MAGIC IS HOME!!

     

A rare calm day for Magic on the way  home

Once again I’m going to jump ahead and say that after exactly 6 months of cruising, Magic is safely back at her home slip in Hampton, VA. We’ve enjoyed our first “Hollywood Showers” and flush toilets in half a year, and are very slowly re-introducing ourselves to life at home. Even driving our cars…on the “right” side of the road…has been an almost surreal experience! As I promised in my last blog, I’m going to detail our last few days on the water and then provide a few thoughts on the trip in general.

         We spent a couple great days enjoying the amenities at the River Dunes Marina in Oriental, NC, but even their comfortable hot tub couldn’t keep us in place, especially since Diane was really jonesing to get home and pick up our Golden Retriever Cruzer. He’d spent the past 6 months with wonderful family friends, but just like us, his “winter camp” full of new adventures had to come to an end! Magic and buddy boat Veritas once again executed a dawn departure for yet another really long day following the “magenta line” of the ICW northbound. You wouldn’t know it from the calendar and even though it was now May, the temperatures

So much for warm temperatures! Diane and
one of our "buddy boaters" Laura (Tehani)
trying to laugh off the chill.

never got over the low 60’s and with the wind building from the north, it was a cool, sloppy day as we worked our way through eastern North Carolina. It was a huge relief when we emerged 70 miles later from the Alligator Canal and spotted our anchorage. Our anchor went down and soon after, so did we! OK, not exactly since I made one last homemade pizza for us and we toasted our last really long day on the water with a couple slices and a nice bottle of wine. Then we crashed!!

         Our next day wasn’t a particularly long one but we had to transit the notorious Alligator River and then cross the equally infamous Albermale Sound toward Coinjock, NC. Alligator River mud must be the most tenacious in the world and our anchor reluctantly came up…coated with a ton of sticky, gooey mud that took me almost 10 minutes to clean off!

Not long after we got underway we were treated to an awesome low altitude air show from two F18 “Super Hornets” as they conducted low level bombing practice at the Dare County range just east of the Alligator River.

This is a terrible photo, but shows one of two
F-18's that "buzzed" us on the Alligator River.
They really did get a LOT closer than this! You
could almost see the sweat on the pilot's brow!

The two aircraft would zoom past us at 300’ on slightly different headings, bank hard to the east to make their run toward the range and then execute their “Hornet Pop” maneuver as they pulled almost vertical, roll inverted and dive on their targets. Really cool, so cool that I forgot to take any photos until they were almost too far behind us. I’d suck as a professional photographer!

I’ve talked about the “magenta line” of the ICW a number of times in my blog and I have to admit it can become mesmerizing spending hours and hours following that line on our chartplotter. Unfortunately, there are a number of cruisers (both power and sail) who become too attached to that line...and pay the price. There are a bunch of places where localized shoaling on the ICW has forced the Coast Guard to position temporary floating buoys to assist boaters to remain in the deepest part of the channel. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always follow the “yellow brick road” of the magenta line. At the north end of the Alligator River there is just such a place and during our transit of this admittedly confusing area, two different sailboats ran aground as they unerringly followed the ICW line, smack into a shoal! Yea, I know…but for the grace of God go I, but come on guys!

As the wind continued to build from the NE, we crossed a very angry Albermale Sound and fought 6+ foot seas for a couple hours. We just couldn’t catch a break as I got a great workout driving the boat through/around the largest waves and saw our normal 7 knot speed drop to less than 3 as we slammed into wave after wave. None-to-soon we were finally in the lee of the Outer Banks shoreline as we worked our way to what we hoped would be our last overnight stop at Coinjock, NC. OOPS…Again!

THE LAST BRIDGE OF THE TRIP! Our small convoy had just
passed under the new Gilmerton Bridge in Hampton Roads. That thing
is huge! 

The next day, after consuming what seemed like 5 pounds of the marina restaurants’ signature prime rib, we again departed early for what we thought would be our last push home.   This leg of the trip is a maze of bridges and locks, all of which open on schedules that required us to keep just as good an eye on the clock as our course! Lucky for us, our timing worked out well and we soon emerged into the bustling Norfolk harbor. Unfortunately, the wind had continued to increase which would make getting into our inlet in Hampton iffy at best, so we decided an early stop was in order. Of course, all the docking space in Portsmouth was taken and when we tried to tie up to a “free” area of Norfolk, we were informed that it would cost us $60…no thanks! So, our little convoy of Veritas and Magic were off once again, this time for downtown Hampton. Of course, it was another crappy slog north along the Elizabeth River, made even more exciting as we passed no less than 6 large container ships as they made their way to docks.

We finally made it to the Hampton City Marina, cleaned up with one last onboard shower and were soon mobbed as friends from our neighborhoods all came to greet us, retell stories of our collective adventures over the winter and enjoy a nice shoreside meal together. A wonderful way to almost end our trip. Of course, once again we were up at the crack of dawn for the 8-mile run home, but both boats wanted to get in early and take advantage of a very slight lull in the winds and enter the Salt Ponds channel near high tide. But finally, after almost exactly 6 months, 3000+ miles, 500 engine hours (420 gallons of diesel), many dozens of Kalik beers/gin tonics/rum drinks, WAAY too many “Cheeseburgers in Paradise,” and priceless memories, we returned to our home slip.

