It was a bit of a shock to go from the quiet rivers of northern North Carolina to a jumble of bascule bridges and a lock system in Virginia. Waiting in narrow waterways for bridges to open while avoiding other, larger sailboats that are also waiting, a large tug boat that is waiting too, and trying not to run aground or into the bridge isn’t what I would call relaxing (and that is apparently a good day!). We snaked our way past a graveyard of dilapidated boats, an industrial maze of cranes, naval ships, and tugs leading container ships. A small craft advisory had been issued for Hampton Roads that day, but we pushed onward, despite the discomfort, to Hampton, where we planned to meet up with my family for my brother’s birthday dinner.
Although I grew up in southeastern Virginia on the York River, I had only been sailing in the area a few times as a child. It was definitely an eye-opening experience to arrive by water, and I began to see the Chesapeake in a new light. Nearly all of the other sailboats that had been traveling alongside us up the coast of North Carolina stopped at the anchorage in Norfolk, but we had a little bit of insider knowledge from family friends, so we sought out the quieter anchorage in Hampton. We were quite happy with this choice, although there were only a few tight spots to drop the hook. The town of Hampton was impressively accomodating; in fact, the dock master even gave us a welcome packet upon our arrival (and we weren’t even renting a slip!). They offer a public dingy dock, $1 showers, and free bicycle rental.
Our first night in Hampton, in the midst of dropping our second anchor, a squall hit. My parents were waiting for us at a nearby restaurant with my brother when a 40-knot gust of wind hit us side-on. The wind shifted quickly, pushing Brian and the dingy into a nearby dock, while Illusion heeled way over under the force of the blow. The wind generator was on and cranking, as I struggled to locate the off switch and turn on the engine in case the anchors drug. We were terribly positioned, side-on to the wind, as Brian climbed back onto Illusion and tried to winch down on the second anchor rode. He managed well enough, and although we still weren’t in an ideal position, both anchors seemed to be holding us tight. Still, a second squall line was headed our way.
Between phone calls with my parents (should they go ahead and eat dinner or not?), we put out fenders, closed hatches, and prepared for a second blow, which never came. We waited instead until the rain subsided and then took the dingy to shore to meet the family for an after-dinner beer and birthday cake; by that time, we had unfortunately missed dinner. Despite our initial concerns, it turned out that we had positioned Illusion in a pretty nice spot, which we enjoyed for the next few days. We even made friends with some young folks on another boat that we recognized from Charleston, trading sailing stories like a couple of old salts (we aren’t) until we pulled up the anchors and made our way to the York River. We sailed most of the way, which was fantastic, reaching Yorktown just before dusk.
We’ve been enjoying the area in between working on the boat (Brian), preparing scholarship applications (me), and visiting with my family. I think I can safely say for the both of us though, that we had the greatest time kayaking to Goodwin Island from Back Creek yesterday. It may have been a hot day (101 degrees), but it was nice and cool on the water.
Illusion covered the coast of South Carolina in just two full days of offshore sailing, and had conditions been a little more favorable, we could have probably made the trip in less time. In contrast, it took us a couple weeks to cover the coastline of North Carolina on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Partly due to a short visit with my family and some coastal exploration of small towns along the way and partly due to weather, we made slow progress up the coast of North Carolina.
Compared to our offshore travel, the ICW seemed slow and tense, especially in the southern portion. There were many boats to watch out for, shallow water to avoid, and the most crowded anchorages that I’ve experienced. With that said, there was also much to see along the way and beautiful scenery. We motored nearly the entire way, pulling out the jib whenever possible to gain an extra knot and speed up our pace. I think next time we will try the offshore route around North Carolina, with one stop at Beaufort, NC, to explore Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks, which we were sorry to have missed on account of poor weather.
We stopped to explore several towns along the way. In Wilmington, we docked for one night at the public docks to recharge our batteries and fill up the jerricans with fuel and water. The town is in the middle of revitalization efforts, but it was a cute riverside location and the docks were located right in the center of everything. We grabbed some pizza, checked out a few art galleries, and just wandered for a while. When we reached Swansboro two days later, we anchored in front of the bridge. My uncle came to pick us up, and we visited with his family at the beach for Memorial Day Weekend. I was excited to hang out with them at their house for a few days, and Brian was happy to get in a few surf sessions. The ICW was a zoo of motor boats over the holiday weekend, so we were happy to avoid the crowded waterway. We did experience some of the madness when we left on Monday, but things had started to slow down by the time we reached Beaufort.
