Going Off: Intracoastal Waterway vs. Offshore Passage

Howdy everybody,
It's that time of year again. Everybody's stocking their boats up and getting ready to head south. There's just one question, do you do the ICW or do you bite the bullet and go offshore. Here's my take on the issue. As usual, it's completely unbiased.

I’ve decided to come out of the closet. I’m stepping forward and declaring my true feelings. I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. I’m a little nervous but I am unashamed for I know there are others like me out there. I know this because they’ve told me. Muttered under the breath confidences while surrounded by “normal” sailors. Somebody has to be the first to make the admission, so here I go.

“I hate offshore passages…..especially offshore passages at night.”

Already I hear the collective horrified gasps of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” sailing community.

“Infidel!”

“Perversion of sailing nature!”

I know. I know. Believe me I’ve suffered a guilt complex for years. It took forever for me to admit even to myself. Years of doing it but never really liking it.

So what is a sailboat’s first mate of a different persuasion to do? Well, for the last three years the cap’n and I have been fortunate enough to sail the eastern coast where there is a very handy solution to this problem. It’s called the Intracoastal Waterway. It has great scenery and the social possibilities abound with its parade of sun seeking boats. There are great places to dock or anchor. The best part is if you get into trouble you can pull in somewhere without having to call the coast guard to come out and get you. As a matter of fact, I feel it’s downright unpatriotic not to use the ICW. It took a lot of men a lot of years to dig this ditch for us. I guess somebody else didn’t like offshore passages either. We owe it to them to use it as often as we can.

So what’s the problem?

The cap’n hates it!

Okay, I admit it does get a little skinny here and there and it’s a little humiliating to have all your new friends hearing you hail Sea Tow on the VHF. These are probably the same friends you spent the night before espousing sailing wisdom to. But it’s only mud and as they say on the ICW and just about every other body of water, “If you haven’t run aground you’re either lying or you never left the dock.”

“I just can’t relax if I have to watch the depth gauge all the time,” the cap’n whines.

Relax? Oh yeah. Let me describe a relaxing overnight passage we did across the Chesapeake to Norfolk, VA. Yeah, I know it’s not offshore but it was doing a damn good impersonation that night. A fluke of nature? I don’t think so since it repeated itself a few days later on a true offshore from Wrightsville Beach to Charleston. All of you of the offshore persuasion can read on and reminisce.

It was a beautiful, clear starlit night. There was no wind, of course, and NOAA was predicting waves of one foot. We all know NOAA has a tendency to lie. The cap’n defended NOAA. He says the waves really were 1 foot or less it was the swells that were seven to ten feet. So it was just like one of those wonderful offshore nights. You know one of those nights where it feels like some demonic grandmother has lifted you up and is rocking you madly to and fro until you throw up. You dutifully pull your watch but even when you’re off watch there is no rest for the weary. Instead it seems you’re at the hands of some amateur magician who keeps levitating you of your bunk just to drop you a few seconds later. And he just won’t give up, he keeps trying over and over and over again. Of course, your stomach is levitating and dropping right along with your tired body.

So let’s compare. The previous described relaxation versus going aground in soft mud and sitting back and tossing back some cold ones until Sea Tow comes to rescue you. Seems like a no brainer to me.

The cap’n won’t give up.

“It saves time,” he argues.

That’s a good argument but consider the following scenario. The story you are about to hear is true and not even the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

See the cap’n and I and our friends, Larry and Joan, at Point A discussing our sail plans over sundowners. The cap’n is adamant and a bit superior in his plans to go offshore to Point B. Larry and Joan demurely state that they have decided to do the ditch. See Mary (me) look enviously at Larry and Joan.

The next morning:

See the cap’n and I wave regretfully at our friends as they head down the ditch and we head out the inlet. It will probably be awhile before we meet up since we’ll be so far ahead of them.

Two days after departure:

See the cap’n and I drop the anchor at Point B. We are so exhausted we barely make it to the bunk before we crash. We sleep the whole day away.

Three days after departure:

See Joan and Larry wave gaily as they anchor next to us at Point B. See the cap’n scrubbing saltwater stalagmites that have formed over all outside, and some inside, surfaces. See me resecuring and restowing escaped stuff in preparation for our next relaxing offshore leg.

See Larry and Joan get into their dinghy to go explore town and get a bite to eat. Our dinghy is deflated and secured.

See Joan smile happily at Larry.

See me shoot daggers through my eyes at the cap’n.

The next morning:

See Larry and Joan heading back down the ditch.

See the cap’n and I following right behind them.

THE END!


38 days 'til back on the boat

By the way GW is getting pretty lonely down there as my only other first mate and I'm getting my feelings, but hey, it's not all about me, wait a minute, I guess it is since I haven't heard from the rest of you. You know being Catholic, I've got plenty of guilt to spread around.

