Finishing the Loop #4 - North Carolina

Monday 29^th – Wilmington, NC

Woke at daybreak, being told by the skipper that we were entering the Cape Fear River and were 10 miles or so from Wilmington. This is the largest port in NC and the Cape Fear river is the only one that flows directly into the sea. The city downtown area is dominated by the campus of the Cape Fear Community College (CFCC), and there is a market area within walking distance of the marina – although we found a free trolley to take us on a tour round the area and drop us back to the boat. I did go take a peek at Finkelstein’s Music and Jewelry store, but they only sold new, top brand, guitars (Martins and Fenders etc) and had nothing under $150 –so I didn’t buy one this time. Wilmington is also the home of the USS “North Carolina”, a WWII battleship that is moored just over the river. There was a tour of it by the cruise line, but having already seen USS’s Alabama (Mobile) and Missouri (Hawaii) plus the Aircraft carriers Intrepid (New York) and Yorktown (Charleston), I was about battleshipped out.

We departed at midnight – again heading out to open sea, but I didn’t stay up to observe.

Tuesday 30^th – Beaufort NC

Woke at 6am entering the approaches to Winyah Bay after a "plate of porridge" (very calm) crossing of Onslow Bay, in the Atlantic

As we entered the Beaufort river, we could see the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in September last year. There had been a 13ft tidal surge which had knocked about many of the marinas in the area (and there are a lot of them) as well as flooding houses and towns, as we were to see later in the day.

Beaufort marina is a small marina but plenty of posh boats, including a few Loopers

On arrival, we made contact with Don Shirley, my Nth Carolina electrician buddy, and he picked us up to do a tour of the area. First we visited his Silverton 453, which is at a marina on the Neuse River at Bridgeton, which was also hit by Florence, but their pier poles are15ft above HW, so there were few issues. However many other marinas weren’t so lucky and there were plenty of broken boats lying around nearby In fact he told us that his house at Havelock, 44NM up the Neuse River from the sea, had 12ft of his front lawn  washed away.

It is full tide - see how high the poles are!

We travelled over the river to New Bern, founded by Swiss 300-odd years ago and sister city to Berne in Switzerland. Home to Tryon Palace, the dwelling built for the first Governor on Sth Carolina

We were dropped back to Beaufort marina after dinner in a quaint local restaurant

Tuesday  1^st May – Coinjock NC

Another early departure at 4.00am and we were to spend all day on the ICW, so I got up at 5am to watch the world (or ICW, anyway) go by. At daybreak we were through the Adams canal,

and into the Neuse river where we saw our first tow on this part of the ICW

 We took another canal to reach the Pamlico sound & river  (where Don Shirley’s house is – but further upstream) and then the Pungo river & Pungo -Alligator canal. In this canal, we met our second tow who was sporting a large blue flag, which read “TRUMP – making America Great Again” (so someone supports him)

It was a great day – sunny and light winds – so lunch was a BBQ on the top deck. This was followed by “Bloody Mary Bingo”, which is  self explanatory but was dominated by one table of ladies, who referred to themselves as the “Bingo Babes” and picked up all the minor prizes. However, there was a last minute dash to the line by yours truly to pick up the final major prize and thus redeeming the men’s status aboard. We continued on across the Albermarle Sound and into the North River to the canal that leads to the Currituck Sound. About halfway along that, we stopped at Coinjock which is a small town with nothing much more than a marina. However the marina was full, including some large and posh boats and a number of Loopers, and the restaurant has a reputation for excellent Prime Rib – so it was well patronized, even at 9pm when we arrived. A long day of 16 hours and 120 miles of ICW!

Thursday 2^nd May – Just outside Nth Carolina)

We departed Coinjock at 5am and by 7am we were in the Currituck Sound, heading for Norfolk, Virginia where the is a tour of the Naval Base (largest in the world) and for which I am booked. We entered the North River, which runs to the Albermarle and Chesapeake canal and on to Norfolk at around 7am.

Shortly after we passed a couple of areas of sunken boats and were heading for the North River swing bridge, when we began to slow down. The captain informed us that the bridge had a fault that would not let it open far enough for us to transit (although smaller vessels could) so we would have to stand by until they could fix it. The alternative route is through the Dismal swamp canal, about a 60 mile detour, but it is too shallow for us to navigate. The next alternative is to go back to Cape Hatteras and go out to sea and back up the caost to the Chesapeake, and Norfolk. This is a round trip of over 200NM – we are presently about 20 miles from Norfolk as the crow flies! So as I am writing this (since I won’t be touring the Naval Base today and don’t have much else to do) we are cruising up and down a 4 mile stretch of the North river just over the border into Virginia – However if we have to detour, we will end up back in Nth Carolina for quite a ways.

