Our passage up through the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas was fairly swift, because we wanted to try and get to Florida at the same time that Sarah’s sister and her family were visiting her father-in-law Barry in Tampa. We left West End, Grand Bahama in the evening and enjoyed an uneventful crossing of the Gulf Stream to enter the US the next morning at Fort Pierce, about 100nm north of Miami. We motored through the inlet, and went straight to the Harbortown marina so we could make arrangements to clear into the USA. This entailed a trip to Palm Beach International Airport, where we presented ourselves for scrutiny by the customs and immigration officials, who seemed to like us enough to welcome us into their country. The next thing was to rent a car to get us to Tampa on the other side of the Florida peninsula, which is where Barry lives. The marina staff were happy to arrange a rental, which simplified things greatly for us, and we set off for Tampa. We spent a week with the family – well, Louise did, anyway. I went back to Puffin and spent some time exploring the area in the car, and returned to collect Louise just before the family left for home.

Family duties discharged, the plan was then to explore the Intra-coastal Waterway (ICW), a 1090-mile system of canals, rivers and over-sized ditches that form a navigable, if shallow inland route from Miami to Norfolk, Virginia. It’s supposed to be maintained to a depth of at least seven feet for the whole of its length, but Puffin draws six-and-a-half feet and the ICW is prone to silting, so we were expecting to do some of the trip ‘on the outside’ i.e. up the Atlantic coast. Our marina in Fort Pierce was situated just off the ICW, and we’d touched bottom getting to our berth. This was our introduction to the fact that, as long as we were in the ICW, whoever was at the helm would be watching the depth-sounder continuously. As it turned out, we didn’t spend much time in the Florida portion of the ICW, mainly because of the depth problem.

We went back into the Atlantic the same way we came in, through the Fort Pierce inlet, and headed north to Cape Canaveral. Kevin, one of our friends from Rally Portugal, had his boat Palandra in a marina in the ICW just south of the Kennedy Space Centre. We hadn't seen him since the end of the Rally, and looked forward to catching up with his news. We spent about a week there, swapping yarns and eating and drinking far too much. Kevin’s specialist subject was ‘the restaurants and bars that offer an all-you-can-eat deal for five dollars or less’ and I must say he proved to be an expert in his field.

Lunar Excursion Module

While in the area, we jumped on the tourist trail and visited the Kennedy Space Centre, which for me was the fulfilment of a childhood dream. I had followed the space programme assiduously as a child, churning out projects by the score at school, and I have retained all of the most obscure details from every manned mission to this day. I must have bored Louise rigid by sharing all of this knowledge, but frankly, I didn’t care. This was my dream and I can honestly say I don’t think I can remember a better day out. Ever. All the rockets and capsules from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were on display, and Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuit, in which he had walked on the moon, was there, close enough to touch. There was a talk from one of the shuttle astronauts and a 3-D movie of the building of the International Space Station which was so realistic I got vertigo. The whole day flew by far too quickly.

Also spectacular, albeit in a slightly different way, was the wildlife we were seeing on the waterway. Beautiful ospreys had built their nests atop the port and starboard daymarks that mark the channels. One minute they were gliding on the air currents, the next swooping down in near-vertical dives, finally feeding their new hatchlings with the fish they had plucked from the water. They were fascinating to watch. We also saw a manatee, which followed us through the Cape Canaveral barge canal and seemed to answer to the name of Hugh. Hugh Manatee. (Geddit? Never mind). And pelicans. They have a way of diving and resurfacing facing the opposite way you’d expect. There were lots of other birds of various shapes, colours and sizes. We also saw some dolphins that had found their way from the ocean into the waterway. The ICW was shaping up to be one big nature theme-park.

Pelican on a stick

Charleston

Charleston is a lovely city, made for strolling around, with beautiful, big, plantation-style houses in leafy streets, complete with hitching-rings to which you can tie the reins of your horse if you come a-callin’. There are attractive riverside paths where you can watch people watching the boats do what boats do. As dusk falls, the warm glow of gaslight keeps darkness at bay. Real gaslight. Rhett, oh, Rhett… This is the South. Florida is further south, but it isn’t the South. This is the real South, with all the courtesy and the charm... Just don't mention the war. The Civil War, that is. There is an unshakable conviction that the Yankee aggressor has gained the advantage only temporarily and that, one day, the good Lord will kick his butt back across the Mason-Dixon Line and restore the Confederacy, praise be. I hope he does, personally - the Confederates had much nicer uniforms. And that accent… don’t y’all love that accent?

We found a cinema, and as we hadn’t been to a movie since we were in Grenada, we thought we’d see whatever they were showing. The place looked a bit of a flea-pit, to be honest, but we bought tickets anyway, and were slightly surprised to be treated to what appeared to be a guard-of-honour lining our path to the stalls. Then it turned out there were no stalls, and in fact what we’d entered was a restaurant that just happened to show movies while you ate. Or was it a cinema that served meals while you watched? There were proper tables and menus and everything. As we took our places the guard-of-honour filed in and started to take orders, and the food arrived just as the movie began. The food was good, the movie was execrable, but the whole experience was memorable. I don’t know of anywhere like it in Britain, but I’m sure if one opened it would be popular.

