THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996 TAG: 9606210531
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: DESTINATION HAMPTON ROADS
Staff writer Paul Clancy, aboard the Galatea, continues his report of
the two-week trip up the Intracoastal Waterway that will end at "Mile
Marker Zero" on the Elizabeth River.
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABOARD THE GALATEA LENGTH: 95 lines
The storm that forced us inland is now trailing strong southeast winds that drive us north toward home.
What a sight it must be to passing boaters to see a large boat under sail, flying along this narrow waterway at top speed.
As if fascinated by the spectacle, a dolphin races alongside.
We're in the Ditch, as everyone seems to call the Intracoastal Waterway, three days behind schedule but making up time.
Out in the temperamental Gulf Stream off northern Florida, we seemed to be present at the creation of tropical storm Arthur. We were lashed by a series of squalls that packed 30-knot winds, cold, blinding rain and 20-foot waves.
But that was nothing compared to what we would have experienced had we stayed on course for Beaufort, N.C. We ran 100 miles for Charleston and just made it as Arthur swept up the coast.
If this is the slow route, at least it's safe.
This is the third in a series of stories from Galatea, a sailboat migrating 1,200 miles north from the Florida Keys to Mile Marker Zero, the beginning of the waterway just off Town Point Park in downtown Norfolk.
We're 456 miles, and seemingly centuries, away.
We left Marathon Key, Fla., Saturday morning on Galatea, a 42-foot sailboat owned by John Hussey, a public relations consultant from Solomons, Md. I'm part of a five-man crew that also includes James Trum, a State Department management analyst; Robert Nicholson, a retired pilot; and Trum's 18-year-old son, Adam.
Now we're in the South Carolina lowcountry, a land as thick with history, of revolution and rebellion, of plantations and poverty, as with kudzu vines that climb the Ditch's watery banks.
There is also a sense of wilderness, of swamps, marshes, and dense forests, many of them tied together in a series of wildlife preserves. Egrets, pelicans, foxes, alligators and water moccasins, among others, make the waterway their home.
This is one of the last sections of the waterway to be built. It is a succession of dredged channels and salt marshes connected by a series of land cuts.
A year after it was completed in 1936, the Federal Writers Project published a guide observing that:
``Already there is a steady line of yachts, cruisers, and houseboats moving through it; and this traffic is bound to increase because those who have once enjoyed its charms are eager to share them with friends.''
One of its most popular uses is acting as an escape route for people who are running from the weather, moving their boats from south to north and back again. Some of the vessels are luxury yachts being hauled by crews from places ranging from the Bahamas to Newport, R.I.
``I've seen more boat captains then I've seen owners,'' says David Roe, manager of Harborwalk Marina in Georgetown, S.C. The city, with loads of historic charm, is a favorite stopover. Three-fourths of Roe's business is generated by transients.
``Here you meet some of the finest people in the world,'' he says. ``I guess you just call them a different class of people.''
Our first night on the Intracoastal, we meet just such people. Sam and Maggie Bayliss of Portsmouth, England, have pulled in for the night at Wild Dunes Yacht Harbor at Isle of Palms, S.C., as one stop in hundreds on a two-year odyssey.
Sam, a retired neurologist, and Maggie, a retired hospital technician, are seeing our part of the world in the 32-foot steel-and-wood sailboat they largely built themselves with meticulous care and lots of English hardwood.
They left home a year ago, toured several European cities, sailed to Barbados, then the Grenadines. They're going all the way to Maine, returning to the Caribbean this fall and finally returning to England a year from now.
``It's been a real eye-opener,'' she says. ``Everyone's so friendly here it almost makes you ashamed to be English. We've become known as so crabby.''
Not the Baylisses, though. Sam offers a taste of his favorite rum, a nutty Dutch variety.
``Eight miles out of Dominica, we saw off the starboard bow a body floating in a decomposed state. We thought: What the hell do you do? We heard on the radio that a leading Dominican politician had fallen overboard. Should we put a rope around his ankles and sort of tow it back? Instead, we called the authorities and later heard that the poor fellow had been found by boaters.''
The Baylisses are including a couple of other Portsmouths on their itinerary, including the one in Dominica and Virginia.
The waterway is ever-changing: from historic Georgetown to live oaks and Spanish Moss along the Waccamaw River.
At Mile Post 347, the tender for the Little River Highway Bridge, a single-pivot, holds waterway traffic for a few minutes, then urges us on. ``Let's boogie woogie,'' the tender drawls, and we head north to the North Carolina line. MEMO: Next: A report Sunday on the Galatea as it continues its trek
northward along the Intracoastal Waterway. ILLUSTRATION: DESTINATION HAMPTON ROADS
Map by CNB