Days 7-14, Southport, NC to Deltaville, VA

Day 7 – Southport, NC to Wrightsville Beach, NC – 28 miles – Travel Time: 3hrs 28min

We left Southport and headed to Wrightsville Beach, NC. Our friends needed to stop there to pick up some spare parts for their boat. It’s a big marina area with lots of Sport Fish boats. The trip was easy and short. We crossed the Cape Fear River easily as the weather was excellent.

Day 8 – Wrightsville Beach, NC to Beaufort, NC – 71.2 miles – Travel Time: 8hrs 14min

The ride from Wrightsville Beach to Beaufort, NC, was generally uneventful. This part of the ICW goes through Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps training base. Cruising through this area’s always a treat as there are always many aircraft and large ships. They were holding landing craft practice, and we saw a couple of huge hovercraft just offshore.

There are several shallow (Skinny) areas along this section, but we didn’t have any issues with our transit. As we approached Beaufort, the wind picked up quite a bit, and when we arrived at the Town Creek Marina, it was a challenge to dock. We got into our slip without much of an issue, but our friends were on an outside dock with the wind pushing them away from the dock, and it took 3 dock hands and me to pull the boat in.

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Day 9/10 – Beaufort, NC to Belhaven, NC – 58.9 miles – Travel Time: 6hrs 25min

The wind had died down quite a bit Saturday morning, and we had a nice ride to Belhaven, NC. We watched the weather, and Sunday was forecast to be very windy. The next leg of our trip crosses the Albermarle Sound, which has a reputation for being very rough with Northerly winds, so we decided to stay two nights in Belhaven.

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We love Belhaven for two reasons.

First, it has an excellent marina, nothing fancy, but great service and super clean bathrooms. They even provide towels and have complimentary washers and dryers.

Second, there is a restaurant there called Spoon River, a 5-star restaurant in pretty much the middle of nowhere. Belhaven has two marinas, Ace Hardware, a dive bar, a greasy spoon restaurant, a Bakery, and Spoon River. That’s it! We had an excellent dinner on Saturday night.

Since leaving, one of the gaskets valve covers was leaking a bit. I did some boat projects on Sunday and tightened the valve covers to stop the oil leaks. While working on the engines, I also did the mandatory check of all hose clamps and bolts to ensure they had not loosed up after the engine was rebuilt.

The weather followed the forecast, and Sunday was a very windy day. Even in a protected marina, we still rocked and rolled for most of the day.

Day 11 – Belhaven, NC to Coinjock, NC – 77.4 miles – Travel Time: 8hrs 26min

The winds had died on Monday, and we left Belhaven with 7 other boats that had hunkered down at the marina for Sunday’s high winds. There were also 5 or 6 more boats from nearby marinas and anchorages that joined the parade of boats.

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The first part of the route from Belhaven to Coinjock follows a narrow canal, so there was lots of slow cruising and passing as we caught up with slower boats. Once out of the canal, you cross the Albermarle Sound, which is a wide-open sound, before joining a river that runs past Coinjock and crosses the border into Virginia toward Norfolk.

Because we’ve just rebuilt the engines, I make it a point to stick my head down into the engine room every hour or so to ensure everything is okay. On my first engine check, I saw that I had made it worse instead of fixing my valve cover leak! There was a quart of oil underneath not just one but BOTH engines. There was nothing I could do underway other than keep an eye on it.

An hour later, there was probably a half-gallon of oil in the bilge, and I could see a steady drip coming off the top of the engine on both sides. When we got to open water, I went down into the engine room, had Brenda shut down one engine, added some more oil, then restarted the engine. When the Starboard was done, we repeated it on the Port engine.

We ended up doing this two more times before we got to Coinjock. Very stressful! What had happened is that I had over-tightened the covers, which pushed the gasket out and let the oil flow freely. Tighter is NOT always better!

When we got into Coinjock (famous for its Prime Rib dinner), I pulled up the floor, cleaned up a couple of gallons of oil from the bilge, then removed and re-sealed the valve covers. This took several hours. Michael, our mechanic, coached me on face-time to ensure I sealed them correctly and didn’t over-tighten them again. He also arranged for some new valve cover gaskets and sealant to be overnighted to Hampton, VA, our next stop, in case I had not fixed the problem.

Brenda when with our friends Tim & Brenda and had docktails with some other loopers, and then went to dinner. They brought me back a Prime Rib to-go. It was well after 10:00 before I finally got a shower and could enjoy dinner.

