Traveling Transvesselites

Vessel Name: She's On Board
Vessel Make/Model: Mainship 390
Hailing Port: Annapolis
Crew: Phil Burgess, Mary Sue Burgess
About: Phil and Mary Sue reside on Lake Ogleton on the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland. They are life-long sailors (Hunter 33 and Tartan 37), including one trans-Atlantic passage and itineraries all over the US -- from the San Juans in the Pacific Northwest to the Florida Keys and the Chesapeake.
Extra:
With the recent purchase of a Mainship 390, Phil and Mary Sue have gone to the dark side...again. We switched from sail to power briefly in 2004, when we acquired a PDQ 34 power catamaran to do the Great Loop. That's when Washington Post writer Darragh Johnson called us "transvesselites" in a [...]
29 May 2013 | South Mills Lock, Dismal Swamp
28 May 2013 | Morehead City, NC
27 May 2013 | Morehead City
26 May 2013 | 33 92.14'N:078 02.06'W
25 May 2013 | Bull Creek, South Carolina
24 May 2013 | Charleston, South Carolina
23 May 2013 | Beaufort, South Carolina
22 May 2013 | Kilkenny Creek, Georgia
21 May 2013 | Fernandina/Amelia Island, Florida
20 May 2013 | Jacksonville Beach, Florida
19 May 2013 | Daytona Beach
18 May 2013 | Titusville, Florida
17 May 2013 | Ft. Pierce, Florida
16 May 2013 | Stuart, Florida
16 May 2013 | Stuart, Florida
15 May 2013 | Ft. Myers Beach (Estero Island), Florida
14 May 2013 | Ft. Myers Beach (Estero Island), Florida
13 May 2013 | Ft. Myers Beach (Estero Island), Florida
Recent Blog Posts
29 May 2013 | South Mills Lock, Dismal Swamp

The peaceful beauty of meandering streams and quiet waters

We were up at 0700, had some coffee on the aft deck and enjoyed the rising sun, the lapping of the water against the boat and the rustling sea grasses that were close by. Our sailboat friends had already left.

28 May 2013 | Peletier Creek

Big John, strong winds and the spirit of the ICW

We woke up this morning with every intention of departing by 0700. But that was not to be. We spent the evening in a old-fashioned marina…called Taylor Boat Works on Peletier Creek. It was pretty primitive… no fuel, no pump out, questionable bathroom facilities, a rail instead of a boat lift, [...]

28 May 2013 | Morehead City, NC

She's on Board? Where did that come from?

Several readers have sent emails asking about origin of the name of our boat. Here's the answer:

27 May 2013 | Morehead City

Bridges, cuts and Cape Fear, but no DeNiro

We cast off from the Southport Marina on the Cape Fear River at 0830 and headed on to Morehead City, NC, 98 miles away. And we made it! Arriving at 1930. A new distance record for SOB on the ICW.

26 May 2013 | 33 92.14'N:078 02.06'W

It's like cruising through a bathtub

After a peaceful evening on the hook in Bull Creek…including a spectacular sunset…we awakened to a bright and beautiful sunrise in a cloudless sky. The morning weather was nippy, so our dress included a light jacket. We took some coffee on the aft deck, close to the water, and enjoyed the coming [...]

25 May 2013 | Bull Creek, South Carolina

Hasta luego, auf wiedersehen…and thanks for coming along.

We departed Charleston at 0930, but not before saying "see you later" to Denny and Dorothy, our shipmates from Annapolis who joined us at the beginning in Stuart, Florida.

Hasta luego, auf wiedersehen…and thanks for coming along.

25 May 2013 | Bull Creek, South Carolina
PMB
We departed Charleston at 0930, but not before saying "see you later" to Denny and Dorothy, our shipmates from Annapolis who joined us at the beginning in Stuart, Florida.

Our dear friends jumped ship this morning in Charleston in order to get back to Annapolis to get back to "work." I say "work" in quotes because, since retiring as a professor of oceanography at the Naval Academy, Denny, like Dorothy, always the teacher, has a bonus years career as a lecturer on cruise ships, so Denny and Dorothy have been, literally, traveling the world on all the major cruise ship lines where he gives lectures on everything from "sea creatures" to "what makes waves, including tsunamis." His next lecture series begins on June 2 on a trip through the Caribbean, so they will spend one more day touring Charleston, an historic American city that has preserved its commercial and residential buildings from ante-bellum days when it was a center of power and wealth in our new nation. After that, they will rent a one-way car and head back to Annapolis.

