the inner banks on $8 a day

I did some shopping for the spring walkabout today at my favorite expedition stores - Wal-Mart and Target.  Above are the lunches.  Bruce and I have had the tuna salad with crackers for years now.  Today I decided to try the ham and chicken salads.

Breakfast will be Oats 'n Honey granola bars from Nature Valley

The main course for dinner will be SPAM single servings or salmon.

I picked up a Simply Asia meal (sesame teriyaki - noodles, sauce and sesame seeds, just add meat, fish or shrimp), plus some Couscous for another night.  Why I haven't used Couscous before I don't know.  I enjoy it, it is simple to fix (boil water, add Couscous, wait five minutes), it is healthy and goes with just about anything.  So I'll give it a shot.

Plus anchovies and smoked oysters, either an appetizer for part of a last night of the cruise ritual which you can read about here and here.

 A dozen cups of fruit - tropical fruit, mandarin oranges and cherry fruit mix - I have one with breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Plus crackers to go with lunch and as an afternoon snack.

It all comes to about $40, eight bucks a day for five days on the water.  Plus I got a few other things, including Gulp bait, below, two gallon freezer bags (great for food, clothes and eventually as a trash bags) and some chemicals for the porta-potti.  

I figure eight bucks a day is a pretty good deal for relaxing on the water and enjoying life.

steve

striper tacos....

grilled striper
striper etouffe

striper po' boys

blackened striper
grilled striper salad

striper with mango salsa
baked striper with parmesan

striper fingers dredged in panko

striper served with that baydog oyster sauce

Just trying to figure out how to enjoy, along with my six fishing buddies, the catch from Sunday morning.

steve

it's like putting a puzzle together

The fun, at least to me, of planning a trip is putting all the little pieces together.  A good ramp where you can leave the car and trailer, a few good anchorages spaced out along the route, a place to get fuel and resupply, a hotel somewhere along the way and maybe even a good meal at a restaurant.

I emailed The Whitehaven Hotel today asking about the chances of getting a room without a reservation mid-week in May.  No problem, they said.  And how about a restaurant within walking distance.  No, but the not too far away restaurant The Red Roost will pick us up and drive us there for dinner.  Pretty cool.

One more piece of the puzzle in place.  I can taste the fresh steamed crabs already.

steve

let the buying begin

I've started dropping an extra item or two into the grocery cart each week when I'm out shopping.  I my budget works best when I spend five bucks each week late winter and early spring to buy supplies piece meal.  I seems less noticeable than when buying all the food, supplies, batteries, etc at once.  Same amount of money either way, but this works well for me.

Below you'll see a McCormick Steakhouse Seasoning grinder.  It has a few different kinds of peppercorns, sea salt, garlic and dried pepper in there.  Seems like all that, freshly ground, would go with just about anything.  And next to it are a batch of two-gallon size freezer bags.  I find the two-gallon size to be the most practical for boat storage.  They work great for food, charts, clothes and eventually trash storage.

And below are granola bars and instant mashed potatoes.  Granola bars are part of our standard breakfasts on Spartina, along with a cup of fruit. (Breakfast is not a big deal on the boat, we'll eat while we are cleaning up and packing the night gear away.)  And you can get a good side dish with the instant mashed potatoes in just about the time it takes to boil a couple cups of water.  A nice thing about the packets of mashed potatoes is that they will keep throughout the year.  They would work fine on any of the four trips I hope to make between Spring and Fall.

I'll buy a little bit of the food/supplies each week through March or so.  In April I'll start buy the cups of fruit and crackers.  Then in May I'll look at getting the fresh foods that we bring on board.  We'll have to wait and see what will be on the menu.  In the past Bruce has worked during the off-season to come up with new menu items.  On the Skeeter Beater Bruce made pork with garlic/shallot/white wine sauce, on the Crab House 150 he made kung pao chicken, and on the Tag Team he came up with (one of his best ever!) shrimp tacos with black beans and guacamole.  

One thing I will need to buy this soon are new trailer lights.  I got about five years out of this set, a "sealed" light with a dozen l.e.d. lights inside.  On one side just three bulbs are lit, five on the other.  I took one apart today to find that the salt water had eating through the plastic coating over the bulbs.  I think they are still legal, but barely.  I'll shop around and see what I can find.

