Charleston, SC 2/28/18
     I have not posted in a while because we have been in the same spot for the past week. Initially we planned to stay in Charleston for a few days while Nico flew home for some business. However, our steering cables needed to be replaced and the transmission, which was acting up, finally gave up the ghost. Since it was replaced just last winter it is  now traveling back to Massachusetts for some warranty work while we stay tied to the marina dock without a functioning engine. The good news is that we are in a fabulous city, at an excellent marina and we have good friends who live here. A big shout out to Karen and Peter Lawson-Johnson who have lent us their car, their lovely guest room and their hospitality during our extended visit.
     This has given me the opportunity to learn more about life in the South. I have especially enjoyed learning about the colonial period and comparing it to New England. More significantly, I have learned how the incredible wealth of this area was a result of the institution of slavery which sets it apart from the former northern colonies.



This is the town house of a wealthy Huguenot plantation owner. He had hundreds of slaves planting rice on a nearby plantation. In town there were between 10 -15 slaves that kept his household running.



The interior details were exquisite.



     This is the home where George Washington stayed for a week. The privy is on the left (they found some great artifacts in it, including false teeth with a gold bridge), the kitchen and slave quarters are between it and the main house and the carriage house is on the right. In other parts of town people have converted the outbuilding into separate homes or have extended the main house to incorporate them.



The kitchen, which is located in a separate building due to fire hazards. The slaves slept above.



Everywhere I looked there were beautiful houses and gardens to look at. This is the doorway of my brother-in-law's (Philip and Ellen's) former house.



Most of the older homes, like Peter and Karen's, are one room wide with a large porch facing south to catch the breezes in the summer.



A private garden



Ancient live oaks are treated with care.



Former warehouses and shops, located by the waterfront, are painted pastel colors, reflecting Caribbean influence. This area is called Rainbow Row.



This is Cabbage Row, the setting for Porgy and Bess.



There are a few reminders of a not-so-great period of history - such as protection from the slave revolts. I saw beautiful furniture with bullet holes that came through the windows fired by Union soldiers. We also went to a museum that was one of forty private slave marts that cropped up after public sales were banned.




Spanish moss in the graveyard.



The city has seen its share of natural disasters, especially the terrible earthquake in 1886, tornadoes and a series of hurricanes, most memorably, Hugo. This has resulted in houses held together by metal bolts, funny angles and many that are being lifted up a floor to avoid constant flooding.



This is the inn where Nico and I spent two nights of our honeymoon when we drove to Florida so he could rejoin his ship, the Coast Guard cutter Steadfast.



You would not see kids playing like this in Maine this time of year. It is late October and the temperature has been cool at night (in the 60's) and warms up during the day (70's and even 80's).



Our neighbor at the marina. She is over 240 feet long and the largest single masted sloop in the world. Her mast towers over the city and the sheer size of her sails and hardware is amazing. Look her up on the internet - her name is M5.



As you can imagine, we have been enjoying the regional food. This is my breakfast of shrimp, grits, eggs and fried green tomatoes. No lunch needed that day. Nico had a chicken fried pork chop, eggs and grits.



When Nico went back to Maine for business I had to fend for myself. We are still waiting for our transmission so we will continue our exploration of this lovely, little city.

10/16/18 Hurricane Damage

     For those of us who live in Maine, we see terrible pictures of the hurricanes down South but they don’t seem real. It’s hard to relate to the force of these storms when all we are familiar with are nor’easters and ice storms. Hurricanes do damage that last for years. I remember going on a field trip in college and having my professor of Ecology point out effects of the Hurricane of ’38. Hurricane Harvey dumped so much water on Texas that it actually put a dent in the Earth’s surface from the weight of all that water. Now that I have been through the remains of a hurricane with winds of 75 knots - not the 130 that hit the Florida panhandle - I have a whole new respect for the sheer power of wind and water during these storms. As we travel down the coast of North Carolina I have seen the damage that Florence did a month ago. The trees are brown. Just about every house is missing parts of the roof or siding. Everyone along the waterway has a dock and just about every dock is destroyed. And then, there are the boats that weren’t as lucky as we were. Here are a few pictures of what we have seen.

10/12/18 Traveling Through the Swamps and Hurricane Michael

      After leaving the Chesapeake we have entered an entirely different environment characterized by the swamp. Swamps are miserable to try and walk through but when you have the luxury of gliding through in a boat, not worrying about snakes, they become beautiful in their own way. The Great Dismal Swamp was named by a disgruntled Revolutionary War era surveyor who was trying to determine the Virginia/North Carolina border. George Washington, however, saw the value of the wood, especially the cedar for shingles, and bought a huge amount of land in the area. The job of digging the canal to get the wood products out was horrific work, mostly done by slaves using shovels in chest high water. The water was brown from all the tannin in it. I learned that ships liked to take on this water for long voyages because the tannin kept the water from spoiling. The canal was very narrow and only 6 feet deep. We occasionally hit logs that were submerged. I heard a story of one boat that got stuck hitting a submerged SUV that someone had stolen and somehow dumped in the canal. We also got to go through two locks in the process which was new for us. One hazard was hitting branches. Our VHF radio wasn’t working well and we discovered later it was because we bent it over when we hit oak branches. At the Great Dismal Swamp Visitor Center and Rest Area, the only highway rest stop that I’ve spent the night in a boat, we hiked the trails and learned more history about the area. The only bright side for the slaves digging the canal is that they learned the lay of the land and it became an important component of the Underground Railway. Recent research has also determined that there were communities of runaways living on slightly higher “islands” in the swampland until after the Civil War.

