One of the reasons we purchased a Cat instead of another large mono hull was so that we could take it to warmer climes. After 60 New England winters we wanted a change. Our last boat with a 8 foot draft and 75 foot rig was not ICW friendly and so we never took it south.
Due to lots of prior commitments we could not leave till October and had to be back in Boston by November 2nd. So we were against a deadline. This is not the way to do a trip like this. It would be better to have it more open ended.
So with trepidation we started to plan a departure date. As September drew close we started to get the boat ready. A gummed up carburetor delayed us a bit. So we thought we would leave between October 5th and the 8th.
All our planning was for naught, Mom Nature said we could not go out to play in early October as named storm after named storm rocked up the cost thru late September into October.
We waited and watched weather and finally after a major storm battered the New England cost on October 8th saw a opening between two weather fronts to make our first hop on October 12th.
The weather was just right for a quick run from Jamestown to Sandy Hook down the outside of Long Island. We left in the morning and sailed south. As we came to Sandy Hook it was time to decide if we could get further before the next named storm got near by. We determined that we would be able to get to Atlantic City well before the storm front and so headed on.
We arrived off the entrance to Atlantic City at 5am. We chose to wait till dawn to enter the channel. We stopped at the James Farley State Marina at the Golden Nugget. We moored to their fuel doc as the marina was full.
We ended up staying there for 3 days while the wind blew 35kn to 40kn. The harbor is very protected.
Just behind the fuel doc was the “Grave yard” a collection of 5 sail and motor boats half sunk from the storm Sandy. The dock master would love to get rid of these but is not allowed to by law. Its seems its up to the owner to authorize the removal and the owners have disappeared. This is such a shame. I think that if its abandoned for more than a year the marina or town should be able to depose of these.
We can’t say Atlantic city is a prime destination. Actually unless on the board walk its squalor. Its pretty obvious that the casinos take money and do not invest in the community at all. Such a shameful example of greed. Though it looks nice from the water when entering the harbor.
We walked the board walk and did visit the small aquarium. I thought the aquarium though small was quite nice. It’s set up for little kids with lots of touch tanks containing horseshoe crabs and even small dog sharks.
We took an uber ride to see Lucy the largest elephant in the world… She’s cool in her own way and was worth the ride.
But the stop in Atlantic City served our purpose and we were able to wait out the storm for out next hop.
We left Atlantic city and sailed south to Norfolk Virginia. We arrived in the mid morning and entered the ICW. We got weather updates and saw another named storm coming in less than 24 hours so we decided to stop and wait out the next storm. I have not been on this part of the ICW so was unsure what anchoring would be like or what might be available further into the ICW to ride out this coming storm.
We had planned on getting to Coinjock that day but they were completely full. So we called all the marinas that were with in 10 miles of us and no one had availability. Its becoming obvious that marinas just are not prepared for Cats. We looked at two anchorages and they were packed, seems everyone read the same weather forecast.
Finally as we prepared to anchor off the edge of the ICW we called one last place. The Norfolk Yacht Club, Which is a private yacht club that turned out they could take us.
Once we docked we found out that they thought we were a guest of one of their members. A another 38’ cat coming from Rhode Island and arriving on the next day. We told them that were were not their lost sheep and the member came down and thought the story was funny. He and the yacht club hosted us for 2 days. The next day it blew 35 in the protected harbor.
We left Norfolk at 6:30 am 2 days later wanting to get as far as Coinjock before dark. Well that was optimistic, seems we were in a huge parade of boats moving south. The fierce weather in September and October had grouped the south bound boats into large clumps.
At the first bridge in Norfolk we had to wait for an hour along with about 40 other boats of all sizes to get a chance to go through.
Once thriugh this bridge we joined the ICW parade that lasted all the way to Moorshead NC. When we got to the Great Bridge Lock we waited for several hours in line to get through the lock.
We made it to Coinjock just after sunset around 5:30pm. Coinjock is two face walls one on each side of the ICW, a gas dock and a restaurant. We were told when we tied up on the west side of the ICW that the last launch (really a dinghy) to the restaurant on the east side was leaving in 5 minutes. So we scrambled and headed over to the east side to the restaurant. We got there and were told the last launch back was at 7pm. So we hurried to the restaurant and finished there at 7:15. After a crew panic the nice folks at Coinjock said not to worry that they would get us back and we should just relax and enjoy ourselves.
Turns out the Coinjock Marina has just purchased the defunct marina on the west side where we tied up and is still figuring out their systems. They told us that its not usually that crowded but the storms had bunched everyone up into a traffic jam. We were back underway by 7am.
One memorable night was had just south of Bell Harbor on the Pongo river. We had just anchored in a small cove in some soft mud when our cell phones started screaming with weather alerts of tornadoes in our area. We had no cell service since Coinjock so this was a startling event. We checked the weather radar and saw that indeed there was a nasty front that had a tight purple center to it that was only 3 mile north of us. About 20 min later we saw 17 knots of wind and a down pour lasting only 15 min. Then it quieted to 4 knots of breeze and clear skys. Mother Nature sure can play some tricks on you.
In the Morning we head out and made Moorshead by 5pm.
Motoring the ICW is tedious. We went from dawn to dusk anchoring each night. It took 3 days to transit Cape Hatteras and get back to the ocean at Moorshead NC.
Finally some sailing… After three days of motoring in canals we were very happy to do some sailing. The weather forecast looked good for getting most of the way to St Augustine, Alas not to be so… After Sailing through the night we ducked in near the coast at dawn near Charleston SC for some cell reception and weather reports. The new report had the wind shifting to the south right on the nose and building seas.
One thing we have learned about this CAT is it does not like to beat into a sea. So we decided that we would duck into Savanna to wait for calmer seas. I have never been to Hilton Head and a friend also headed south was to stop at Hilton Head the next day, so we decided to make a stop there instead of Savanna.
We stayed in Hilton Head at the Harbor Town Yacht Basin about two nights. We left and headed south. The wind had clocked around to a more favorable direction but the seas were still fairly uncomfortable. So we ducked into a creek and waited out a few hours to let the new wind calm the seas.
We sailed most of the rest of the way to St Augustine. We motored the last bit as the wind had died to 4 knots. We arrived in St Augustine on October 28th.
All said it was a memorable journey due to the storms. I got to learn a lot about the boat.
We moored the boat at the Couch House Marina on salt run. The marina is really nice with a pleasant restaurant and very helpful staff. We visited the boat a few time through November, December and January but did not join the boat full time again till the end of January.
Northern Florida is not warm. It was in the 40’s lots of the time and quite stormy. But our family commitments did not allow us to move the boat again until late January.
We truly enjoyed St Augustine. Halloween was a hoot, downtown was decked out in lots of lights and they have trams that move around the downtown with passengers singing. Quite festive. Definitely a town that likes its holidays.
We will be returning to St Augustine in the spring to see what its like in season. Their season starts in March so when we were there it was quiet except for the holidays.