I meant to say more about Curt's very nice Drascombe Coaster "Annie" yesterday but got sidetracked.  Here is a nice set of photographs of Annie both under construction and on the water.  And here are some specs and links for the design.  A very nice boat, perfect for coastal cruising.  And that's a great hull color on Annie.

steve

bon appétit

It will be served with wide egg noodles, a little butter and lemon sauce and frico.   Come on by!

steve

the protein factory

Whenever I have oysters.....

or bluefish

or rockfish

or crabs for dinner...

I can't help but think of the quote from H. L. Mencken.....


"Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely."


The bay has been struggling for years.  It won't ever be the protein factory it once was, but let's hope it is at least on the mend.


Thanks again for the oyster recipe Baydog.


steve

Day Three

I started out the next morning by almost falling off my boat. I was up at dawn with Dawn Patrol anchored 50 or 60 yards away. I packed up the sleeping gear - sleeping bag, bivy, pad - and configured Spartina for sailing. I then went on the foredeck to bring down the anchor light that was hanging on the jib sheet about five feet above the bow sprit. Returning to the cockpit I reminded myself to turn off the light. As I looked down for the button on the light I stepped with my right foot on the curved, dew covered foredeck. And out went my foot from under me. My right knee caught on the base of the port shroud, my left arm hooked the main mast. My left foot dangled in the water.

No harm, no foul I figured. And the Dawn Patrol crew claimed (pretended?) not to notice.

I got out on Jones Bay and tacked back and forth in a nice breeze. Dawn Patrol joined me a few minutes later and we headed downwind towards Pamlico Sound.

Sailing downwind can be, at least to me, deceptive. I'm thinking "this is great" bounding along at 5 or 6 knots with the wind on the stern. Down near the mouth of the bay I look back to see Dawn Patrol tucking a reef in. I kept on for a while then rounded up to wait for them. It was only when I turned back up into the wind that I felt how hard it was really blowing. So I tucked in a reef and sailed back to Dawn Patrol. Waves and wind and spray, the wind was even stronger than I first realized. So I tucked in a second reef. And by the time I reached them I had dropped the main altogether, sailing comfortably under mizzen and jib. Paul and Dawn had tucked reefs into both their sails I noticed as we turned back downwind.

We rounded Sow Island Point together then Dawn Patrol pulled ahead as we crossed the mouth of Middle Bay. It was a wet and windy ride. My notes show a gps reading of 4.4 knots into the chop. Dawn later told me she saw the bow of Spartina coming out of the water. The waves seem to come in groups of three, it was the second or third wave that would launch the boat up in the air. But we made good progress across the bay and then past Middle Bay Point. Paul tacked into Big Porpoise Bay and I followed. A couple of tacks across the bay and I watched them sail towards the marsh and the hull of Dawn Patrol disappeared in the marsh grass. I followed until I saw a creek opening, eventually tacking up alongside the anchored Dawn patrol. It was time for a break.

I think we were all wet and chilly after that rough morning sail. We hung up some of the gear to dry, had lunch and just relaxed in the warm sunshine. Above you see Paul and Dawn in the roomy cockpit of Dawn Patrol.

Dawn and I looked over the charts for Mouse Harbor and talked about anchoring that afternoon in Long Creek in the very northwest corner of the harbor. So soon it was time to put the foul weather gear back on, raise the anchors and head north.

Leaving Big Porpoise Bay I decided to sail with mizzen, jib and the double reefed main. That turned out to be the perfect sail combination for the weather that day. I picked up speed and pounded into the chop, heading north with a strong wind out of the northwest. We sailed out in Pamlico Sound past Little Porpoise Bay and Sound Point. This time I was ahead of Dawn Patrol and could look back to see their bow, all the way back to the aft part of the boat's cabin, leaping out of the water. It was a fantastic sight.

Sailing into the wind felt so good that I wondered what it would be like spending the rest of the afternoon sailing all the way north to Swan Quarter or Wyesocking Bay. But that wasn't in the plan so I tacked west into Mouse Harbor and worked my way up into the farthest reach of Long Creek. Not too much later Dawn Patrol came into the creek and rafted up alongside. The wind was still cooking and we noticed that the two boats were starting to drag my anchor so Paul lowered his anchor too.

