Back on the Intercoastal

We left Charleston Harbor Marina.

We headed southeast along the channel then made a beeline to the Intercoastal waterway.  It had been awhile... two years! And we had not been on this segment of the intercoastal on our way down. Yes!!!...a new adventure.

Now ocean travel and intercoastal travel both have their pros and cons. On the upside, the intercoastal offers is a rich variety of lifestyles, wildlife, and bridges to see up close and personal.

Osprey's just love nesting on the tops of navigational aids. Here you can see the very tip of the green nav light that is mostly obscured by their nest.

Mama Osprey on top of a red nav aid protecting her chicks from a passing boat.

Whew! The boat has passed and Mama can relax in the nest with her chicks.

Outlet to the Atlantic

We have seen more dolphins on the intercoastal than anywhere else. One not so lil' guy cozied right up to our boat.

The Great Blue Heron

On the downside, the intercoastal is called "The Ditch" for good reason. It is narrow and it is shallow!!!!! There are spots in the marked channel where we hit bottom and we have approximately a six foot draft. To make matters worse the GPS on the charts can be off several feet so we really had to rely on the navigational aids in the water. However sometimes the nav aids drift!!! So basically when at the helm it's necessary to stay vigilant at all times. 

As beautiful as the bridges are they also present obstacles to our journey as there are many that are too low for our 57 foot mast. Some of them open on a regular basis and some open by request. This entails some research and a lot of hovering around the bridge until it opens. Then it's a mad dash through... 

Most of the lower bridges on this part of the intercoastal are swing bridges . The beeping you hear is our shallow water alarm which we have set at 8 feet.

And lastly shallow water, summertime and still conditions equal insects. We didn't mind the beautiful harmless dragonfly. However they are often around for a reason. They feast on mosquitoes and midges. This one dragonfly was particularly sated ... We anchored for the evening in Alligator River, North Carolina.We awoke to literally thousands of midges in our cockpit. Apparently they decided to hatch on the water by our boat and find shelter in shaded areas under our dodger and bimini. With the help of our drangonfly friends, tt took the entire day and into the night to get rid of these pests... thankfully they were non-biting. 

 We spent a few days regrouping in Chesapeake, Virginia before heading up through Norfolk which was just about 15 miles away. 

We passed under another bridge that opened on the top of the hour

And directly into our one and only northbound lock. This lock was easy schmeezy in contrast to the mammoth locks of the Welland and Erie Canals. There were nice clean fenders along the lock wall and the water level dropped less than a foot. 

Having motored 455 miles through South Carolina and North Carolina and part of Virgina we entered Norfolk.

Norfolk is the home of a large Naval base

and big industry.  

Norfolk also marks the southbound start of the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway, or in our case the end, and the beginning of sailing beautiful Chesapeake bay on our journey up to Annapolis, MD

A wondrous journey to all,

Pam and Jeff