But the smaller boats keep going by…. They can squeeze through the broken bridge. 

Well, we've just finished lunch and the 4th lap of this section of the ICW. The tour of the Naval Base has been cancelled and we've been set up for lectures and movies and opened the bar for the rest of the afternoon while they fix the bridge (hopefully). If they can't...plan B might be an interesting change to our itinerary.

Still, worse things happen at sea!

Finishing the Loop #3 - South Carolina

Friday 26^th April - Beaufort SC

The engines started at 3am, so I figured we were going down the ICW and I wanted to see that.

Sure enough, shortly after departing Savannah, we turned into the ICW and followed it all the way to Beaufort SC (pronounced Bewfit) - to distinguish from Beaufort NC (pronounced Bowfort). The wind was a gusty NE around 20kts, so it wouldn’t have been pleasant out in the open sea. We went slow through the first canal in the ICW, known as Fields Cut, because that’s where the worst shoaling was, but it was high tide so no issue. Daybreak was at 6.30 as we were approaching Port Royal Sound, after which it was windy up river to Beaufort  

We were docked at the Downtown marina and took the Horse and Buggy tour around the historic part of town. Lots of old “Antebellum” houses and references made about the movie “Forrest Gump”, most of which was filmed there.

At one time properties were taxed on the number of chimneys, so they built chimneys
with more than one flue to get around the tax. This one has 6 flues on 2 chimneys

Then they put a tax on the size of the front porch as defined by the main entry front stairs....

So they built huge porches, but had the stairs to smaller ones as the main entry

These stair go nowhere. TRhe house burned down and the owners were so gutted
they never rebuilt and put a caveat on the property that said the stairs must remain
there in perpetuity...so they did

Back at the ship, it was the “welcome aboard party”, free cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (scallops wrapped in bacon, prawns etc) then the movie “Midnight in the garden of good and evil” – which turned out to be a bit boring and I went to sleep before the end – Frankly I would rather have watched Forrest Gump! (but I had been up since 3am!)

BTW, Beaufort was where we stayed for 2 nights after we had put Loopy Kiwi on the ship in Savannah  and before travelling home back in 2013

Saturday 27^th  - Charleston SC

We departed Beaufort at midnight as a repeat of yesterday, ie via the ICW at high tide, but I decided to forego the spectacle and didn’t get up to see it until 6am. By this time we had wended our way along the ICW and were entering the Wappoo Creek, just short of the Ashley river, on which the Charleston Downtown marina is located. Lots of very posh boats in here

In the morning, we took a cab ride downtown to the city markets, while others took the all day tour of the city (we had visited Charleston back in 2013 and been to some of the places that they were going to). We then found a free shuttle bus that toured round the downtown on three different routes, including one that took us back to the marina, so we used that and were back at the ship in time for lunch with the other 3 people who hadn’t gone on the tour. In the afternoon we watched  the comings and goings of the myriad of boats up and down the river full of youngsters on funning about – but it was Saturday, after all, and quite a good one at that.

Over the river were a couple of yachts that seemed to be parked as victims of the last hurricane surge that came this way

We had a lecture on “the battle of Charleston” from our historian, John, and then an early night as we are going “outside” overnight to get to Georgetown and the Atlantic is expected to be a little rolly for a time.

Sunday 28^th  - Georgetown SC

Which is what it was, until we got out into deeper water and turned North to run with a following sea. Again, we departed at midnight and again, I didn’t get up to watch. At daybreak, we were just entering the channel to Winyah Bay, which is the largest estuary in Sth Carolina and the 3^rd largest in the USA (The Chesapeake being the largest). There were a few Shrimp boats about, one of which trawled across directly in front of us and across the navigation channel, so our skipper had to go round behind him to avoid a collision.

We continued on to Georgetown, 10NM further up the Waccamaw river (these are real names – I am not making them up!). This is a small harbour, barely wide enough to turn around, so that’s what we did on arrival so the captain didn’t have to do it tonight , in the dark, when we leave. Several boats moored nearby made this an interesting exercise.