The anchorage in front of Beaufort town (Taylor Creek) was quite crowded our first night, and I was amazed to see so many cruisers in one spot (obviously, I haven’t been cruising for very long). I liked this anchorage because it provided easy access to the town and was right beside the Rachel Carson National Estuarine Sanctuary, which had wild horses on it! It was a popular spot because of its proximity and easy access to the ocean and its proximity to several other cool anchorages (Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks). Beaufort had many cruiser amenities (even an entire bookstore devoted to cruising books), and I particularly enjoyed the North Carolina Maritime Museum. North Carolina has such an interesting and unique maritime history; I remember visiting Bald Head Island as a kid and being fascinated by the Frying Pan Shoals and the stories of pirates like Black Beard and Stede Bonnet who occasionally took sanctuary on the island.
We left Beaufort for Oriental several days later, hoping to visit the marine consignment store there. The sleepy town reminded me of childhood and carefree days of summer in a bygone decade; it was beautiful, quiet, and quaint – the perfect location for a bed and breakfast. Houses kept manicured lawns with flowers and vegetable gardens galore and sidewalks that made it easily walkable. Apparently the marine consignment shop doesn’t operate on Wednesday and Thursday (we arrived on Thursday), so we missed out as we continued north for Virginia the next day. In the early hours of daylight during our departure from Oriental, we happily wasted (enjoyed) a few hours of time sailing on the Pamlico Sound. It was one of the most relaxing parts of our trip up the ICW – no engine noise, just wind and waves.
The wildlife and stretches of deserted waterway in the northern portion of the state provided a refreshing change of scenery after the crowded waterways of the south. I think my favorite stretch above the Pamlico Sound was the Alligator River, which I kept scanning for alligators and snakes (I never saw any). Although the water was brown, the banks were verdant, lush with vegetation and the occasional cypress tree. Butterflies fluttered around Illusion as we passed through the Pungo River Alligator River Canal, and I saw a fox running through the trees along the shoreline.
We made the mistake of avoiding the Great Dismal Swamp route and Elizabeth City, because of a misperception that it was too shallow for our 5′9 draft (we will definitely take it if we have the option again), but we ended up spending a beautiful night on the North River, which we discovered was a freshwater river. Excitement ensued when we anchored and, shortly thereafter, jumped in the water with our shampoo and soap for a little swim and a scrub. It was the first night since the Cape Fear River that we spent anchored alone (unless you count the hundreds of crab pots that surrounded us and the frogs with their croaking nighttime chorus). We were one with the natural scenery and felt rewarded with an unbelievable sunset. It was a peaceful and beautiful night even despite the disconcerting appearance of two tugs pushing barges up the narrow, serpentine river after dark – an indication perhaps of what was to come.
On our last leg of the North Carolina ICW, we achieved several hours of sailing in the Currituck Sound surrounded by hunting ospreys and nests full of their half-grown offspring; it was a beautiful last stretch of waterway to contrast the hubbub that awaited us in Virginia.
Hilton Head Island, SC, to Wilmington, NC, Offshore.
Continued from Cape Fear, NC, or a Cape to Fear…
The engine had been running for quite some time as we motor-sailed into the wind, so Brian turned it off to top up the oil and keep things running smoothly. As we bobbed about the ocean, we were visited by a large pod of small spotted dolphins. The dolphins surrounded the boat, surfacing frequently, and shortly thereafter, began slapping their tails vigorously against the surface of the water, first one dolphin, then sometimes four at the same time.
I ran around with my camera, trying to document it as best I could (there is one photograph below which shows them slapping the water), all the while reporting their every move down to Brian. “What do you think it means?” I had a strong sense that they were trying to tell us something. Perhaps they were concerned because we weren’t moving? They hung around the boat for quite a long time as we bobbed aimlessly in the ocean, letting the wind and waves have their way with us.
A short while later, they swam off to the southeast, and we started up the engine and continued to head farther offshore to the northeast, towards Wrightsville Beach or possibly Beaufort, NC. We could see lightening over the Cape Fear channel and decided that not to take our chances there. NOAA confirmed that there would be scattered showers and thunderstorms over the Cape Fear area throughout the night and into Monday morning. Being the amateur mariner that I am, I was worried about A) entering the unfamiliar channel at night and in the middle of a storm, and B) anchoring in an unfamiliar anchorage at night and in the middle of a storm. I suppose these could be a concern for anyone though.
We monitored the weather reports on the VHF closely for several hours, but conditions seemed to be worsening. At some point, we decided to cease our route farther north and wait for a break in the storms at Cape Fear. We were about 20 miles offshore from the channel when Brian hove-to to get some rest and wait out the storms. Night had fallen, and although there were lines of cumulous clouds to our east and northeast, there was a bright moon and a few stars above us.
Around 12 AM, a line of towering cumulous clouds appeared to the northeast of us. We could see bright flashes of cloud-to-ground (water in this case) lightening that appeared to be heading towards us. We had heard no reports of this new storm line on the VHF, so we watched the clouds to see what they were doing. At 12:45 AM, NOAA reported an organized storm line offshore to the southeast of Frying Pan Shoals moving northwest at 10 knots with frequent cloud-to-ground lightening. Boaters were advised to move inshore and seek safe harbor as quickly as possible. This was frightening news because it confirmed that, yes, the storm was indeed heading straight for us, and it was also heading straight for the Cape Fear channel, which was where we wanted to go.