It was just mid-afternoon when we dropped anchor. Plenty of time to clean up the boats, dry out the gear and relax. Dawn broke out some some toasted bread and soft cheese, I got out the crackers and oysters, and then Dawn brought out a small box of wine. It was a very nice afternoon, relaxing and talking and enjoying good company.

Eventually dinner time rolled around, Dawn prepared pasta with clam sauce, above, and I used dough for crescent rolls to grill some parmesan bread on the griddle.

A great meal, washed down with a little red wine.

As the evening went on it began to get cool and dark. I took the photo below of my sailing companions as the sun got low on the horizon.

Then Dawn Patrol lifted anchor and they drifted down the creek to set up for the night.

steve

saturday sail/what's a schlunk?

Getting close to the last day of sailing here in the Mid-Atlantic so it was a joy to rig Spartina at the ramp. Pretty chilly out to start the day and not much of a breeze, but it turned out to be a beautiful day.

I've got a lot of work to do on the boat this winter. A lot of day sailing plus 20 days of cruising where we've sailing almost 600 miles. That's a lot of wear and tear on a wooden boat. Sanding, painting will keep me busy this winter.

Not a cloud in the sky, crip early morning light cast a shadow from the mizzen onto the main as I entered the main branch of the Elizabeth River.

It was peak season for the snowbirds, about 20 boats anchored in Crawford Bay and lots of other boats passing through on their way south. These folks on a catamaran called "Peace" seemed to be at peace, they had to be the happiest folks I've seen in a while. Smiles, waves, shouts and thumbs-up. They were loving life.

And the biggest boat in the harbor was the Carnival Glory. Conga music all day long for us on the river. The party-goers are probably well offshore by now.

And this nice yawl from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Do you recognize her, Perry?

After five hours on the water I was heading in when the American Rover passed by, a wedding on board. Caught a glimpse of the beautiful bride. She was too busy to notice us, but the wedding photographer grabbed a couple of photos of Spartina.

Sailing was fantastic, but the highlight of the day was the oyster dish from Baydog's recipe. That is one of the wild Lynnhaven River oysters above. And the final product below. Great stuff. As my wife said, a nice smoky, creamy dinner with the shitake mushrooms blending with the oysters. I served it over a bed of wild rice with some toasted french loaf with garlic/butter/parmesan cheese on top. It was one of those great recipes with no measurements, just words like schlunk here and there. But it all worked out great. Baydog I owe you one (One what? That is to be determined).

All in all, a great saturday.

steve

oysters

It's October, a month with an "r" in it. Must be oyster season. I hear now that the "r" thing doesn't really mean much anymore, you can get good oysters anytime of the year.

I'm going daysailing tomorrow - forecast of sunny, 72 degrees, light winds out of the sw - and when I get home I'm going to try and make a, for lack of a better name, "shellfish guy oysters."

That's a recipe from BayDog, publisher of the blog 829 SouthDrive. (Check out the recipes he has on there today for boneless pork loin chops, green beans, tomato/green pepper/onion salad and acorn squash. Sounds like a perfect fall meal. Almost as perfect as oysters.)

I ran to Uncle Chucks Seafood and Produce at the Virginia Beach Farmer's Market. The place is not much more than a shed with stacks and stacks of coolers, and just about any local seafood (and some not so local) that you can imagine. Today he had only six kinds of oysters. "Come back tomorrow" he said "and I'll have eight different kinds." Plus scallops, crabs, conch, shrimp....the list goes on and on. (Technically, the oysters are all the same species, but the environment - bayside, oceanside, creeks, etc - tend to produce variations in size and taste.)

I got a handful of Wild Lynnhaven River oysters, above. Just huge. Lynnhaven oysters were noted back in colonial times for their size. They were shipped back to England on ice, plate-sized the story goes. The river, and oysters, went through rough times in the 60's through the 80's. But it is on the rebound. And a few years ago they found that some of the original oyster stock had survived. The largest one there in the photo is just shy of 5 and 1/2 inches long. So I can believe the stories of plate-sized oysters.

