punch island creek

Below is a satellite photo of Punch Island Creek, the northern most anchorage I mentioned yesterday as a possible stopping point on day 2. It looks like a nice wide creek with a couple of channels that run off to the shallows on the north side. I think I'll add this to our list of gps waypoints.

I felt like a federal parolee tonight as I clipped my SPOT satellite beacon on to my belt while running a few errands. Big Brother in the sky was following my moves. I wanted to make sure I had the profiles set right. I had to mess around with it a little but got it working. We'll put a link to the shared tracking page at the top of this blog next Thursday right before we leave on the trip.

Steve

the big broads

I spent some time early this morning printing out tide/current predictions for the Bay and looked at some possible anchorages. The first night we'll be at the Ewell Tide Inn on Smith Island. The second night we'll be anchoring out north of Smith Island somewhere along (at the southern end) Upper Hooper Island or (at the northern end) Taylors Island. I can see three possible anchorages.

Starting at the bottom X there is Barren Island just outside of Fishing Creek. Looks like nice protection but I would prefer to get beyond that point by the end of day two. Further north, past the shallows called the Barren Island Gap, is the interestingly named stretch of sand call The Big Broads. And at the top is Punch Island Creek. I've got to say I would really like to have either The Big Broads or Punch Island Creek as an anchorage in my log book.

From the chart books the water inside The Big Broads looks to be pretty shallow and there seems to be even less water over the Barren Island Gap. But I have sailed and anchored in similarly marked waters down at both Tangier and Great Fox Islands. Spartina needs just 18 inches of water or so to get a little bit of the cb and rudder down and she does just fine with that.
Here is the satellite photo of The Big Broads. The piers and boats along shore seem to indicate enough water to get in there and anchor. It does look to have good protection from all directions, plus that nice stretch of white beach might make for a nice evening stroll.

The entrance to Punch Island Creek does appear to be deeper and better marked, so that might well be where we drop anchor. We'll just have to see how far north the winds will carry us.
On the way from Smith Island to Taylors Island we'll sail about two miles off of the eastern shore and try to track these closely stacked contour lines. When the lines are that close together it indicates a nice drop-off, in this case one that goes from 28 feet to 112 feet in the width of a couple of hundred yards. My fishing friends tell me that is where we should be trolling for rockfish and blues. (As I said before, no fish will be harmed during this experiment.)

Steve

real men don't reef

Had a very nice day sail today on the Elizabeth River. Cool and breezy, it was cloudy in the morning. I guess I was getting to comfortable with rigging the boat - once out on the water I found I had made a couple of mistakes. To start off with I had switched the lines that run from the top of the mizzen to the mizzen lazy jacks (seen in the photo below). This meant I could not raise the mizzen through the crossed lines. So I had to unclip the lines and switch them. (I have lazy jacks on both the main and the mizzen, they really simplify handling the sails for the single-handed sailor.)

It was breezy enough that I decided to tuck in a reef at the ramp. (Real men don't reef, but smart ones do.) There I made my second mistake, putting the reefing hook in the grommet for the second set of reef points instead of first. So I had to take care of that also. Maybe I was enjoying life too much and not paying attention to the details.

No harm done, but it was a good reminder to double check the rigging before getting out on the water.

I also took along my gps, an old Garmin Etrex. I wanted to make sure I remembered how to set up the trip computer and tracking functions. Below is part of today's track imported into Google Earth. I sailed a little over 18 miles today, according to the computer, with a moving average of 3.7 knots. (Not bad. My typical moving average from cruises is usually 3.0 knots - though with the great wind on the Skeeter Beater we did 3.3 knots over the seven days).

We'll have Bruce's newer Garmin gps on the Crab House 150, it has the high resolution maps. Much nicer than the simple black and white charts on mine.
A lot of boats out on the water including a fleet of dinghies from Old Dominion University. It looked like they were having fun. They said on the Elizabeth River just east of where the Lafayette River joins the Elizabeth.
By late morning the clouds had moved on and I had sunny skies and a great breeze. You can see I still have the reef tucked in. Just about noon I shook out the reef and had a great sail back to downtown Norfolk
Less than two weeks before we leave on the Crab House 150.

steve

skipjacks!

Got a great tip and a question from Kevin B. of the navigator "Slip Jig" fame today. That is Slip Jig below. Beautiful boat, can't wait to see it at the Small Craft Festival.