Hitting Rock Bottom

They always say the first step toward recovery is admission. We made our own painful admission in one of those all too common, smoke filled rooms where lost souls gather for comfort and that shaky support that helps people like us to keep going in the face of momentous adversity. We sat uneasily in a darkened corner of the room, interlopers amidst the familiar crowd. Finally someone spied our shrinking forms in the gloom and started toward us. As he neared and glimpsed our ravished faces his eyes widened in sympathy.

“What the hell happened to you?” he roared.

The room quieted and all eyes riveted to us. Next to me, the captain cleared his throat and muttered, almost inaudibly, “We, uh, hit a reef.”

A murmur rushed through the room. Arms were thrown about our shoulders, beers were thrust into our clammy hands, and we were welcomed into the fold. The meeting place was a funky little bar called “Coconuts” in St. Thomas and the injurious reef will remain anonymous since we don’t know the statute of limitations after hitting a reef. With the captain sprouting two fresh black eyes and me, the first mate, sporting a sutured hole in my bottom lip (before the stitch job, the captain observed that I was the only woman he knew that could close her mouth, pinch her nose, and still breathe) we spent the evening being regaled by stories and stories of boat mishaps. Each story grew in grandiose stupidity. That was our first bare boat charter. You people who consider putting your boat in charter, remember this. I wish I could say we’ve never run aground again but we continue our active membership in the “Bottom Dwellers Anonymous Club”. Luckily since the reef incident our groundings have been on friendlier bottoms in our own boat and none have required trips to the boat yard or emergency room. We even have our favorites! Lets see…..

There was the time we were headed out of the Chesapeake City anchorage. Concerned about the current pushing us starboard, we fought to stay in the middle of the channel when you could say we found “higher ground”. After several attempts to get off this mass of earth smack dab in the middle of the channel, we decided to kick back and have a couple of cold ones and wait for the tide to rise. Hey, why didn’t we think of that before we pulled up anchor? Since we were the morning’s source of entertainment for fellow boaters and the patrons of the restaurant off our stern, we decided to partake in some of our own side-poking. We especially enjoyed the smaller powerboats that would buzz by us in the channel, slow down and quizzically circle the boat and then question the obvious.

“Are you guys aground?”

“Nah”, we replied, “We just got tired and thought we’d stop and have a beer”.

That was about 10:00 a.m. and three hours later the tide finally lifted us off and on our way.
And then there was the time coming out of Annapolis. It was a gorgeous late September day when we left our dink tied to the mooring and headed out with two non-sailing guests for an afternoon of sun and sail. Shanna and Danny from our land locked hometown back in Kansas. had come out to visit us and see what a bay looked like. The captain was at the helm (although the captain disputes this, claiming our friend Shanna was at the helm, but that’s not the way the rest of us remember it). I was assisting Danny in raising the main and putting out the headsail. The wind was light. The bow dipped then rose to crest the foam and then…..
“Oh, sh--!” was heard from the cockpit (this indisputably from the captain) as the boat came to a graceful stop. Once again our fellow boaters displayed an uncanny grasp of the obvious. Most astute was the captain of the water taxi who helpfully told us,

“If you all get on the other side of that big white marker (obnoxiously noticeable off our port bow), you’ll be fine.”

Apparently he was not observant enough to notice we were not moving. Tow-Boat US to the rescue. Thank God we had the insurance!

Our latest mishap happened right south of the Carolina Beach Bridge. We were following a boat that we had noticed bumping bottom several times in the course of the morning trip down the ICW. Yep, that’s right we were knowingly following this boat. Now there could be several explanations for this: (A) We thought they might dredge a channel for us, (B) The Pied Piper Syndrome, where we are inexplicably drawn to one of “us”, and imminent peril, or (C) sheer stupidity. Luckily, we had sort of planned on another “occurrence” and had arranged for alternate means of rescue. Obviously we’d had this kind of trouble before. This time we had our own personal towboat following a few miles behind us. Tow- Boat “Next”, a 40 foot Sea Ray and her crew John and Justine, had befriended us months before in Block Island and had served on and off as our “scout” and rescue boat since. We highly recommend this arrangement. Once again, we provided entertainment for the passing rubberneckers.

In closing, I’d like to offer a bit of advice. Next time you’re chuckling at another boater’s misfortune remember, “There but for the grace of God, goes you”. And for all of you thinking it was sheer stupidity that landed us in the last predicament, believe me there were plenty of “followers” that we had to frantically direct to the real channel instead of the one we had just made. I won’t mention their names since anonymity is a right of the members of this non-exclusive club.

Our numbers are great and growing all the time. Just remember, we’re your neighbors at the dock, we’re the couple you met in the laundromat, we’re the boat you’re following right now…..Oh, Sh--!!!