And I got a pint of shucked oysters too, from Salt Works Oysters in Franktown, VA on the eastern shore. These are grown in Nassawadox Creek, mostly likely farmed in steel cages that are set a foot off the creek bottom. This new farming technique does a couple of things. It produces good (no, not good, great!), evenly sized and shaped oysters AND filters the water in the river. I don't have the specific numbers, but I've heard a typical oyster farm filters millions of cubic feet of water each day. And I've seen those cages when they've been pulled from the river, full of oysters and crabs, fish, eels and just about anything else that lives in a healthy river on the Chesapeake Bay. Those creek bottoms had been scoured clean by decades of oystering, this give the creek a chance to rebuild a healthy environment.

A fall day, blue skies, wind out of the southwest, sailing and then oysters with, as BayDog instructed, a nice bottle of wine. I can't wait.

steve

Day Seven - Smith Island

Another clear morning, headed east out of the creek under full sail at sunrise. The wind was forecast to be light out of the north in the morning, switching to southwest in the afternoon.

At the south end of South Marsh Island I turned southwest into Kedges Straits, the water that separates South Marsh Island from Smith Island. I photographed Solomons Lump Light, which dates back to 1895. You can see that the light tower sits off the to the side of the brick platform. A lightkeepers house once stood on that open space, but was removed when the light became automated in the 1950's.

Watching my position in relation to the light showed that I was moving east back into Tangier Sound. The wind was dropping and the incoming tide was carrying Spartina sideways (from my experience tide is much more a factor in Chesapeake Bay than in the Sounds of North Carolina). I started up the outboard and motorsailed through the straits and down the western edges of the Martin National Wildlife Refuge, the northern end of Smith Island. The wind picked up as I sailed past the jetties that are the western entrance to Ewell. Bruce and I had sailed out of those jetties a year earlier.

Sailing in the shallows on the western side of Smith Island I got an education in local navigation. I was looking for Sheep Pen Gut near the community of Rhodes Point to cut across the lower portion of Smith Island to Tylerton. My chart showed a marker southwest of the gut with a channel 50 feet wide by 5 and 1/2 deep. The word "gut" should have told me something. It didn't say creek or channel or river. It said gut. I've heard that term a lot on Tangier and other places on the eastern shore. I've seen it used for everything from a 20 yard wide channel to a tiny opening barely wide enough for a kayak. (I think - but don't know for a fact - that the term gut comes from the dutch word "gat" which means hole or opening).

So I looked for a nice channel with a marker and didn't see it, sailed right by Rhodes Point (I could see the houses behind the marsh) and realized I must have passed the gut. So I turned back north over the shallows toward the north end of Rhodes Point. I saw a small skiff rushing right along the marsh headed south. I guess it must have been heading for the gut. I looked over the side to check my depth and when I looked back up the skiff was gone. I didn't see where it went but figured it had to have slipped into the gut.

I headed out into deeper water, went north a bit and then came south along the marsh until I saw the small opening angled from northwest to southest, the marsh in front and behind overlapping so it was hard to see from off the shore. As I got close I saw that it was in fact marked - but only by three small tree limbs stuck out in the water.

If you look at the satellite photo of Smith Island above you'll see Spartina's path, in blue. What I came to realize was the only waterway connecting the villages with the standard 15 foot tall red and green markers is drawn in white and red. That is The Thorofare. There are dozens of creeks and guts in and around the island, but the only well marked passage is The Thorofare. All the others are marked by sticks, pipes, pvc or whatever was handy to the waterman at the right time.

Below you'll see a typical channel marker for Smith Island. They are there for the local watermen who know what the markers mean, which side to pass them on and what tides are good for the channels. For non-locals like me it is use at your own risk.

So I entered Sheep Pen Gut and, with sails down, motored south along the Rhodes Point waterfront, a mixture of well-kept homes, vacant homes, crab shacks and crumbling piers. At the south end of Rhodes Point, near a boatyard with a marine railway, the channel turned east towards Tylerton.