Having Denny and Dorothy share the first half of the trip back to Annapolis was both a pure delight and a Godsend. Both are great traveling companions and Denny, himself a graduate of the Naval Academy and a former Navy pilot, is especially clever with navigation, navigation aids and anything electronic. Because Mary Sue is also very good with "these matters" - I call them "these matters" because I like using them and pushing the buttons I really don't understand them - the path we take is Denny teaches Mary Sue how to use all this new-fangled stuff and now that Denny is gone, Mary Sue will teach me. It worked on another boat we had some years ago when Denny and Dorothy accompanied us from Toronto to Annapolis via Erie Canal and the Hudson River...and it worked today.

Denny and Dorothy helped us out of our dockage at Charleston. It was a difficult situation...sort of like parallel parking. We had a big luxury yacht in front and one in back (owned by a guy named Ricky....more about him later) and a 15-20 knot breeze wanting to push us into the dock or, once we were out, into one of the other boats. To make things worse, we had to do a 180 degree turn in a narrow marina. But, guess what, we did it! We pulled away from the dock smoothly. We had to make two runs at turning the boat around. Luckily we were at "slack tide" (those few minutes when the tide is turning) so, thankfully, we didn't have to contend with a lot of current.

We made it out OK and passed our friends on the dock. Waved our good-byes, and headed out of Charleston Harbor in the direction of Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861.

Now we are on our own, heading north, once again, on the ICW. After we had been underway for about three hours, I rang Dorothy on her mobile and said, with a sense of panic, "Ask Denny where the brakes are!" We all got a big laugh out of that, but truth to tell, we could not have made the trip without their help, advice and counsel, and companionship for the first several hundred miles. It is a pure blessing to have great friends.

Things were different today in other ways, too. First, the ICW. After we turned north out of Charleston Harbor, we went through several long cuts...artificial waterways that connect natural rivers and streams that together constitute the ICW. A couple of these were really long...like a long, straight canal. Many who write about the ICW call it "the ditch." That certainly doesn't describe most of it, but it describes a lot of what we saw today. But even the "ditch" parts are interesting - with beautiful homes, fishing camps, and the like. Whether a waterway is created by God or man, it is a magnet for people, and we certainly saw that today.

Also, today is the beginning of the long Memorial Day weekend...and everyone was out on the ditch in their boats - most were open boats in the 18-30 foot range. We saw dozens of boats packed with kids. One was named, "The captain and the kids" and this should have been the name of 40-50 boats that swept past us today... some going north and some south... and the younger the kids the more the more they wanted us to keep up our speed and the big wake so their boat could plow through, all with accompanying squeals of joy.

Speaking of wakes, I am really impressed with the level and consistency of boating etiquette. Power boats generally slow down when passing fishing boats. And when big boats pass each other head-on, both will slow down to prevent wake. When you approach a boat you want to pass, we learned the lingo and procedure. You radio the boat you want to pass and say, "This is She's on Board, approaching on your port stern. If you will slow down, we will give you a slow pass"...which is a nice way of asking the guy in front to slack off a bit so you can slow down and still pass him, thereby minimizing the wake you throw on him. (if it's a sailboat, he is already going slow, so you slow down when passing them as well). It is pretty cool. No laws. No regulations. No enforcers. Just a pinch of common sense and another of common courtesy, and it works pretty well to everyone's advantage. We didn't know all these practices when we started out, but quickly learned - especially when some guy ahead of us said, as he saw us approaching full steam ahead, "Captain in the approaching trawler, I will slow down so you can give me a slow pass." You don't even have to be a fast-learner to get the picture.

Another difference today: For the first time, we saw a debris in the water, mostly floating branches and sometimes large logs. That stuff is potentially dangerous to the hull of a fast-moving boat or to the engine. I have read about this, but didn't see it till today. It sure gives you second thoughts about traveling the ICW at night, if those thoughts had ever been there.

Another difference today: We saw at least a dozen derelict and abandoned boats washed up in the marshes, apparently victim of a past hurricane. These were all good-sized boats - 30 feet plus. Most looked like they had been the boats of professional watermen, but two were sailboats. Another example that you can't mess with Mother Nature.

Some things are the same: We still see dolphins regularly (but not as often...and no manatees, of course). Instead of mosquitoes, we now have big horse flies that actually bite you. Not sure what they are really called, but I have about 20 bites over my bod - though they don't seem to bother the others as they have me. And even as we left Charleston this morning, we saw an occasional set of palm trees, but those are no more. Now we are into solid tree cover in most segments...mostly deciduous trees and bushes with some conifers. There are still some marshlands, but not a lot...at least where we were today.

We had planned to stop in Georgetown, SC for the night, but we made such good time that we decided to push ahead. We decided to drop the anchor on Bull Creek, just off the traffic on the ICW...about 20 miles north of Georgetown. We are almost to Myrtle Beach.

To summarize, we departed Charleston at 0930 and arrived in Bull Creek at 1930, traveling 76 miles! That's a pretty good day for a trawler.

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