My First Cruise Up The ICW -------------------------- After owning my 1973 Gulfstar 44 ketch for 12 months, I went cruising from Marathon FL to Trenton NJ, up the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW) single-handed. I hoped to do several offshore passages on the way north, taking advantage of the Gulf Stream to make 9 knots or so instead of the 6 I'd do in the ICW. But weather prevented that; wind blew from the north the whole time I went north in Florida, and northeast or east half of the time after that. Also, I found single-handing would have limited me to fairly short passages, which in turn would make timing my transits through inlets very important: I'd need a fair tide and good daylight. If anything had gone wrong, I would have been in trouble: tired, waiting offshore for daylight and a good tidal current. I anchored out every night, avoiding marinas. I thought finding anchorages would be tough in east Florida, but it was harder in northern South Carolina and North Carolina. In those places, much of the ICW is a dredged channel surrounded by very shallow water, marinas, docks, other channels with strong currents. Several times I had to anchor right on the edge of the ICW or a side-channel, and endure wakes and hope that no one hit me. Some of the well-known towns or landings were too small or crowded for me. Barefoot Landing SC was full, with boats circling waiting for a spot. Annapolis MD was a zoo, even at a non-boat-show time. Crisfield MD has expensive dinghy-dockage and is an ugly town with little to see. Solomons MD is inconvenient and over-hyped. Baltimore MD and Savannah GA have little or no reasonable anchorage space. Breakdowns / problems: - engine oil cooler started leaking; replaced it myself in Beaufort NC. - a boat dragged almost into me in Beaufort NC in a thunderstorm, and my propeller chopped off one of my anchor rodes getting away from them; managed to recover my ground tackle. - lost $90 anchor (neglected to put seizing on shackle). - alternator regulator started overcharging in Oxford MD; sent to FL to get it repaired. - was fined $85 in St Mary's City MD for not having a PFD in my dinghy. - gooseneck came apart near Urbanna VA. - genset stopped working; took fuel injectors out and left them with a yard in Yorktown VA, and they fooled around for a month, fixed nothing, and sent them to me in FL. - drinking water pump started leaking. - outboard stopped working in Elizabeth City NC; still don't have it working; a real pain. - a bilge pump hose siphoned water in and almost sank the boat in Georgetown SC harbor; turns out the plumbing has been wrong all along. - engine starter solenoid started acting up; had to tap it to start engine. Notice that I DIDN'T run aground. Actually, I woke up grounded gently in anchorages twice, but I knew that would happen each time, and had a short wait to get off. High points: - Showing the boat to my family and relatives, and in NJ taking them for little cruises on the Delaware River. - Hooking up with people I'd met through email, and showing them the boat. - Nice small towns: Havre de Grace MD, Chestertown MD, Elizabeth City NC, Beaufort NC, Georgetown SC, Beaufort SC, Hampton VA. A few (Oxford MD, Onancock MD) were a little TOO small. - Anchored for a day in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, in tourist central. Was fun to do once. Was in the lower harbor for the July 4th fireworks, too. - Met a lot of nice cruisers. - Wonderful art museums (Norfolk VA, Washington DC, Savannah GA), science/space museums (Portsmouth VA, Washington DC, Baltimore MD, Hampton VA), battleship museums (Norfolk VA, Wilmington NC), maritime museums (Beaufort NC, St Michaels MD, Solomons MD), and historical sites (Jamestown VA). There's a lot to see. I did a six-month trip (mid-May to late November), didn't spend more than a week in any one place, and still skipped or skimped on several nice places (Portsmouth VA, Barefoot Landing / Myrtle Beach SC, Savannah GA, St Augustine FL). Didn't see any launches from Cape Canaveral; the timing for those is hit-or-miss. On the way back, after Savannah GA, I got into "eat up the miles" mode: no more sightseeing. Maybe I'll do another trip to Florida's east coast later. I calculate: - About 2800 statute miles covered. - Six months and one week to do it. Spaghetti for dinner 34 times, which is about 1.5 times per week. - About 760 hours of engine running time (includes some battery-charging-only hours). - About 975 gallons of diesel consumed; works out to about 1.3 gallons/hour and about 3+ miles/gallon. Average price probably around $1.20/gallon, for total of about $1200. - Probably had the sails up less than 2% of the time. Sailing just is not a practical way of traveling, at least in canals and rivers and channels. It was a good trip, but now it's nice to be stationary for a while.