Magic on her last run up to our canal-front home
in Hampton. She did great!

A number of you have asked how much a trip would cost. My answer remains the same; depends. I kept fairly accurate records throughout the trip but although we had a goal, we didn’t really follow a budget. We tried to avoid marinas, but didn’t deprive ourselves of occasional shoreside meals and excursions. Food and fuel was incredibly expensive (over twice stateside prices) but we still wound up spending almost exactly $100/day. Many we met spent far less or a lot more, but the great thing was that we all got to enjoy the same sun, warm beaches and crystal clear water and very few seemed to go “without.”

MAGIC’S TOP FIVE “MUST HAVE’S” FOR THE BAHAMAS

For those of you reading this who may be contemplating a similar trip to the Bahamas I offer my “Top 5” list of items I would not leave home again without. Mind you, I’m neither an expert on cruising necessities nor are these items in any way absolute requirements to safely and happily go cruising; they are just things we did for Magic which were critical to OUR enjoyment. Your mileage may vary:

1.    Full enclosure around our cockpit. We expected this addition to be helpful during our fall trip south and again on the way back up the east coast, but had no idea how we would rely on it once in the Bahamas. The side panels reduced morning dew in the cockpit, and kept the wind/rain out to allow more use of the cockpit even on the worst days. Even when offshore in heavy seas, the side panels deflected seas and kept the cockpit dry. Of course, it was really nice to cruise along the ICW on the coldest of days, clad in shorts and light shirts! I almost felt guilty as we passed enclosure-less boats with crews huddled under a dodger wearing heavy foul weather gear even on sunny, nice days! 

Good shot of our enclosure, davits and 3 solar panels.
Liferaft is mounted on the other side of the arch.

2.    Davits/Arch.  I wanted an easy way to hoist our rigid-hull inflatable out of the water and that desire led to either davits or an arch. For davits there are a number of good ones out there (my favorite would be Gauhaurer) but we chose to have an arch made by a local SS fabricator which has davits attached. Hoisting the dingy was a breeze and so easy I pulled our dingy out of the water nightly, both for its' security and to eliminate the noise from water slapping on its hull. On the arch I was able to mount all the antennas previously attached to our stern rail, hang our liferaft for easy access and deployment, and provide a unobstructed, secure mounting location for our…

3.     Solar Panels. Since I didn't want to sacrifice our scarce onboard storage space for additional batteries, we went with 3 135-watt Kyocera panels. Coupled with a high efficiency controller, I was able to produce about 180 amps per day (on a good, sunny day), more than we normally needed.  For days when it was overcast and we didn't move the boat, we relied on our…

4.    Generator. I'm cheap, so we went with a Honda portable 2000-watt generator (less than $1000) and couldn't be happier. It was amazing to see the number of these little red machines on the decks of boats in the Bahamas! Lightweight, reliable and extremely quiet. Our generator, which I stored in the aft lazarette did double duty, both to occasionally provide DC charging energy and provide a source of power for our...

Control panel in an aft
locker for our water maker

5.    Watermaker. For me, this easily made the top 5 although many boats do without. Just watching crews lugging water cans around, standing in line for use of a water hose, or paying .60/gal for sometimes not great tasting water convinced me that we made the right decision to install our water maker. Ours is a system from “Cruise RO” in California and is powered by our Honda generator. The real beauty it is that is produces 20 gph, far more than many/most others on the market at less than 1/2 the price.  I ran it every 3-4 days for 1.5 hours or so to keep our tanks full. I installed mine in the aft port-side lazarette, totally out of the way and it took up literally no useful storage space. If I were only planning one trip to the islands or just coastal cruising in the US, I wouldn't have purchased this item, but if you are planning multiple trips to the Bahamas, I'd seriously look at one.

Once I have a bit more time to reflect and put my thoughts together, I’ll post more information on the trials and tribulations of first time cruisers to the Bahamas.

For those of you who followed by blog, thank you for allowing me to ramble on and take up your time these past 6 months. If I was able to entertain, just a little, or inform, just a little, great. I’d originally intended to keep a daily journal and create this blog from that, but like many things in life, other events conspired to prevent me from maintaining such discipline…great sailing, cold adult beverages in Magic’s cockpit, relaxing walks on pristine beaches, meeting Bahamanian people, some of the most wonderful in the world, cruising with our “buddy” boats; Veritas, Peaceful Easy Feeling, and Tehani, and meeting other cruisers who provided us invaluable advice and camaraderie.  

Most importantly, and although it wasn’t easy at times for either of us, I got to renew my relationship with my “First Mate for Life,” Diane. Yes, we had our moments but she was the perfect partner for this trip and I cannot wait to head out again with Diane at my side.

         As I said in my last blog, this trip is finally over but our adventure continues….