I rounded the corner to find three pipes jutting out of the water marking some shallows. But I wasn't sure which side to pass on. I chose the north side, it was next to the lift for hauling workboats out of the water and figured there had to be deep water there to bring the boats in and out. I slid right up on a shoal (the centerboard was raised so the flat part of the hull sat firmly on the mud). I used my oar to push back off the shoal and backed right up on another shoal. So I pushed off, that made a tight turn back to the channel and went on the south side of the three pipes.

There were navigation markers (finally!) "5", "3" and "1" that led me from Rhodes Point to Tylerton about a 1/2 mile away. I motored down the channel and tied up at the public pier (I'm assuming it was a public pier, it wasn't marked as such but had a "use at your own risk" sign on it). There was an old crab house on the pier, a bushel of live crabs sitting outside and a bushel of steamed craft right next to it. A gentleman on shore told me Spartina would be fine where I left her.

Spartina was tied up just after 11, a perfect time to walk to Drum Point Market for some lunch. It was just two blocks to the market (I think the entire village is just six blocks by eight). This was a real treat, I was very happy to be there as this was one of the restaurants that was listed in the NY Times piece that was the basis for the Crabhouse 150 sail last year. We didn't make it to the Drum Point Market on that trip, but it was well worth the visit this time.

There's my crabcake sandwich above. I haven't consulted with Bruce about it but when I compared it to our crabcakes from last year it would have come in a very strong #2 overall (those crinkly chips made from fresh cut potatoes where a real plus). The other Smith Island crabhouse, Ruke's, retains the #1 rating based solely on their generous use of jumbo lump crabmeat.

But none-the-less this was a great lunch, sitting on a nice enclosed porch on a very pretty day, watching the locals as they passed by on the narrow lane.

Lunch was great, but it did not last long enough. By just after noon I was untying the lines and getting back out on the water.

It took me a while to figure out which way to go. I wanted to head south on Tyler Creek and then turn east at Horse Hammock Point. But there were no markers (that I could see). Finally three small fishing boats leave the waterfront heading south and I followed along. The channel went south, then curved east and then south again, all marked by the occasional stick or pipe placed out in (at least it seemed to me) the middle of nowhere. Once I spotted the markers and watched the small boats ahead of me, I began to see the path of the creek through the shallows.

By 1:30 I had crossed over the shoals at Horse Hammock Point and was sailing north along the eastern side of the island. I say "sailing" but it was almost a drift. I think the tide was carrying me more than the wind. But that was ok, it was my last full day on the water, I was very happy to just ghost along under the gentlest of breezes. It took a couple of hours to make it up past the little island that marks Drum Point. There the wind and tide failed completely, so I started up the outboard and rounded Terrapin Sand into Back Cove. Dropped anchor in the beautiful marshed lined bay at 4:00.

Once anchored and with the boat cleaned up I jumped over the side for a really relaxing swim in the warm water of Back Cove. I can't begin to describe how great it felt. I just floated there for the longest time, checked out the hull of Spartina, swam down and looked at how the anchor had set in the soft bottom. And then I floated and floated some more. Afterwards I stood up on the foredeck and poured my last gallon of fresh water over my head for an open air shower.

That night for dinner, the last meal of the trip, I took a hint from our last dinner on the Tag Team 200. Instead of cooking ( and dirtying up pots and pans) I made dinner out of the leftover appetizers. Smoked oysters, anchovies on crackers, cups of fruit and peanut butter crackers. Just right for a nice, simple meal in a pretty cove. (I do wish I had had an ice cold Carib Beer, like we had on the Tag Team sail.)

I filled out my logbook, read the last chapter of The Lost City of Z (perfect timing to finish the book on the last night of the trip), and relaxed.

The bivy was all set up and it was probably time to go to bed. But instead I just stood there on the aft cockpit seat, resting my arms on the main boom. The breeze was warm and out of the southeast. The moon, nearly full, was rising to the east. And I could look out over Black Cove, past the marshes and see Tangier Sound and the lights of Crisfield in the distance. I stood there for the longest time - 30 minutes, maybe 40 or maybe an hour, I don't know. I just stood there and soaked it all in. It was almost time to go home, but I wanted to enjoy that last night on the water.

steve

distance sailed 21 nm

ave speed 3.3 knots