We pulled down the sails, fired up the motor, and left our little patch of moonlight behind us. Illusion was racing the storm to the Cape Fear, even though there were still other thunderstorms – that we could see – over the channel. When we were five miles out from the channel, we passed a large container ship anchored in the pilot boarding area. It was lit up like a hotel in the middle of the black waters and clouds, so we radioed to ask for a radar report on the storm’s movement. There was no response. We thought briefly that maybe we could move out of its path if we turned to the southeast. We motored three or four miles in this direction, but it became apparent that the storm line was too long for us to dodge, and we were just heading into another smaller storm line off in the distance.
As several storm lines moved in on us from three sides, we pulled a 180 and made the run for the channel. We knew that we would be passing through one or several storms over the next two hours as we passed into the channel, but we hoped to avoid the worst of it, which was the line moving in from offshore, just northeast of us. We put on our life jackets and readied the ditch bag (just in case!), while I placed our two fire extinguishers in different parts of the boat. It wasn’t the rain or wind, or high seas (which were only about 3 feet at the time), that I worried about, but rather the lightening was the key concern, because we weren’t sure what kind of damage it might cause to the boat, and we were about to go through a full-on electrical storm.
We began to hear thunder as the storm got closer; I counted the seconds between the strikes, first 12 seconds, then 10, then 8, etc. The lightening became blinding, stretching across the sky above our heads and striking the water less than a mile away. Around 3:30 AM, I called my parents and asked them to check the radar for us on the computer (yes, I called my parents in the middle of the night and completely freaked them out – but hey, I was really worried about the boat getting struck by lightening, and I never did that when I was a teenager, so I feel entitled….just kidding, Mom and Dad!). Anyway, we couldn’t tell exactly what the storm was doing, how big it was, or how fast it was moving, and we were close to the entrance to the channel, so we needed to know right then. We didn’t want to put the boat at risk, if there was any way to avoid it.
The storm had overtaken us minutes before. Rain poured down as I asked, based on the radar images, whether or not they thought we should carry on for the channel or turn around and wait for the storm to pass before entering the channel. My father informed us that, based on our SPOT location, we were in the middle of the worst of this line of storms, but there was another worse line of storms behind it. The storm had stretched all the way from Myrtle Beach, SC, to Beaufort, NC, so there was no dodging this one. He advised us to let the worst pass over and then follow it in, so that is what we did.
Although lightening struck all around Illusion, thankfully it never hit us. Within twenty minutes it had passed over, and we once again made for the channel, this time through a steady rain. Brian had stoically been at the wheel the entire time. He steered us into the channel about an hour later, while I pointed out the approaching beacons and helped him find the channel through the rain. Green, red, green, red, green, red, yellow, yellow, yellow – wait, there was a tugboat in the channel pulling a barge! About 100 yards from Illusion, a spotlight came to life and searched the waters around us before landing on the boat. It let out several giant blasts on its horn and swiftly passed very close to us in the narrow channel.
To say that we were on edge would be an understatement; we were soaking wet, tired, and cold, when we finally arrived safely in the Cape Fear River shortly after dawn. We dropped anchor at 11 AM Monday morning (way up the river) and finally collapsed into bed. Exaggerations aside, I had just completed my longest trip offshore (two full days) and weathered my first storm at sea.
A note about our SPOT tracking:
The SPOT has come in very handy thus far, but I have noticed a few things. If you are checking the live SPOT map on my Trip page, you may have noticed that it is a bit lacking as far as the updates are concerned. I have been told that you have to manually update the page to get new locations to show up. If you are following along in the future, then this page is the more reliable/accurate method to follow our progress. Thanks for following the journey!
Hilton Head Island, SC, to Wilmington, NC, Offshore.
It was a dark and stormy night (and oh was it ever!), but it did not start out that way. Brian will claim that I exaggerate, but I can’t squelch the creative writing degree in me. In either case, I will let you be the judge of this two-post series….
We left Palmetto Bay in the late afternoon hours last Friday. At dusk, we dropped anchor in Skull Creek at the edge of the Port Royal Sound, the entrance to the ocean, and had a quiet dinner. Our departure was imminent. We went to bed early and awoke with the sun the next day, refreshed and ready for the high seas. After a quick espresso, we were off. Illusion cut through some choppy water on the way out of the channel, but zigzagged her way smoothly out into the ocean. We sailed north for eight hours before the winds shifted slightly, and we turned the motor back on. Brian and I alternated watches throughout the day, but we didn’t keep track of the time. I lounged; I read; I napped in the sun. It was an all-around pleasant day of sailing.