We stayed in Charleston for another couple of days before continuing north up the ICW towards Georgetown, about which I have the dimmest of recollections. In fact, all the days from here on seemed to merge into one long blur, punctuated by the occasional memorable place or event. That’s not to say the trip wasn’t interesting, or not scenic, or anything like that, but it fell into a rhythm, a routine, where the average day was spent motoring, covering about 40 miles, and finding a spot where we could anchor securely for the night. Then it was up with the lark for breakfast, to start all over again.

Sunset on the ICW

A few stops stand out. There was an anchorage up a little creek off the ICW that gave the impression of being in the middle of a big cornfield, where we watched an amazing train of about twenty barges being conducted by two tugs, one at each end, and which took nearly an hour to pass. The sunset was gorgeous.

There was Barefoot Landing, a huge shopping mall with a floating dock to which you can tie up for free. Barefoot Landing is billed as South Carolina’s biggest attraction, which would be sad if it were true. But it had attracted the good folk of the Harley-Davidson motorcycling association, who had decided to converge on the place for one of their meets. There were hundreds of these legendary machines, all different in their livery but all with that distinctive, throaty roar. Interesting fact – the membership numbers of the association exceed those of the Republican and Democratic parties combined. If called upon to serve, they could probably form a government too! And we didn't feel at all silly as we joined them on our folding bicycles....

And Southport, where we docked at a restaurant that offered free berthing to diners. This was a deal we were happy to make, since the crab cakes and shrimp were delicious, especially with the 50-50 mix of horseradish sauce and tomato ketchup which makes such a good dipping sauce. After our meal, we walked along the waterfront and watched a family of otters playing on a floating dock, and they kept us captivated for over an hour. Southport had the feel of a real working fishing village, with lots of charm. We were quite chuffed recently to recognise the restaurant in one of the scenes in Domestic Disturbance, a John Travolta movie.

Southport

Sheltering from the storm…

Beaufort, in North Carolina, is a nice place, and was a good stop. We spent a week here. Good waterfront bars and restaurants, with really good live music to give the place a buzz, especially at the weekend. There was an excellent maritime museum (and I’m not one for museums) that had the added attraction of offering visiting mariners a couple of hours’ use of a car. This proved to be very useful for getting us to a decent-sized supermarket for a big stock-up! We used that facility twice, because we also needed some stuff for the boat. We sat out an amazing thunderstorm here, trapped on the shore by torrential rain and strong winds that would have made it unsafe to use the dinghy to get back to Puffin. Fortunately, the anchor was well dug in and Puffin stayed safely in position. 

This idea of a ‘courtesy car’ was one we encountered at many of the marinas on the ICW. Basically, you are given the keys and away you go, no forms to fill in, no questions asked. Another nice touch, again offered by many places, is an external telephone socket into which you can plug a laptop for internet access. Local calls are unmetered, so as long as you have an ISP with local dial-up, there’s no limit to your surf-time! Most of the marinas we stayed at offer a level of service unmatched by any marina we have encountered in the UK. But don’t get me started on British marinas…

Just across from where we were anchored is Horse Island, where Rachel Carson launched her campaign for better environmental awareness. Lots and lots of different types of shells line the beaches, and wild horses roam the dunes. I was quite interested to find out at last whether or not wild horses could actually drag me away, but they didn’t come anywhere near me, so I guess I’ll never know. I found two dead horseshoe crabs washed up on the sand. Amazing, primitive-looking creatures. They are harvested for their blood, which contains substances used by pharmaceutical companies in the manufacturing of certain drugs. Dunno what the rest is used for, because they sure don’t look edible! This one was about two feet long and just under a foot wide.

So that was the ICW. It was an experience, and I’m glad to have done it, because we saw some beautiful scenery and interesting wildlife. I’d love to do it again in a shallower-draft boat with a good engine, but not in Puffin. Not unless they dredge out another two feet, anyway. We touched bottom a few times, went aground twice and both times managed to get ourselves off, but having to watch the depth for the whole trip took some of the gloss off it for me. There was also the annoyance of ignorant fools in motorboats who never look behind to see the distress their wakes cause other boat users and seem unable to moderate their speed in spite of the vitriol they receive over the VHF.

Having said that, it was partly because of one of these morons that we ended up with a week’s free docking. As we were making our way downriver through Norfolk, an unnecessarily large powerboat called ‘Consequences’ raced by us, raising a huge wake that threw us about like a cork. I got on the radio and treated him to some good old cockney invective, but he didn’t respond – they never do. But Gary did respond, and Gary is the Port Officer for the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) in Norfolk. Louise and I are members of the OCC, and had emailed Gary some weeks before to enquire about facilities in Norfolk. He had heard me on the radio and concluded the angry Puffin with the British accent was likely to be the same British Puffin that had emailed him, and would we like to come over and dock at one of the slips next to his condo? Before Louise had a chance to respond in the affirmative, I had turned Puffin through 180 degrees and was heading towards the condo. Gary greeted us, took our lines, and later lavished food and drink on us. It was nice to be here.