Kevin's tip was that Dogwood Harbor, home of the iconic Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks, is within walking distance of where we will be staying on Tilghman Island. I have seen a couple of the beautiful boats, but only at museums. Apparently those at Dogwood Harbor are the last few of the working fleet. We will definitely make an effort to walk over and check them out.
The X at the upper left is where we plan to stay, the X at the lower right is Dogwood Harbor. Looks like a nice stroll before dinner. I can't wait.

Kevin's question was about tracking us. Yes, we will post our SPOT tracking page. A link to it will be on the blog at the upper right (I would like to add the tracking map directly to the blog but the technical issues are beyond me). I haven't set it up yet but it will most likely be an image of the orange SPOT satellite beacon. Click on it and it will take you to our tracking page. We are undecided about adding our "ok" messages to the blog. When we got back from the Skeeter Beater the blog looked pretty boring - lots of "ok" messages with links to maps. It seems like the tracking page would be more up to date and more interesting. I'll see what Bruce thinks.

I also got an offer of help (plus a cell phone number!) when we are in Rock Hall from Seth. Very nice of you Seth, thanks very much. We'll add your contact number to our cruise info. We'll look forward to seeing you at the festival, if not sooner.

Thanks Kevin and Seth, see you guys on the water.

Steve

details and a nice Pathfinder

Here is a nice photo I just received from my friend Tom W. A very nice Pathfinder, love those tan bark sails. Thanks for the photo, Tom.

Two weeks from tonight we'll be packing the boat and jeep so I've got to get to work on the details. I printed out google map screen shots of a few of the places we'll be visiting. With good charts and two gps's we'll certainly find the harbor or cuts. But these satellite photos will help us recognize marinas, breakwaters and shallows. I'll laminate them and have them in the aft cockpit for a quick reference as we come in to the harbors. I've never visited any of the places, our first view will be from water level.

That is Knapp's Narrows below, we'll be staying at the Tilghman Island Inn which (I think) is the first marina on the south side at the west end of the cut. We hope to be there by early afternoon. High tide is around noon. When the tide is running it can get up to 5 knots according to the people at the Inn. I would like to come in from the Chesapeake Bay side (at the left) before 1 or 1:30. If we come and go by the bay we won't have to deal with a bridge lift.

Below is Kent Narrows, again another spot where the tide moves pretty quickly. But if we time it right we'll arrive there from Rock Hall before the tide is moving too fast (but we will have to get a bridge life as we transit from north to south).
And that is Rock Hall. Our marina is the one just below the word "more". The hotel is right there and the crab house is just a block away. I can smell the crabs steaming right now.
I need to start checking batteries, remember how to work the SPOT (I love my SPOT, but they are not very intuitive so I need to relearn it for each cruise), check out the stove and start sorting clothes. The two weeks will go by quickly.

steve

sunday sail and gear test

I did well to ignore the weather forecast - winds 2 to 4 mph - and went for a fantastic sail today on the Elizabeth River. Wind was a very steady 10-12 out of the NE and I had a great reach down the river to the James River and back - about 20 some miles I expect. I had flown over the river last night (photo below) and it was very calm but decided to go sailing anyway as I wanted to find out how a few new pieces of gear fit on board.

That's the Elizabeth River below with the Norfolk Southern coal yards in the foreground. The James River can be seen in the upper right. Right across from the coal pier is Craney Island and Craney Island Creek (for history buffs that is where the ironclad Merrimack - known as the CSS Virginia to the confederacy - was beach and destroyed as the union forces moved up from the Outer Banks to retake Norfolk and Portsmouth. The battle between the Monitor and Merrimack occurred a few months earlier just a few miles to the west on the James River.).

I made a small change to Spartina, seen below. I added a couple of hammock hooks to bulkhead No. 1 up under the foredeck. The hooks will hold this mesh laundry bag which will hold a two gallon ziploc trash bag. I am always surpised about how much trash we generate on a cruise. Wrappers for breakfast bars, plastic cups from fruit cups, aluminum tuna fish cans, baggies from trail mix, etc. It really adds up. We keep a one gallon ziplock bag in the cockpit for our daily trash. We'll compress that bag each evening and stow it in the two gallon bag stored in the mesh bag below.
Below are the two 4 liter bags that will hold our survival kits I mentioned in the lifeboat post. They are hooked on a bungee cord that runs below the deck and behind the coaming on the port side of the aft cockpit. We'll figure out what goes in the bags once Bruce arrives in town.
And that is the new Pelican camera box. The idea for the box comes from day four of our last trip. It was a very wet day with lots of spray coming over the bow. At one point we looked down to see the bag containing Bruce's camera and lenses sloshing around in a few inches of water. Not good. The gear did fine that day, but we decided that a Pelican case - both waterproof and shock resistant - would be a good investment. It will hold one camera body and two lenses.
So I had these pieces of gear on board today just to make sure they fit and did not get in the way. I've marked in red the new pieces of gear, plus an extra long docking line we've added, on the packing layout below.