The sun crept lower in the west as we approached the Stono River, Folly Beach, and then the Charleston Harbor – our intended destination. As Brian and I debated where to anchor for the next few nights, the NOAA weather station declared over the VHF that there was a bad thunderstorm moving east down the Cooper River from North Charleston. The storm had winds up to 60 miles per hour, lightening (which according to NOAA is nature’s number one threat to humans??), and hail. Since we definitely weren’t going to turn inshore into that, the next stop was Georgetown, SC, just a few hours up the coast.
I started having a deja vu when NOAA reported a new thunderstorm in Georgetown, not as bad as the one in Charleston, but with frequent cloud-to-ground lightening. But again, it was not a big deal to continue north up the coast. The boat was safer offshore than inshore at this point, and Illusion was performing well, so we carried on. Night fell quickly and soon we found ourselves beating into the wind. The sky was clear, with many stars and a visible Milky Way that crossed the sky over Cape Romain. It wasn’t a pleasant night, but it wasn’t too bad either. Illusion had come a good distance, which meant we would be able to get up to North Carolina faster than planned – an added bonus.
Dawn broke over a tranquil ocean on our second day offshore (see picture below). As the sun rose, the water appeared glassy, like obsidian, under a clear blue sky. The color was the deepest blue I have ever seen, smooth and soothing. There was no wind. Schools of fish passed us, boiling along the surface of the waves, dark patches, which flashed silver in the the light. Over the course of the morning, several pods of large dolphins swam by, ducking underneath the boat and surfacing below our peering eyes, on their way to breakfast (or lunch), and two small sea turtles frantically swam out of our way as we cut through the blue water.
In the afternoon, we noticed a line of cumulus clouds building to our west along the coastline (which you can also see in my pictures below). They eventually formed into two storm lines east of us heading southeast around Myrtle Beach, SC. In order to dodge them – which we did – we turned northeast and headed farther offshore, running parallel but in the opposite direction. This put Illusion on a course that would eventually take us around Frying Pan Shoals, NC (also called the graveyard of the Atlantic!), and up to Beaufort, NC, if we chose to do so.
We had just spent two full days offshore. Should we push the boat further before heading in? We didn’t know. We did know that the conditions offshore were going to deteriorate steadily over the course of the next few days, and high seas were predicted for Tuesday and Wednesday. It was Sunday evening, and the sun was starting to set, which meant that we had two options: we could head in at Cape Fear, or carry on and head in at Wrightsville Beach, after rounding the Frying Pan Shoals.
To be continued….
Rockville, SC, to Hilton Head Island via the ICW: 3/8 – 3/10.
It was great to get to know Illusion again (and on the water!), after nine weeks in the boatyard. This being our first (test) leg of the trip, a leisurely motor down the ICW to Hilton Head Island, there was much to go over. Brian and I needed to make sure that all of our repairs were sound, and I especially wanted to get a feel for handling her on the water again. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Brian has a great deal more sailing experience than I and, after we moved onto the boat a year ago, we started working on projects and were unable to take her out of the slip. There is much for me to learn and review about sailing before I will be able to feel comfortable on my own – and it is important for me to be comfortable and confident in my own right so that I can handle potential situations that arise without having to double check my reasoning or ask Brian what to do.
My first impressions and indications about our upcoming trip were all extremely positive. I could not have asked for better weather. Even though we were under motor the entire time, Brian and I had a great time relaxing and enjoying the natural beauty of the most deserted strip of coastline in South Carolina. We anchored in Steamboat Creek the first night, close to a historic steamboat landing, where, in the early 1800s, Edisto residents boarded the ferry to Charleston. I couldn’t believe how peaceful it was at anchor. This was the first time we had slept on the boat at anchor in just over a year. I know that it will not always be the case, but it was so calm and peaceful the first night that it didn’t even feel like we were on the water. The skies were clear and it was quiet save one dog barking in the distance.
There were a number of reasons why we decided not to sail for the first leg. The main reason being that we need to climb the mast to adjust the angle of the spreaders, tighten the stays, and put on the last two winches. We also need to build a little confidence in our rebuilt Westerbeke and put some hours on her. In addition, it would have been nearly impossible to navigate the shallow, narrow waters of that stretch of ICW under sail, so we would have had to avoid it entirely, and wow, it was beautiful. We saw three full-grown wild boars wandering along the shore of the Dawho River next to us (check out the picture). There were also many close encounters with dolphins and so many birds in the Ace Basin. The greatest part was that it was relatively deserted. We only saw a handful of other boats, even in the Sound.
