waterway provides plenty of challenges for Pete Goss as he continues his voyage to the Bahamas on his Garcia Exploration 45
Exploring the Eastern Seaboard en route to the Bahamas
We are on the Intracoastal Waterway as Tracey and I make passage from Annapolis to the Bahamas. It’s an amazing piece of engineering stretching 2,590 miles (4,800km) from Boston to Texas. It provides a protected maritime artery and has many guises as it seeks a path of least resistance, utilising rivers and protected bays where it can. At other times engineers have cleaved their way through a variety of geographical barriers. Being American it’s unlike the tiny capillaries we call canals: this artery can carry large ships.
For all its mighty scale, it is still subservient to Mother Nature and so we find ourselves on a pontoon in front of the South Carolina’s Socastee Bridge. Our Garcia Exploration 45, Pearl of Penzance, is going nowhere for this artery is well and truly blocked by flood water that meanders its way to the coast from well inland. Being so flat there isn’t the positive force of gravity that rushes water through our Cornish hills of home. This is a ponderous and unpredictable force, so we could be here for a while.
The first inkling that things were untoward was Pearl’s ‘haircut’, despite a falling tide, from the previous bridge. Half an hour later the Socastee Bridge offered 62ft of clearance and the most fervent will in the world wasn’t going to magic our 63ft 7in under it. We mooch back up the canal and local resident Tim loans us his floating pontoon. He is still sorting out damage from Hurricane Florence after the flood waters rose, to devastating effect, 10 days after the storm.
When faced with a practical problem I often start by wondering what the Egyptians would do, as they were both ingenious and indomitable. We need to heel the good ship Pearl and after sleeping on the idea I draw a schoolboy scale drawing which shows that we need 12.5° to get to 62ft and 17° to 61ft. The diagram is inverted, levelled and a string pendulum turns it into an inclinometer that will show our mast height.
Using these calculations, we fill the dinghy with water and hoist it off the spinnaker pole. Pearl, bless her heart, turns out to be a stubborn old maid and once she dips her haunch in the water that’s it. Form stability goes through the roof and she is having none of it. Out goes the boom; another dinghy is added with two people including outboards. A fun morning is had but we are no further forwards. It ends up being a week before the water levels drop enough so we can continue on to Georgetown.
Pearl had been on display at the Annapolis Boat Show prior to our continued journey south. Our voyage to the show led us to discover an amazing
Pearl of Penzance is going nowhere, for this artery is well and truly blocked by flood water
phenomenon: the migration south of hundreds of vessels for the winter. As a boy, I was fascinated by stories of cowboys and well remember reading about hunting during the bison migration. Something, sadly, I will never see. The first inkling of this new migration is the massing of boats in Chesapeake Bay; every creek seems to have a skipper sniffing the air, searching for the courage to break. Skittish at anchor, deeply and inexplicably agitated as the push of winter starts to overwhelm the fear of a late hurricane.
It seems as if the Annapolis Boat Show holds the herd instinct in check. Pearl is on show and Tracey and I have a great time chatting to every hue of ambition. It’s lovely to share what we have learned during our first year of cruising. The show is over, the lifting strops tighten and Pearl becomes still as her freedom is lost to the hoist; it’s as if her soul has been earthed. Something is lost when a boat is put ashore — it becomes inanimate, a piece of equipment. As sad as it is to see, it’s also a relief as we are leaving Pearl for two weeks. I have some work in Europe and Pearl needs antifouling, new anodes, extra solar panels and a windsurfer rack. We return to a vacuum. The herd has vanished and with good reason. In two weeks it has plunged from summer to winter and so, wrapped in full thermals, hats and gloves, we are hurled down Chesapeake Bay before a freezing 30 knots. It’s liberating to be on the move in clear, crisp conditions as the time has come to graze in the restorative waters of the Bahamas.
Norfolk proves to be our favourite watering hole for we have our first taste of what an amazingly generous network the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) has become. Port Officers Gary and Greta, with thousands of miles under their belt, live in a block of apartments with its own marina. For a bottle of wine, you can use an empty berth. We stay for a few days to draw breath, stock up and meet other OCC members.
DWARFED BY DWIGHT
It is time to go and in the morning rush I top up the port diesel tank with water. Still, with Pearl it’s simply a case of isolating the tank and allocating it to the job list; we can’t delay. For all the rush, our departure is held up by the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower as she makes her ponderous way to sea. Like an island she dwarfs all, the spectacle of a super power on the move neuters any frustration.
Compared to grinding our way round North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras, our ‘Alice in Wonderland’ dive into the Intracoastal Waterway gifts us many pleasures. A rare low bridge diverts us into the Pamlico Sound, a bird sanctuary with squadrons of pelican skimming the water. They say there are two types of
boaters here: those that are aground and those that are going to go aground.
We break out of the Intracoastal Waterway, expand our horizons and fill our lungs with good clean Atlantic air. Our morning is spent on the foredeck revelling in the company of speckled dolphins. It comes at a price though, for isobars compress beyond what was forecast and at dusk it starts to blow. It’s a moonless night that’s as black as pitch. Steep breaking waves stand up in the shallow waters.
A northerly current, spun off the Gulf Stream, adds to the confusion. We reef our way into what has become a freezing night of the long knives and steel ourselves for dawn.
The sun doesn’t bring warmth but it illuminates an impressive seaway. We are seeing a sustained 36 knots and have reduced sail to three reefs and a heavily furled headsail. The centreboard is up, which cuts the tendency for Pearl to be tripped on the steep waves, and moving the centre of lateral resistance aft steadies her course. I am loving it and Pearl is proving to be the most amazing sea boat. I hang up my foulies, relax at the chart table with cuppa in hand, and watch angry waves break across the bow from the pilothouse.
We are pushing hard for we have a Christmas deadline with our youngest in Nassau. One night off in St Augustine, Florida and we’re back at it wondering if the cold weather will ever change. Six hours later a switch is flicked, shorts are shaken out, the bimini is up, the sea is light blue with flying fish transcending barnacle encrusted turtles. A weight is lifted, the heavy work is done; with a sunny smile the magic of Florida rebuffs the menacing winds of the north. We settle into another night at sea.
Miami is a shocker; navigation lights are lost to a garish nightlife as we dodge tugs, cruise liners and container ships in this busy commercial port. Exhausted, we pull up the centreboard and sneak into the safety of the shallows to drop the hook.
It feels like the English Channel on a brisk day with spring tides: treat it with respect but don’t be intimidated
The weather gods, with no time for weariness, throw us a bone. There is a last-ditch Christmas window to cross the Gulf Stream, with only a day to prepare with refuelling, a huge shop, laundry and a much-needed trip to a chandlery.
If there is ever a time to cut a vessel from the migratory herd, it is as they mass in Florida, searching for the courage to take on the predatory Gulf Stream. We rattle across in 25-30 knots from the south-west and it feels like the English Channel on a brisk day with spring tides: treat it with respect but don’t be intimidated.
If the Bahamas can be described as pastures anew then there is plenty for the herd to graze. There are popular watering holes but 700 cays spread over 100,000 square miles absorb the mass. We are charmed by the beguiling character and beauty of The Exumas. They even gift me the fabled green flash, which I had come to doubt.
In 15 months, we have sailed more than 10,000 miles two-handed, crossed the Atlantic, explored the top of the Caribbean, the Bahamas and the east coast up as far as Nantucket. It’s been fantastic but the time has come to chew the cud, reflect and relax until the hurricane season drives us north again, this time with Maine, Nova Scotia and perhaps Newfoundland in our sights.