Sometimes you do it slowly and enjoy it. Sometimes you do it fast because you must. In this case, the life schedule said a fast ICW trip was required.
The trip from points on the Bay, like Annapolis, to various warmer South Florida destinations is at least 1100 miles, more if you are headed to the left coast. In most sailboats and true displacement trawlers, you are pushing to get 50 miles a day. In an eight-knot trawler, you can stretch it to maybe 80 miles in a pinch.
In a planing powerboat, 160-mile days are a possibility on some stretches. No wake zones and the required slow passes of slower traffic in confined waterways can limit those distances.
In the fall, daylight limits the long days to maybe 10 hours. The sun angles, in November in particular, make the earliest and latest of those hours problematic.
Likewise, the later into the fall you go, the more questionable the weather. Traveling inside in the ICW generally means you don’t worry about offshore weather. However, the run down the Bay and the crossing of the North Carolina sounds calls for manageable wind and waves. In addition, there are several places along the ICW in Georgia where following the “magenta line” requires you to “kiss” the ocean. A southeast swell in those sounds can make for a rough day.
This year, we made the trip the week before Thanksgiving week. Normally that is a bit after the biggest rush of snowbird traffic. However, this year, perhaps owing to the late tropical systems threatening Florida, it seems the bulk of the estimated 20,000 southbound ICW travelers decided to move the same week.
The “we” referenced above was my eager and reliable crew of college roommates and lifelong friends. My primary crewmate, my wife, Sue, has a distinct preference for the slow ICW trip. A trip planned with lay days, visiting friends along the way, and mid-day travel (“banker’s hours”) is her preferred pace. The “boys” can be driven hard. In fact, I think they like it that way.
Traveling the ICW in a sprint does not mean you don’t get to “smell the roses.” You just have to sort of sniff and go.
Our first leg was a run down the Bay from Annapolis to Norfolk. I have done this trip in seven hours on a nearly flat calm Bay. It can be a beautiful thing. This was not one of those trips.
Try as we might to find three relatively calm days to cover the first three open water challenges (the Bay, the Albemarle Sound, and the Pamlico Sound) we could not. Studying the weather maps against the aforementioned life schedule, we ended up covering the distance from Annapolis to Norfolk on what you might call a “sporting” day. The wind was mostly out of the west, thank goodness, but the modest beam seas made for a rough and especially spray-filled day.
In Norfolk, we sat for a couple of days waiting for better North Carolina Sound weather. The wait paid off and the passage from Norfolk to our first stop, Belhaven, NC, 136 miles, was easy. Owing to the bridges, the lock at Great Bridge, and fairly heavy ICW boat traffic, this was our longest day at nine hours.
Belhaven has a new nanobrewery an easy walk from the downtown marina. Our late afternoon arrival allowed us the perfect time to clean up and stop in to inspect their craft offerings. It was a worthy capstone on a long day.
The next leg was 131 miles to a nice little keyhole community marina just south of Wrightsville Beach. Wrightsville Beach proper is only another 45 minutes. However, the marinas there are often full and the current and wind can channel through the marinas. Sometimes, good docking is about discretion rather than valor.
One of the great little towns along the ICW is Georgetown, SC. It was our planned third stop. South of Myrtle Beach and along the way to Georgetown, you navigate the absolutely gorgeous Waccamaw River. For 20 miles the dark brown water disappears into the trees with nary a shoreline in view. If the ICW has a soul, it is the Waccamaw River.
The crew had time in Georgetown for breakfast ashore before a planned 8 a.m. departure. There are two early opening restaurants, and we defaulted to the one closest to the marina. While there, we were captivated by a young girl, maybe eight, who seemed to be a junior member of the waitstaff.
Sitting with her dad, she was dressed in what looked like a school uniform. We learned it was their Wednesday routine before the school day started. The captivating part of the morning was that she was also wearing a small apron with a bundle of beverage straws. She seemed to follow the waitstaff as a helper as if she were in training. It was too cute for words.
From Georgetown, we covered 155 miles to overnight in Hilton Head. The tides in South Carolina and Georgia can reach eight feet. There is a marina on Hilton Head that manages the tides with a lock. Inside the marina, the water level is constant and calm, a welcome outcome after bouncing along the waterway
all day.
Also inside this protected marina is the South Carolina Yacht Club. We locked through and made a beeline for their visitor’s dock. Dinner at the club with Annapolitans who have a winter home there followed. So, despite the sprint pace, we got a little quality social time!
From Hilton Head, we planned to push on 159 miles to Amelia Island, FL. There is a downtown marina there and the city of Fernandina is an attractive stop with many restaurants and shops. However, the marina is exposed to winds out of the west and so it was on this day.
Given the prospect of a rocky marina night, we opted to add a few short miles to the Amelia Island Marina, a well-protected keyhole marina. Dinner is always on your mind after a long day on the water. The restaurant pickings there are slim, but we got lucky.
The Amelia Island Marina has one restaurant. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, a remote marina with one restaurant suggests a marginal dining experience, at best. This one was stellar, a place the locals rush to patronize. Our crew orders included a superior fried catfish entry with an étoufée roux and a nice pair of blackened Mahi tacos.
Usually, by the time you get to Florida in the fall ICW trip you can trade the warm fleece for shorts and T-shirts. Not this time. Our arrival in Florida matched one of those cold frontal passages that originated in Canada. It was 46 degrees outside when we woke up on our first morning in the Sunshine State.
The last stop before arriving at our home winter marina was New Smyrna Beach, 127 miles farther south. The cold and west wind persisted all day. The marina approach was almost impossible to see as the setting sun lined up with it exactly. It took all three sets of crew eyes to make a safe landing in our overnight slip.
New Smyrna Beach has a hoppin’ downtown. We were rewarded for our patience with wind and sun by a visit to a local microbrewery on their main street. Dinner at a very nice local restaurant followed as did an early bedtime, a norm on an ICW sprint.
On this trip, we did it in eight days of travel, averaging 142 miles a day. We waited on the weather for two days. Run times were between seven and nine hours a day.
Bottom line, the ICW sprint can be done in a work week plus the weekends. If you are busy, why don’t you try it next year?
By Mike Pitchford