We spent the second night back in civilization, anchored beside the Lady’s Island Bridge in Beaufort, SC, where we used the dingy to hop into town for a drink and to pick up some dessert. Still, in the morning, as we waited for the bridge to open, an osprey flew over us clutching a huge half-eaten fish. It certainly confirmed my thought, that cruising is luxury camping. During the last day, we spent some quality time talking, musing about the trip, and making several lists of final projects and preparations. Some of the projects are as easy as organizing our music on one device or reorganizing our food storage, while others involve patching the floor where Brian had to cut out the mast step and installing the wind generator, etc. We will be in Hilton Head for a week to 10 days, making our final preparations, but then it is bon voyage, and if this first leg was any indication of the awesomeness to come, then I can’t wait!
With the departure date lurking somewhere in the near future, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic about the beautiful place that I’ve called home off and on for the past seven years. Charleston is both unique and picturesque, with cobblestone streets winding between colonial mansions, Charleston singles, church towers, cemeteries, waterfront parks, and oak trees draped in Spanish moss. My close friend, Mary, came to Charleston last week on a business trip and was forced to stay through the weekend because of a snowstorm up north. This unfortunate (fortunate!) event provided me with the perfect excuse to engage in the best of what the city has to offer one last time before I depart.
Charleston, you will be missed!
I thought this information might useful to anyone planning a weekend visit to Charleston, so I’ve included our itineraries in the hopes that you will use it to build-your-own weekend adventure. Because Mary only had two full days to take advantage of, we planned our touring around efficiency, eating (of course), and capturing the essence of the place. This is a rundown of our two-day tour of Charleston plus a few travel tips for first-time visitors.
Map
Day One: Itinerary
- Breakfast at Hominy Grill – 1 hour
- Browse antique shops along King Street – 30 min
- Drive to the Battery and walk around – 20 min
- Wander, explore streets and architecture south of Broad Street – 30 min
- Drive to Rainbow Row/East Bay Street – 5 min
- Walk to Waterfront Park – 20 min
- Explore art galleries on Queen and Broad Streets – 45 min
- Check out churches and cemeteries on Church and Meeting Streets – 20 min
- Drive to Folly beach – 25 min
- Lunch at the Lost Dog Cafe – 1 hour
- Walk on the pier – 45 min
- Stop for a Tokyo Crepe – 15 min
- Drive back downtown – 25 min
- Dinner at a downtown restaurant – 1 hour
Day Two: Itinerary
- Drive to Isle of Palms – 20 min
- Brunch at the Boathouse – 1 hour
- Drive to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island – 10 min
- Walk around the fort – 45 min
- Walk along the beach – 45 min
- Drive back downtown – 20 min
- Drive by Citadel – 10 min
- Break – 2 hours
- Dinner at Monza on King Street – 1 hour
- Walk to Paolo’s Gelateria for Dessert – 20 min
*times are estimated
Places to stay: During my last year of college, I worked at a bed and breakfast downtown (the 1837 Bed and Breakfast to be precise). There are a large number of unique B&B’s conveniently located throughout the historic district. Each one is distinct, some located in historic mansions, renovated Charleston singles, or carriage houses, so the price ranges vary drastically between the different accommodations. You can easily walk or bike the city, usually a full breakfast and parking is provided, and in most cases, they are family owned or run, so you will get a personalized experience. If you are on a tight budget, check out the NotSo Hostel, Charleston’s only backpackers’ hostel located in a historic house on Spring Street. Call the Charleston Visitors’ Center for more information on accommodations and booking.
Things to See: As with any city, you could easily fill an entire week with sightseeing, but if you only have a few days, then you can choose your highlights based on your interests (i.e. history, architecture, art, etc.). I recommend walking or renting a bicycle (available by the day here) for traveling downtown because parking and driving in Charleston can be quite tricky. The streets were built for horse and carriage; they may be beautiful, but they are disorganized, narrow, and flood-prone, so bring a map. Definitely wander down to see the iconic Battery, Rainbow Row, Waterfront Park, the Market, the College of Charleston, and any of the residential streets south of Broad Street. There are also numerous art galleries, antique shops, and boutiques located south of Market Street and along Broad Street. For specific tour information visit this site. If you are willing to drive outside of the downtown area, be sure to check out Folly Beach, Sullivan’s Island, either Fort Moultrie or Fort Sumter (Fort Sumter requires a boat tour), and one or more of the plantations surrounding the peninsula. By the way, check out this great NY Times slideshow of the plantations.