    Our first lock experience


The vegetation




Lots of duckweed


Cypress Trees

 
The water was brown from the tannin 

     The canal soon became a small, twisty river through the cypress swamp and then joined a larger river before entering Albamarle Sound and heading to the Outer Banks, characterized by sand, wind and waves. We stopped at Kitty Hawk and walked to the Wright Brother’s Memorial. After seeing photographs of the flight I was so surprised to see Kill Devil Hill, once a giant sand dune, covered with grass so it would not blow away. The memorial was a massive 1930’s Art Deco structure.

The sculpture at Kitty Hawk

    
Kill Devil Hill


The monument

 
     
     The next leg of our journey had us scuttling back to the ICW for protection from Hurricane Michael. We traveled down the Alligator River - yes, there are alligators in it - and through another canal called the Alligator/Pungo River Canal. We entered the canal in the early morning and once again enjoyed the beauty of the swamp. The birds were amazing, especially hawks, buzzards and hundred of swallows. I’ve seen so many eagles on the trip too.

We bought crabs off a boat

Alligator River Canal
   
  Now we sit in a well protected creek called Slade Creek, waiting out the storm and admiring  the uninhabited swamp around us. This morning we heard coyotes yipping. We also found a green tree frog that has probably hitched a ride since the Dismal Swamp area. He is hanging out in a container with air holes and some Romaine lettuce until we can release him in a good spot. The wind is blowing 20 to 30 mph but it hasn’t started raining yet. We are ready for it.

Update - We were NOT ready for it. The forecast predicted winds of about 45 knots. We took off our jib, rolled up the bimini, took off all the gear on deck and anchored with twice the usual amount of chain. We had fun waiting for it to hit, reading and watching movies. Then, after dinner, the speed kept creeping up. First it was gusting to 40, then 50, then amazingly, 60 knots! At that point our alarm went off indicating that we were dragging our anchor! Nico lept on deck, started the engine and tried to motor up to relieve the pressure on the anchor but the engine wasn't powerful enough to combat the wind. I got out our second anchor, Nico set it and thankfully it held. It was attached to 150 feet of nylon line so I spent over an hour on the bow shinning a flashlight on the line, checking for chafe and blowing a whistle if Nico was in danger of running over it as he tried to keep pressure off it by motoring. It was blowing a steady 50 to 60, gusting to 75!  I learned later that 75 knots is like 85 MPH. Waves crashed over the bow, covering me as I clung to the staysail. At one point the second anchor, a Danforth, started to drag but caught again just a few feet from the shallows. Finally, after what seemed forever, the wind gradually started to abate. Although it had been raining, at this point all the stars were out.
     Nico stayed up the rest of the night, keeping an eye on the anchor, finally napping at 5:30. As soon as it was light, however, we hauled up the anchors and moved back to our original spot. We slept until 11:00.


The wind speed before all hell broke loose


Our chart plotter showing how we dragged

10/5/18 Tangier Island
     Nico and I visited a fascinating island yesterday. Tangier Island is located in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Its elevation is listed at 3 feet! Since 1850 the island has lost 67% of its land due to the rise in sea level. The population of the island is listed at 727, with 70 kids in a K - 12 school, but it is believed that the town will need to be abandoned in the next 50 years as the water claims it. They are watermen, earning their living from crabbing. In the early 1920's they were involved with the oyster wars when fishermen from up north came with dredgers and fought with the locals who were still hand tonging. Now the economy is primarily crabs but there was evidence of deserted crab shacks and sunken boats. The people have their own dialect which scholars say developed due to isolation, not passed down from English colonists as many believe. We enjoyed talking to Mr. Parks who was 87 years old and running the marina now instead of crabbing. Despite having their home covered by sea level change the inhabitants are fervent Trump supporters. There were many religious and Trump signs across the island. Nico and I went out to dinner while we were there. Nico had the special - 4 fried soft-shelled crabs on soft white bread. I had The Bay in a Bun - one crab, one crab cake and a flounder filet in a bun.
     There was a National Geographic article about the island in 1973.





The locals use the waterways in the marshes like roads. Instead of ATVs, like on Maine islands, they use jet-skis.





Mr Park's house. They mow the marsh grass for lawns. This was taken at low tide.



     Like Newfoundland, everyone had their stage by the water for gear and pots. I noticed that one guy was living in his. Quite a few were deserted, as were many of the holding tanks for soft shells. However, 400 bushels of crabs are taken each day from the island to the mainland.



There were cats everywhere! A big problem is finding space for the graves (see background). Some were above ground because they are constantly flooded.



 The golf carts were on little platforms so they didn't flood at high tide.



This totally captures the essence of the community.



     This is one of the main streets at high tide.  The major road is called Main Ridge Road. It must be the area that is 3 feet high. Luckily I was wearing water shoes but Nico had to take off his shoes and socks to walk through it. There were little minnows everywhere.



I didn't notice anybody wearing boots. Do they all just walk through it?



     I can't imagine what it is like in January when it is wet and cold all the time.



     I'm glad we had a chance to to see Tangier Island before it disappears. As I write this we are looking at two gigantic aircraft carriers and multiple helicopters. We are 60 miles, and what seems a hundred years, away in Norfolk, Virginia.