been brushed top to bottom across the horizon with fat strokes of reds and pinks. Another night, we are the only witnesses when a half-dozen hungry dolphins work the shallow edges of the creek, hoovering up their shrimp dinner as Steve scoops up ours.
W e’re moving south, but we’re not outrunning winter.
I look like the Michelin Man and I can barely clamber up and down the companionway. I’m swaddled in a full set of thermal underwear, jeans topped with rain pants, a fleece pullover topped with a down ski jacket topped with a foul-weather jacket, two pairs of socks, gloves, and a wool toque.
Under the toque, my hair is greasy and desperately in need of washing. Although it’s possible to take a hot shower on
Receta
, it’s not easy. Water is heated onboard by the engine via a heat exchanger, and it’s a fair distance from the hot-water tank, which is aft, under the cockpit, to the head, far forward, where the shower is. By the time the water coming out of the showerhead is even tepid, I’m shivering; by the time it’s approaching hot, I’ve already wasted so much water, I can’t enjoy it. Plus, there’s the cleanup. One drawback of
Receta
’s lovely traditional oiled teak interior is the head. Modern cruising boats of similar size have a separate molded-plastic shower;
Receta
’s shower is part of the head itself—which means the toilet, teak-trimmed counter, teak-trimmed walls, and floor (with teak grate) get soaked when you use it, despite the valiant efforts of a shower curtain—which means you need to wipe the entire head dry when you’re finished, or mildew will sprout everywhere. In warm weather, in isolated anchorages, we showered in the cockpit, using a solar shower (essentially a heavy-duty plastic bag with a nozzle; fill it with water and leave it out to heat in the sun all day). Larger towns like Annapolis and Beaufort (
Boh-fort
) have shoreside showers for cruisers, but we haven’t anchored off a lot of “larger towns” lately. A daily shower these days simply isn’t worth the trouble.
One more night of record-cold November temperatures, the radio tells us. One more night of disgusting dirty hair. For the first time since we left Toronto, I wish I were curled up in our warm bed at home.
W e drone along, 50 or so miles a day, 51⁄2 miles an hour, the engine doing the work, often with one sail up to give us whatever assist from the wind we can get. The only variation in the deep thrum of the diesel comes when we need to slow down to wait for a bridge to open or goose it up to reach a bridge before it closes. Opening bridges are the bugbear of the ICW, eighty-five of them between the Chesapeake and Miami, as many as twelve in one day’s travel. Some open only on the hour, some on the half hour, some every twenty minutes, some not at all during morning and afternoon rush hours, and some on a mysterious schedule apparently known only to the bridgemaster and completely unrelated to what’s printed in our guidebook. Missing a bridge means endless circling until the next opening. More than mere annoyance, it can be downright tricky when the channel is narrow and the tidal current is sweeping in or out. Steve is always at the helm when we approach a closed bridge.
“
Receta
. Be careful.” The cockpit speaker of the VHF radio had squawked to life as we circled in front of the highway bridge at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. “This is
Kairos
, the boat ahead of you. Don’t follow me. We just touched bottom.”
Thump
. “
Kairos
, this is
Receta
. Too late. We’re aground.” Right in the channel, I might have added.
Piss
. I hadn’t even been anxiety-ridden about this stretch of the waterway. It was tomorrow’s—the shallow, tricky Cape Fear River with its multiple inlets, strong currents, and confusing buoyage—that I was dreading.
This was the last bridge we’d planned to go through today; I had been
so
looking forward to being at anchor on the other side. But now
W e’re moving south, but we’re not outrunning winter.
I look like the Michelin Man and I can barely clamber up and down the companionway. I’m swaddled in a full set of thermal underwear, jeans topped with rain pants, a fleece pullover topped with a down ski jacket topped with a foul-weather jacket, two pairs of socks, gloves, and a wool toque.
Under the toque, my hair is greasy and desperately in need of washing. Although it’s possible to take a hot shower on
Receta
, it’s not easy. Water is heated onboard by the engine via a heat exchanger, and it’s a fair distance from the hot-water tank, which is aft, under the cockpit, to the head, far forward, where the shower is. By the time the water coming out of the showerhead is even tepid, I’m shivering; by the time it’s approaching hot, I’ve already wasted so much water, I can’t enjoy it. Plus, there’s the cleanup. One drawback of
Receta
’s lovely traditional oiled teak interior is the head. Modern cruising boats of similar size have a separate molded-plastic shower;
Receta
’s shower is part of the head itself—which means the toilet, teak-trimmed counter, teak-trimmed walls, and floor (with teak grate) get soaked when you use it, despite the valiant efforts of a shower curtain—which means you need to wipe the entire head dry when you’re finished, or mildew will sprout everywhere. In warm weather, in isolated anchorages, we showered in the cockpit, using a solar shower (essentially a heavy-duty plastic bag with a nozzle; fill it with water and leave it out to heat in the sun all day). Larger towns like Annapolis and Beaufort (
Boh-fort
) have shoreside showers for cruisers, but we haven’t anchored off a lot of “larger towns” lately. A daily shower these days simply isn’t worth the trouble.
One more night of record-cold November temperatures, the radio tells us. One more night of disgusting dirty hair. For the first time since we left Toronto, I wish I were curled up in our warm bed at home.
W e drone along, 50 or so miles a day, 51⁄2 miles an hour, the engine doing the work, often with one sail up to give us whatever assist from the wind we can get. The only variation in the deep thrum of the diesel comes when we need to slow down to wait for a bridge to open or goose it up to reach a bridge before it closes. Opening bridges are the bugbear of the ICW, eighty-five of them between the Chesapeake and Miami, as many as twelve in one day’s travel. Some open only on the hour, some on the half hour, some every twenty minutes, some not at all during morning and afternoon rush hours, and some on a mysterious schedule apparently known only to the bridgemaster and completely unrelated to what’s printed in our guidebook. Missing a bridge means endless circling until the next opening. More than mere annoyance, it can be downright tricky when the channel is narrow and the tidal current is sweeping in or out. Steve is always at the helm when we approach a closed bridge.
“
Receta
. Be careful.” The cockpit speaker of the VHF radio had squawked to life as we circled in front of the highway bridge at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. “This is
Kairos
, the boat ahead of you. Don’t follow me. We just touched bottom.”
Thump
. “
Kairos
, this is
Receta
. Too late. We’re aground.” Right in the channel, I might have added.
Piss
. I hadn’t even been anxiety-ridden about this stretch of the waterway. It was tomorrow’s—the shallow, tricky Cape Fear River with its multiple inlets, strong currents, and confusing buoyage—that I was dreading.
This was the last bridge we’d planned to go through today; I had been
so
looking forward to being at anchor on the other side. But now
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