Good Eats: These are simply my favorites. For breakfast or brunch head to Hominy Grill on the corner of Rutledge and Cannon Streets. Located in a pink Charleston-style house with a large mural on the side of a woman with a steaming bowl of grits, it offers typical Lowcountry cuisine, such as fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, biscuits and gravy, etc. For a quick, inexpensive, light bite to eat for breakfast or lunch, visit my favorite cafe in Charleston, Fast and French on Broad Street (croissants, french press coffee, sandwiches, and soups). Check out the lunch or dinner menu for Cru Cafe near the market, a cozy Charleston-style restaurant with a cute little porch available for dining. The Lost Dog Cafe is my favorite Folly Beach choice; casual with indoor and outdoor dining, the food is always great, but remember it is closed for dinner. As for dinner downtown, I will simply recommend FIG ($$$$) and Monza ($$), and send you to browse the dining guide here or here. Be sure to investigate menu prices (especially if you are thinking about dining on Market or East Bay Streets).
FYI the Charleston City Paper is a great place to learn what is going on the weekend of your visit or to read about restaurants and local events, and if you come in the spring, fall, or summer, don’t forget to check out the Saturday morning Farmers Market in Marion Square!
Sunday was gorgeous, sunny, warm, and breezy. Brian and I decided to drive out to Folly Beach for brunch and a photo shoot. I wanted to fully test out my new camera, so that I’ll know how to access and manipulate all the options and settings when we finally set sail. The lighting was fantastic, and I managed to capture some nice pictures just before a little rain storm blew in from sea.
If you’ve been reading this blog, then you know that this is the last post I am going to make about my trip to the West Coast. Later this week, I should be back to my studio updates, lifestyle, and weekly inspiration posts (I hope). As you can see from the many photographs below, Brian and I had a great number of varied experiences in San Francisco. We were only there for a couple of days, but the city is massive, and the only real conclusion I could come to was that I didn’t see enough of it to make a judgment.
We stayed with a Couchsurfer friend, who spent the night on our futon in Charleston back in January before we moved onto the boat. He has an interesting shared living situation in an old sign factory south of market, which he and his flatmates call Langton Laboratories. I didn’t take any pictures, but you should definitely check out their blog for more information. They have been modifying the building as suits their needs and were in the process of constructing an interior porch to connect onto the kitchen and overlook the warehouse garage. They were also working hard on their many Burning Man preparations during our visit.
For the first two days, Brian and I went exploring on our own, by foot the first day and then by bike the second. As I said before, San Francisco is a huge city, so we spent our time in several specific areas. When we first arrived in the city, we walked through Chinatown, ate some delicious Thai food, strolled down to the Mission, where we enjoyed sangria and salsa, and then headed over to South of Market. Langton Laboratories was hosting a Burning Man meeting and dinner to discuss their camp plans. We enjoyed some excellent mango and tofu curry, met some interesting people, and heard all about Burning Man.
The next day, we went to Haight Street and explored a little bit of Golden Gate Park, which reminded me of Vondelpark in Amsterdam. I loved the section of the park that was landscaped according to different countries around the world. We hung out in New Zealand for a while, drank a beer, and then wandered out. We found a Vietnamese restaurant somewhere in the Richmond district. I was surprised to find so many different Asian restaurants throughout the city. I suppose I expected that they would be more contained closer to Chinatown. Not so. We met up with our San Franciscan friend and met his parents. It was really neat to see the inside of one of the town houses. I was happy to find that they had a fantastic amount of natural light. That night our friend took us for some french food from a little stand at the end of his street. We took the food over to the wine bar directly across the street called Terroir Sf Llc. It had a nice ambiance, and I liked the decor. The cheese plate was excellent; they served huge portions of four types of cheese as well as some fruit and nuts, but we ate way too much of it. There were three of us, and we ate nearly all of it!
On our third day in the city, Brian and I borrowed two bikes and biked around the city. Again. Huge city, lots of hills; needless to say, we didn’t get as far as planned. The bike ride was great; we biked to Golden Gate Park all the way out to the beach, followed the road along the shore to Seal Rocks State Beach, and then took the Sea Cliff pathway to the Presidio. The views were stunning and it felt great to see the ocean, the bay, and the bridge. We biked along the edge of Presidio, past Fort Mason, and stopped just as we reached Pier 39. The ride itself took much longer than we had expected. We actually turned around and biked back to Fort Mason to watch the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge. If I were to do it again, I’d do the same bike route, but break it up over two days, so that there would be time for stopping and enjoying some of the areas.
For dinner that night, Brian and I took a bus to the Mission and ate at Luna Park. It had a nice ambiance, cozy, but still felt like a big city restaurant and the food was good. I especially enjoyed our appetizer, the Heirloom Tomato and Warm Bread Salad with Arugula and Fresh Mozzarella. Simple, but so good, and my Vegan Cassoulet was tasty as well. We were surprised to find grits listed on their menu, as well. We went to the Monk’s Kettle for a fancy beer afterward. I definitely recommend checking it out. I believe they served food as well, but they had an excellent beer selection, and it was a cool place to hang out late night.