Day 12/13 – Coinjock, NC to Hampton, VA – 54.4 miles – Travel Time: 7hrs 41min

On Tuesday morning, we took off from Coinjock at 7:30 am. There are six drawbridges and one lock between Coinjock and Norfolk. One of the bridges, “The Great Bridge,” has been having electrical issues for over a month and is currently running on generators. Usually, the bridge opens every hour, but currently, it only opens every two hours. Also, because of the delay, and the traffic due to the busy northern migration season, there can be additional delays as the lock, which is just after the bridge, can only accommodate about 10 boats per cycle.

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We got through our first two bridges without issue and reached the Great Bridge about 15 minutes before the noon opening. Only 6 other boats were already waiting. The two of us joined the queue making eight boats, two more boats joined behind us, and two others decided to wait at the dock for the next opening, so we were in good shape to get through. We got through the bridge and into the lock without any issues.

I went into the engine room about every 30 minutes to check on the oil leaks. It looked like I was successful, as there were no leaks! A HUGE sigh of relief!

As we approached Norfolk, Virginia, we encountered the infamous “Norfolk Railroad Bridges.” These are three railroad bridges in about a 3-mile stretch. The last time we went through headed north, we got stuck at the first railroad bridge for over 3 hours. As we approached, we saw that it was down. We got ready for a long wait, but within a few minutes, an Amtrack passenger train went across the bridge, and about 10 minutes later, there was a radio call that the bridge would open shortly. Woo Hoo!

The next bridge was open, which was great, but the third bridge was down. Again, we prepared for an extended wait, but a commercial tug boat pulled out of a side channel and called the bridge. Commercial traffic takes priority, so they opened in just a few minutes!

From there, it was a pretty easy run through the Norfolk Naval Ship Yards to Hampton, Virginia, where we stayed for the next two days.

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The only issue we had was the visibility. It was very poor due to all the smoke from the Canadian forest fires. After we docked in Hampton, the visibility was so bad that we couldn’t even see across the bay to the Navy Yard, which is less than a mile away. Not seeing an aircraft carrier at one mile is quite a feat!

On Wednesday, we had an in-port day to wait for the parts from my mechanic to arrive. Fortunately, it didn’t look like we would need them, but I will feel much better having them on board, just in case.

I did some clean-up work in the engine room and a few other boat projects, then in the afternoon, we took the water taxi to downtown Hampton and visited the Langley Air & Space Museum . Quite a cool place! Lots of famous aircraft hanging from the ceiling, and an IMAX theatre. We saw a movie about how astronauts train underwater to simulate weightlessness when spacewalking. We then walked to the Hampton Historical Museum, which was also quite interesting.

We then went to a Micro-Brewery for refreshments and took the water taxi back to the marina.

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Day 14- Hampton, VA to Deltaville, VA – 40.2 miles – Travel Time: 3hrs 38min

We felt much better after a good run with no oil leaks on our trip to Hampton, so on Thursday, we headed into the Chesapeake Bay proper. Pop-up thunderstorms were predicted for early afternoon, so we ran a bit faster than usual as we were in open water. The weather was hazy from the smoke, but the winds were calm, and the water was pretty much flat.

As we left Norfolk, we passed the large ship anchorage and counted 28 large cargo ships at anchor waiting to enter either Norfolk harbor. We saw a ship appear out of the mist and thought it might be a Pirate ship! It was a three-masted schooner all decked out with flags. A beautiful ship, the “Kalmar Nyckel”. (It’s based near Baltimore and is available to rent for birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, corporate team building, and special functions!)

The rest of the ride to Deltaville was great. We made good time and got in just as the thunderstorms were approaching. We chose the Deltaville Boat Yard marina because a friend of Tim & Brenda, the couple we are traveling with, just bought a Grand Banks trawler that is being re-fit here. He lost his last Grand Banks in Fort Myers during the hurricane. The boat yard owner provided us with two slips at no charge for the night! Very nice! The boat is beautiful, but it looks like ours did with the floor out and the engines all apart.

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We are making our way up the Chesapeake to Baltimore, MD for June 15th. Tomorrow we will stop in Solomons, MD. We will be leaving our boats in Baltimore for about 10 days. Tim & Brenda are going to a family function, and Brenda and I will rent a car and visit my sister (Sylvia) and our friends and family in New Hampshire.

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Thanks for visiting! –Tom & Brenda