Everything seems to fit just fine. I do think we are approaching full capacity for Spartina. The boat is living up to John Welsford's goal - enough room for two people and supplies for two weeks. We can easily do that. But in the future when we decide to add another piece of gear we'll need to decide what other piece of gear needs to be left behind. That's ok by me, no need to carry anything more what is needed to be safe and comfortable.

Steve

the inner islands

As I was writing the post below I went to SandyBottom's blog to get her link and came across her post of "the inner islands, A Carolinian's Sound Country Chronicle" by Bland Simpson. Wow, what a great book that has to be.

Here is Amazon's description....

Blending history, oral history, autobiography, and travel narrative, Bland Simpson explores the geography and biodiversity of the islands that lie in eastern North Carolina's sounds, rivers, and swamps. The fifth in a series of books by Simpson examining the natural and human history of the region, The Inner Islands presents Simpson's signature reportage on territory often bypassed by tourists and scholars alike.

I don't think you can go wrong with chapters titled The View from Bird Shoal, A Rose for Roanoke, The Purchace Iles and The Defense of Huggins Island. I've have the pleasure of visiting and sailing near some of the place mentioned in "the inner islands", but I know they will have an entirely new feel once I have read this book.

Thanks, SandyBottom, for the tip.

Steve

nc challenge tune-up

Here is a very nice report from Paul Stewart, also known as Dances with SandyBottom, about a scouting trip for the Watertribe NC Challenge that he and his son Alan (in the bottom photo) made aboard their Core Sound 20 "Dawn Patrol."

They covered 65 miles out of the 100 mile NC Challenge course. They also got some unexpected practice righting a capsized boat when an gust of wind caught them in a deep trough and put the boat over on its side. Paul's report is worth reading just for the detailed description of the recovery. Impressively, they were back under sail in 20 minutes.
I have not met Paul or his wife SandyBottom in person, but I've exchanged emails with both over the last several months. They take a very methodical approach to their journeys. I've learned a lot of lessons from them both. I do look forward to meeting them out on the water someday.

steve

tidal flow

A buddy told me about a great new website for tides predictions. It is called ProTides. The cool thing about it is that you can search location by name or, better yet, by Google maps. Below is a screen shot for their tide location predictions for a section of the Chesapeake Bay. You can see their Maryland map here.

They have 27 maps for coastal states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico. I'll be mostly interested in their Maryland map for this upcoming trip (it has tide locations for Smith Island, Kent Narrows and Tilghman Island - perfect!). But I'll also be using their Virginia and North Carolina maps on future trips. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to use their Florida and Texas pages.

Pick out your location on the map, click it and you'll get a calendar like the one below. You can see they have tides, moon and sun information all right there.

Click on a specific day and you'll get the information in both graphic and tabular forms.
It is amazing what can be found on the web for free.

steve

fishing (*see note below)

Cool and dry today, made me think of fall. And thinking of fall made me think of fishing so I decided to rig some lures for The Crab House 150. Fishing will be a little different from the last couple of trips. In the sounds of North Carolina we typically cast small lures around the marshes in search of speckled trout or puppy drum. On the bay we'll be trolling out in the deep water from rockfish (also known as striper).

We'll be using a couple of lures on each rig along with a three way swivel. The larger lure (six ounces), with a soft rubber "grub" and a skirt works as both a lure and a weight to keep the rig down in the way (When fishing in the deep water and strong currents at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay that larger lure can weigh up to 20 ounces and is often called a "mojo.") The second, smaller lure weighing only 1/4 ounce, will trail behind the larger lure. For line we'll be using braid as opposed to the more common monofilament fishing line. Braid has less drag, cuts through the water easier and allows the lures to sink deeper. (If we were really serious we would be using "wire" instead of line. Wire cuts through the water better than anything, but it requires a rod with a roller tip and that gets expensive.)

I've checked the regulations. Bruce will need to get an out of state short term license for Maryland water. My Virginia license will work for me, I'm told (but need to confirm) that Virginia and Maryland recognize each other's license.
We'll be looking for rock that are 18 to 28 inches long, just one should make a nice meal for the two of us. If we hook anything bigger, like the one above, we'll probably let it go. But who knows.

steve

(*Note - Past experience indicates no fish will be injured during this experiment.)