To wrap things up, we spent our last day with our host, who took us around to some of his favorite places. We went to see an old rowing club (of which he is a member), we drank Irish coffees at the Buena Vista Cafe, drove out to see some of the coastal redwoods, and finally to the coastline just outside the city past Sausalito and Muir Beach. The views were amazing and refreshing. If you are going to San Francisco, you should not miss it. We ended the trip with a stop for falafel, hookah, and tea, then hopped the red-eye flight to Chicago and finally to Charleston.
Fun and exhausting! My only regret is that I didn’t get to check out any art galleries while we were there. It’s on the list for next time.  Thanks for reading.
After the Gorge, we arrived back in Seattle to drop off a friend at the airport, shower, and grab food. I had plans to meet a former AmeriCorps*NCCC teammate in Yosemite on that Tuesday, so we decided to jump back in the car, head south to Portland where our friend from Seattle’s brother lived, and knock a few hours off the drive the next day. It turned out to be a very good idea because we ended up arriving in Yosemite late anyway.
We didn’t spend anytime in Portland on this trip, although Brian and I spent some time there on our last trip. Portland is a very cool city, so we were a little sad about this. We were also hoping to get some Stumptown coffee before we hit the road again. Alas, there wasn’t enough time. And we didn’t even make it to Vivace in Seattle. I will venture to say these are my two favorite cafes in the states (keep in mind that I was quite spoiled when I lived in Italy for nine months, and that there are many places I have yet to travel to within the US). Needless to say, they have some good coffee in the Pacific Northwest!
So we hit the road on Monday, around noon (a very late start), facing about 13 hours of driving. We drove down through the Willamette Valley, all the way through Oregon, and into Northern California. The drive was beautiful through valleys, over rivers and lakes, and along winding mountain roads. We stopped for dinner at a Thai restaurant in Redding (thank you iphone). But we didn’t reach Yosemite until 3 am. None of our cell phones picked up reception, as we all had the same provider, and we weren’t sure of exactly where we were meeting my friend. All I knew was that I was supposed to meet her at the lodge around 1 am.
We made it into the park and determined, based on a very general map, that we should drive straight to the center of the park (Yosemite Valley) and hopefully find a pay phone or the lodge. I had no idea what to expect, having done absolutely no research on the park. Yosemite is a huge canyon, with a large valley in the center, so we drove along the mountains, weaving in and out of forest and the sheer cliffs below. All the while, we kept seeing yellow signs reading, SPEEDING KILLS BEARS (we later learned that every yellow sign represents a place that a bear was killed by an automobile). It was dark and we were on edge, paying attention to the road and looking for bears, but we could tell the view was breathtaking.
Miraculously, we found the lodge and my friend was waiting for us in her car (I hadn’t seen her in four years—what a great friend—seriously!) because she was worried. She had reserved a campsite for us that morning, so we followed her over there and set up a time to meet in the morning. Camp Four, the first-come-first-serve campsite that we stayed in, is notoriously crowded and known for bears. The park provides campers with a bear-proof metal lock box, which you are required to store food in, and they fine you, if you don’t. They actually fine you if you leave water bottles of toiletries in your car as well.
Fortunately we didn’t have any bear encounters the first night. My friend arrived in the morning to take us to get some food and then to go for a day-long hike up to little Yosemite Valley. It was great to visit someone who had worked at the park for the past three summers, because she knew her way around, she knew which hikes were the best, and could give us information on the park. We hiked up to two different waterfalls, each tall and beautiful, falling gracefully over the enormous cliffs, and stopped for a picnic lunch on a small river in Little Yosemite Valley at the top. I highly recommend this hike. We didn’t go the last few miles to Half Dome because it was too late in the day, but it was a really beautiful hike nonetheless. You can check out the pictures below.
After the hike we grabbed some pizza and a beer in the valley, picked some wild blackberries, and went back to noisy Camp Four. I was in camp for all of about 30 min., already in bed with the tent zipped, when I heard commotion from the people at a tent across from me. I waited a few minutes and then unzipped the tent to see what was going on, and there were people running everywhere with flashlights, yelling “Bear,” clapping, and the like. Yes, it was highly comical, although, at the time I was a little bit nervous. Apparently, or from what I heard of other campers talking about it later, the bear was in the middle of the main walkway, one tent away from mine.
Throughout the night, we periodically heard people shouting, “Bear,” and the rangers firing paintball guns (both near and far) to keep them away. We woke the next morning to find that a bear had broken into the car next to ours in the parking lot. Apparently the owners had left a couple water bottles in the car and the bear had broken out the passenger-seat window to climb in. The car was covered in big dusty paw prints, as was ours, and we had a written warning stuck to the windshield for having contact solution on the floor of the back seat. My friend at Yosemite told me that the reason they put a clip on the garbage bins at Camp Four is because the bears figured out how to open them, would climb in and get stuck, only to get dumped into the back of a dump truck the next day. Not a good scenario, as you can imagine.
