Dan and Jaye's cruising blog: Kumatage (reflections on the water)

This boat shapes a perfect bow wave through the tannin-tinted water in North Carolina The first spring after we’d moved to Annapolis and moved aboard our sailboat, we went to a marina party welcoming home the returning snowbirds.  And I was thinking, “Wow, someday, that will be ME .  Someday I’LL be one of those travelers!”  One guest said to one of the returnees, with a knowing smile, “I see you took the ‘inside’ route. You and your boat have that ICW look.”  In my naiveté, I wondered what “that look” was all about.  Was it weariness from their long journey?  Some kind of nautical nonchalance?   Did they look like an “old salt” or ancient mariner?  Someday, will I have that flair too? Fast-forward ten years, and we know that wasn’t an unmitigated compliment. You see them arriving in Annapolis around this time of year, boats that have spent the winter in Florida or the Bahamas returning for the summer, or passing through on ...

Our boat doesn’t have radar.  At night, especially, we keep a good watch and have learned to identify other boats by their lights, and to call them on VHF radio to avoid collision.  It’s counterintuitive, but the ocean is actually easier than the Chesapeake Bay for night sailing, there’s just less traffic to interact with.  In the Bay you are constantly alert, over the course of the night there was always at least one set of lights somewhere in our field of vision.  On the ocean you can go hours, sometimes days, between sighting other vessels.  This happened last week on our overnight trip up the Chesapeake Bay.  It was some time after midnight and the moon was not yet up.  Dan was asleep; I was alone on watch with the stars and my thoughts.  There wasn’t a lot to do, the autopilot was humming happily, every few minutes I’d look carefully in all directions to make sure there were no surprises.  But even if I wasn’t keeping watch, I’d ...

We stayed in near Norfolk for several days, recovering from the night of a million mosquitoes and the thunderstorm that didn’t happen .  When we got underway again, we would be only about 4 travel days from home. So, we’re motoring up the Elizabeth River near Norfolk, VA, and I can only describe what happened as “flash-mobbed by dolphins.”   We’re churning along this very developed industrial stretch when Dan called out, “Dolphin!  There! Port bow!”  Cool, I love seeing those guys.  “There!  Again!”  And then, “Another one, over there, by that building!”  and, with increasing excitement, “There, too! Alongside us!”  Suddenly we were surrounded by about a dozen dolphins, leaping and splashing and playing in the sunshine.  They weren’t hunting, or running, just the sheer pleasure of exercising muscles in a way that I don’t remember doing since I wrote my age with more than one digit, and seemingly inviting us to join (or just...

The only good thing that can be said about sleeping in clothing is that it makes for a very fast start to the next day.  And after the night of a million mosquitoes, an early departure was exactly what we had in mind.  Another long day and we’d be across the Albemarle Sound, a body of water famed, like the Chesapeake, for its short choppy nasty waves in bad weather – and bad weather was predicted to arrive late that afternoon.  We hoped to be well across before then. The winds started to pick up around noon as we reached the mouth of the Alligator River where it empties into the Albemarle and I started to have my doubts, but the weather turned out to be absolutely benign for the crossing.  In fact, I decided that the Albemarle was a rather pretty body of water, blue and sparkling in settled weather.  Then just as we got to the other side and dropped the sail, the winds pick up and the sky began to take on more threatening colors.  But we were across...

Underway again, repairs made and maintenance done.  The engine was humming happily and the helm was easy and the sun was shining and warm.  We had a great day on the water and made excellent time, covering more than 50 miles to anchor near the head of the Pungo River.  There was a small chance of thunderstorms in the evening, so an anchorage that was secure and sheltered was more of a priority than one that had nice breezes.  We were sitting in the cockpit enjoying a quiet evening, with the boat open to the warm moist night air.  Almost 360 degrees of trees, water, marsh, and nothing built by humans in sight in any direction.  This really is the life. It started to drizzle and when we went below – ugh! We seem to have gotten a little more shelter than we bargained for.  The still air allowed the insects to come out.  There were mosquitos everywhere, a LOT of mosquitos. Un-swattably many mosquitoes, on every surface.  Finally in desper...

It’s just the way luck works.  Sometimes little, and seemingly irrelevant things, can have a big impact.  Take geography.  South Carolina and North Carolina, for example, although adjacent states, evolved into two totally different places culturally because of an accident of geography.  I never thought about this before I read it in the excellent guidebook “ Managing the Waterway ” we’re using. South Carolina got all the good harbors, North Carolina got three dangerous Capes – Hatteras, Lookout, and Fear -- and shifting shoals.  It was so dangerous that the coastline of North Carolina is nicknamed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” (We’re glad that nowadays, with the building of the ICW, we have a safer inland alternative instead of going around these!) Here’s how the book explains it: “It’s not just that South Carolina is warmer than North Carolina; the culture is different. South Carolina is the Deep South: palm trees, southern cooking, and plantation arc...