I said the  harbour was small …..well…so is the town. And, being Sunday, it was also closed! I took a walk up the main street and back down the boardwalk, and was back at the boat within ½ an hour.

We pulled out of Georgetown at 8pm and headed back down the Waccamaw and out to sea again for the overnight run up to the next Port of call, Wilmington, NC.

Finishing the Loop #2 - Arrival

Monday 22^nd April (Easter Monday) - Houston, Texas

We had received notification last week that we had not got our upgrades to Business class for which we had applied, so it suggested that the plane was going to be full. To rub salt into the wound, on Saturday we got an email telling us that “due to heavier than normal traffic,” access to the Air NZ lounge would be restricted and we would therefore have to go to the Strata lounge, operated by Auckland Airport Ltd. As it transpired, the AIAL lounge was much quieter than Air NZ’s (and still had the free food and grog) and since it was the old Air NZ lounge anyway, it was a bit like coming home again. It also turned out that the plane had been changed from a 787 Dreamliner to a 777-300, which carries a lot more passengers but, as feared, it was completely full and included lots of rugrats heading for Disneyland , or other US fun destinations, for the school holidays..

The plane bounced all the way to Houston, so not a lot of sleep was got – but I managed to watch 3 movies and 4 episodes of the Les Miserables TV series. We arrived at 3.30pm (45 minutes early) at Houston but found there were only 4 Customs officers on duty to handle the 300 plus passengers off our flight. The agents sorting us out were sending all the US citizens to them first, so it took over an hour for us to get through onto US soil, by which time our bags were sitting beside the carousel at the luggage claim. However the Ramada was only a short shuttle ride away and it arrived promptly and we were soon in our hotel where Carolyn went to the pool and I went to happy hour in the Dolphin Bar. The meals were just as good and cheap as last year – as was the beer.

Tuesday 23^rd – Atlanta/Savannah, Georgia

We were up again early (5am) for the 8.10 flight to Atlanta, but were whisked through check-in and security (unlike yesterday) and had time for breakfast before boarding. Another packed flight to Atlanta, but only for 2 hours, and collecting our luggage and getting to Hertz on the “Skytrain” was a breeze, although there was a lot of walking involved – Atlanta is a HUGE airport. The Hertz people couldn’t have been nicer and there wasn’t a single issue over card payment, unlike last year. We had a choice of vehicles and one was a Dodge minibus with everything that opened and shut electrically, and lots of storage room. It was a 3 ½ hour drive to Savannah, extended by a stop at a Tanger Outlet Mall so Carolyn could buy (yet more) Skechers shoes. The temperature was 87 degrees F (30C), but the pool was under repair, so that disappointed Carolyn somewhat. There was a restaurant/Bar on the site, but it was one of the few where smoking was allowed and the air was thick with it, because everyone in the place was smoking – eating there was just not an option. It’s funny how you get so used to not having smokers in restaurants and how critical you get towards those that do. Anyway, just down the road was a “Southern style” buffet, called the “Frog and the peach”, which changes its menu every day, and only cost $9 each, including  tax! They also had a Tee shirt that Carolyn wanted to buy me but the sales girl had left for the day, so we decided to go back the next day which happened to be pork chop night.

We dropped in to a Walmart and I bought a 32GB Mini SD memory card for the handicam  - 7.48 US dollars there versus  $47.99 in New Zealand!

Wednesday 24^th  - Savannah

We discovered this morning that the Sirius satellite radio in the van was also a Garmin GPS, so we decided to use it instead of Carmen (or own GPS). Well, it got us lost trying to find the Isle of Hope and then Thunderbolt marinas (ones we’d berthed Loopy Kiwi at during the Great Loop) and we finished up downtown Savannah instead. However, due to its mixup between River St and River Drive, we actually finished up where we would be embarking for the cruise the next day. This was just as well as we found a lot of one way streets that made access difficult, so it was good to have a dry run. Going back to using Carmen, we finally located Thunderbolt marina and a Walmart near Isle of Hope  where we bought top-up cards for our US phones and lunch, which we had at the Isle of Hope marina.