Anyway, we went to see a Sequoia grove on our last day at the park, which was neat, but crowded. I didn’t realize that, although the Sequoias can live to be 1000 years older than the coastal redwoods, they are much shorter. Still they were pretty impressive. We took it easy, picnicked on the lawn of the Wawona Hotel. We brought the blackberries we had picked the night before and mixed them with some vanilla ice cream…so delicious. Our visit to the park was perfect and stunningly beautiful. I highly recommend a visit, but don’t sleep at Camp Four!
I apologize for the posting delay; I spent several days sorting and editing photos and then several more days trying unsuccessfully to upload them. This weekend we also went on a short overnight boat excursion with some friends on another sailboat from the marina. It made for a beautiful night on the Stono River and an even more beautiful morning, but left the blog on hiatus.
I’ve decided to break the telling of our trip into three parts because that is how the trip actually broke down. The trip began in Seattle, where we arrived in the evening just in time for dinner. We stayed with one of Brian’s friends from New Zealand whom we had stayed with on our last visit to the Pacific Northwest. For Brian and I, this visit really seemed like an extension of our visit two years ago, when we traveled by train from Vancouver to Seattle, rented a car, drove from Seattle to Portland, then farther down through the Willamette Valley, the mountains to Crater Lake, and then back up along the Oregon coast. That trip we had every intention of making it down to Northern Cali to see the redwoods, but ran out of money before we could make it that far.
This trip we stayed one night in Seattle before heading out to the Gorge and one night after the Gorge. I have to say that I fell in love with Seattle during our first trip, and this second trip completely confirmed my original thoughts. I would certainly like to live in this city at some point. Of course both times Brian and I visited Seattle in August when it was warm and beautifully sunny, which is somewhat of a rarity there, as you have probably heard. Although I am pretty sure that I could handle the gray for a year or two, especially since Seattle boasts a healthy cafe culture.
Apparently, according to our friend, it really doesn’t actually rain much, but rather is more likely to be cloudy with light mist or drizzle. The land with its hills and lush vegetation is very beautiful, and there are a great number of islands to explore by boat as Seattle sits adjacent to a bay, which is connected to the Puget Sound. It is close to Vancouver and Portland, the mountains and the sea, and also situated next to the Olympic National Park, a peninsula with one of a handful of temperate rainforests in the world. I love the smell of the forest there, cool and refreshing, and standing amidst the giant Douglas fir trees.
This trip, I was able to get an idea of what the eastern part of the state looks like, which I found contrasts the lush coastal corridor. The Gorge Ampitheatre is located about two hours east of Seattle on the Columbia River Gorge. The state becomes quite dry once you cross the Cascade Mountains and the lakes east of the city. The Gorge is dusty with small desert shrubs and vegetation, but beautiful just the same.
We arrived late the first night, having stopped for groceries and camping essentials along the way. The sun had already set and Phish was already playing their first set as we pulled into our campsite, Wild Horses (which I recommend to anyone camping at the Gorge Ampitheatre). When we finally made it to the theatre, it was dusk. I think we must have been pretty jet-lagged as the first show was somewhat of a blur. We sat up high, took in the awesome light show on stage, and watched people throwing around glow sticks in the front.
The next day we hopped a ride to the larger campsite adjacent to the theatre, where friends of ours from Charleston were camping in a VW camper. It was extremely crowded and dusty, but they had an amazing view of the Gorge and an easy walk to the theatre. We managed to get to the show early that evening, with a perfect view of the sunset. You can see from my pictures that it was gorgeous. Brian and I found standing room close to the stage, which was the place to be. Our experience the second night was a contrast with the night before, so it was great that we were able to see Phish play for two nights instead of just one. We danced, threw glow sticks, and thoroughly enjoyed the performance, acapella and all. I didn’t know what to expect going into it, as it was my first Phish show (I think I expected something a little more wild and crazy), but the show was quite polished.
Originally we had planned to go on a river float on Saturday before the second show, but instead we stopped on the ride back to Seattle. We rented tubes, threw on our bathing suits, and jumped in the water with a couple of beers. It was amazing. Cold, but not too cold, the water was extremely refreshing and full of spawning salmon. I saw about 50 or so swimming around underneath my tube, a couple of very large dead fish along the bank, birds darting overhead, and a baby otter running along the shore of the river. It was stunning, probably one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an air tight bag to throw my camera in, so you will just have to take my word for it.
Stay tuned for Part II: Yosemite and the Bears!
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Welcome Welcome to Forest and Fin, the documentation of an artist's adventures living and traveling on a '37 sailboat. Beginning in early 2009, when I moved onto an old Chris Craft sailboat with my boyfriend and I decided to become an artist, this blog chronicles the pursuit of my dreams, exploration, travel, and art.
Thanks for stopping by!
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