Bay Ranger cruised down the Chesapeake Bay in record time (for us!): five and a half days and one of those was spent at anchor waiting out high winds. The best part of the trip was the first few nights with spectacular night skies and bright stars.
Halloween in Hampton
The Bay from the Potomac down to Norfolk can get quite nasty (snarly, in boater language), but it wasn’t too bad this time. Today we pulled into the Hampton Public Pier to use a free overnight coupon from the Annapolis Boat Show. Some years ago, we were here on another Halloween when liveaboard boat kids came around trick or treating in dinghies — no kids around this eve, so we will have to eat the little packets of M&Ms ourselves.
For the Navy people in our lives, we saw several U.S. Navy warships entering and leaving Hampton Roads. Here at the marina we are squeezed in between two 48-foot boats — a Selene powerboat on one side and a Beneteau sailboat on the other — both from Annapolis. Ed did a fine job backing into the slip as Elaine held her breath (not that she doesn’t trust his ability to back the boat. The boat slips always look very small when it’s time to back into them with big boats on each side!). There is absolutely no privacy but good wind protection and a rather nasty weather forecast for tomorrow evening. Tomorrow friends from the Williamsburg area will visit, and perhaps we’ll again watch the homecoming parade for Hampton University which is located here in the area.
Mid-November in Morehead
We arrived in Morehead City November 12 and stayed the first night at the dock at the Sanitary Restaurant and Fish Market. If you eat dinner in their restaurant, they give you a really good deal on the overnight docking fee. It’s always an interesting place to eat! First of all, they bring out a basket of hot hush puppies as an appetizer when they bring the napkins, silverware, and menus. The soup of the day was macaroni and cheese soup. Of course Ed had to try it — think rich macaroni and cheese only with more cream, butter, and cholesterol! We had a visit from John Doxey from Severn House who was in the area visiting friends.
On November 13, we moved to the Morehead City Docks where we would spend the next four days. We toured the town, did some laundry, and confirmed our rental car reservation for the weekend. The folks on the sailboat next to us in the marina saw the Ohio State Buckeye flag we were flying and stopped over to say “Hello.” It turns out they were originally from Dayton, OH, but now live aboard their boat fulltime.
We picked up the rental car on Friday, November 14 and drove to Greensboro, NC, for the first Navy women’s basketball of the season against North Carolina A&T State University. They lost the game after leading at halftime, but it was fun seeing the girls. Sunday, November 16 found us traveling to Elon University to see the second Navy women’s basketball game. They lost that one, too … After the game we returned to the boat in Morehead City. We had hoped to head on south on Monday, the 17th, but high winds kept us at the marina one more night.
Toasty Warm & Headed South
We saw our first dolphin of the trip Tuesday morning, November 18 headed down the pretty Bogue Sound. We also saw the first sister Ranger Tug of the trip, the Ranger 25 McTug headed for Edenton, NC, for Thanksgiving. That day’s trip was interrupted by a one-hour delay for the firing range at Camp LeJeune which spans both sides of the Intracoastal Waterway. A sign with flashing lights and a patrol boat inform boaters when the range is closed. We anchored for lunch and listened to the machine gun fire in the distance. That night was spent in an anchorage near the range where helicopters flew overhead in support of on-going night training. It was the coldest night of our cruise so far with temps dipping to 23 degrees! We were prepared with warm clothes and bedding, but it was not fun getting up in the morning. The boat quickly warms up with the engine heater when we’re underway so we are toasty warm heading on south. The weather and currents were in our favor, so we decided to make a long day and cover the 10- mile stretch of the notorious Cape Fear River.
Our next stop was in the pretty little seaside town of Southport, NC. We spent the night at the dock of the Provision Company which was closed for the season. We walked around this nice little town and ended the day by eating at the Frying Pan restaurant. Their motto: Fried with Pride. Once again hush puppies accompanied the waitress to the table. Ed had the meatloaf special and out came a mini-meatloaf the size of a woman’s shoe. He couldn’t eat it all, which tells you how large it was. He got a doggie bag for the remainder which provided meatloaf sandwiches for the next two days. The specialties of the house were sweet potato biscuits which were served with every meal. Boy, were they good. They had a sweet potato bread pudding on the dessert menu, which after sampling the biscuits, sounded really good. Unfortunately, we had no room for dessert!
Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach, NC, was our next overnight stop. There is a large shopping center there next to the Waterway. On the way there, we passed a three-mile section that’s known as the “Rock Pile,” a narrow stretch of the Waterway blasted out of rock. If you stray too far outside the channel here, it can spell disaster. We’re here to say we navigated it successfully. At Barefoot Landing we saw our second Ranger Tug of the cruise, a Ranger Tug 21 called Little Red Tug from up the Waterway in Southport.
What’s Up the Waccamaw?
After leaving Barefoot Landing on a beautiful warm day, we took on fuel and decided to get adventuresome and get off the Waterway. The town of Conway, SC, according to our guide books, is a picturesque little town 12 miles up the Waccamaw River with free overnight docking for visiting boats. We decided to go for it. The only problem was that our Waterway charts and the electronic charts only went about halfway up to Conway. We decided to find our way up the remainder without charts. Of course, the river got narrower and windier, and we made a crude map of our route where the river branched. We ended up in very shallow water with no town in site! We ran past two toothless fishermen in a small boat called Swamp Donkey but didn’t want them to know we didn’t know where the town was. (Remember the movie Deliverance?)
Since it was getting late in the afternoon, we decided we’d better abandon our search for the elusive town of Conway and return to the ICW never to stray again. The remaining part of the Waccamaw River south to Georgetown, SC, is one of our favorite sections of the Waterway. It is almost totally uninhabited with cypress trees covered in Spanish moss lining the river banks. We spent another cold night at anchor on the Waccamaw. The sky was clear and filled with stars. On November 22, we anchored again in a place called Graham Creek. The weather turned nasty, and the forecast for November 23-24 was not promising. We made a reservation at Isle of Palms Marina for those two nights. On Tuesday the 25th we hope to made the two-day run to Beaufort. It’s one of our favorite stops, and we hope to spend Thanksgiving there. We’ll be in touch on down the road!
About the Authors: Longtime PropTalk distributors and contributors, Ed and Elaine Henn, are making their way south from Annapolis to Florida in their Ranger Tug 27 Bay Ranger.