On the way back to the motel, we dropped by the Savannah Port Authority, where Loopy Kiwi was lifted onto the ship for transport to NZ. (see the posting on 19^th April 2013 for details and pix on that). BTW, when I input the details of the motel into Carmen, I abbreviated “Days Inn Savannah” to “Days Inn Sav”. Carmen speaks that as “Days in Savings”, which sounds quirky, but cute! Of course, we found that the phones wouldn’t work as we tried to add the airtime and had to return to Walmart to remedy. It seems that if you don’t use a prepay phone in the USA for 6 months, your numbers will be allocated to someone else, so it took us an hour or so to get new numbers from Tracfone and get them working again – I don’t think we would bother in future.

Of course we dined on pork chops (done 2 different ways) at the Frog and the Peach and (yes, Mary), we bought the Tee shirt.

Thursday 25^{th  -} Savannah

Timing was critical today to get Carolyn and our luggage to the cruise, and the rental car back to the airport in time to catch the return bus to the river to arrive in time for lunch. Yesterday’s dry run had given us good insight into what was necessary to achieve this so we headed down to River St, arriving at 9am. Oops…….no ship!!! It was supposed to have arrived last night but had apparently been delayed, so we were quite relieved when it showed up round the river bend and docked at 9.30. Carolyn and the luggage embarked 10, while I returned the car and bused back – in plenty of time for lunch. Surprisingly, there are.only 25 passengers for this cruise (the ship can hold up to 80, and did on the cruise last year). To make matters worse (or better, depending on your viewpoint), because the ship is returning from its Caribbean winter season,  there are 20 crew members aboard (including 2 Captains) plus a photographer and a lecturer, so the crew/ passenger ratio is almost 1:1. After lunch we did a trolley tour of “Historic Savannah” – lots of old houses and references to the movie “midnight in the garden of good and evil” which was filmed there, as well as to “Forrest Gump”, where the famous park bench scene was shot (the park bench is actually in the Savannah museum!)

  

At the safety briefing after dinner, we were told that tide times were wrong for travelling the Carolina’s Intracoastal Waterway during the day – the ship draws 7ft and the US Army Corps of Engineers who maintain the ICW haven’t been dredging recently (no money). So the choices were; leave at 3am and use the ICW at high tide, or go out to sea at 5am to reach the next Port, which would be dependent on weather.

Finishing the Loop #1

After the Blount cruise last June, we decided that it was worthwhile enough to warrant booking on their Savannah to Baltimore cruise in April 2019 and thus complete our Great Loop, since Savannah was where we had to stop and ship LK home back in 2013. We also received a 20% discount for booking within 3 weeks of our last cruise, so we went ahead and booked in August. We worked out an itinerary that will include the cruise, followed by a road trip up through New Jersey to New England, returning through Pennsylvania and the Virginias, then back to Washington DC where we will spend 5 days at the Smithsonian - something we have been promising ourselves to do since we first went there in 1989 and found 2 days wasn't enough to see it all. We then fly back to Los Angeles and home. At the end of this trip, there will only be 6 States in the USA that I will not have visited (Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Nth Dakota and Oregon).

Not quite "crossing our wake", but almost. We will be "cruising" the New Jersey coast by car, rather than by boat, but that is the only non-boating part of the Loop, and we made up for that by doing West Lake Michigan twice! I also get to see where Loopy Kiwi was built,  although Silverton aren't there (or anywhere else) any more, for that matter. We will also get to see Mark Twains's house, Mt Washington and its Cog railway, the Martin Guitar factory in Nazareth and visit the Amish in Lancaster, PA (something Carolyn wants to do). There are also plenty of military establishments, historical and Civil War sites to visit during the cruise.

We made the airline bookings through Air New Zealand and, despite the hassles with United as explained in the last posting on this blog, we decided to use them for the internal sectors in the USA. We figured that, because the baggage problem we had was a "one-off" it was worth the risk as it surely would not happen again??? WRONG!!! All the documentation from Air NZ showed us with a baggage allowance of 2 bags per sector each, but when we looked at the United confirmation, it showed an allowance of only 1 bag on the flight from Washington DC to LA. Long story short... I have contacted United and Air NZ numerous times by email and phone, and everyone agrees that the Air NZ baggage allowance should apply (ie 2 bags/person). However at the time of writing this, the United confirmation still states only 1, and that is what the system will see we we come to check in at Dulles airport. Suffice to say, I will be ready for a scrap this time, and they won't get away with ripping us off again (and the charge is an extra $250 per bag this time!). Watch this space.