Ports along the ICW

This post is a direct follow-up to one I did a week ago, documenting the 270-nm trip from Kings Point NY to Norfolk aboard USMMA Sailing Foundation vessel Tortuga. This post documents the second and final leg of the trip to Tortuga‘s winter berth in New Bern NC, a 179-nm trip from Norfolk.

Let’s start here. Departure time on day 1 is 1100 h. If you think the navy vessel in dry dock looks familiar, well . . . it visited the sixth boro in May 2012, and I toured the ship DDG 57 USS Mitscher at that time here.

A USN presence is pervasive along the Elizabeth river portion of the ICW, but the Norfolk Naval Ship is

technically in Portsmouth. The vessel above is AS 41 USS McKee.

Click here and here for info on the Elizabeth River, technically a tidal estuary. Click on the map below to get interactivity.

Here McLean Contracting Co. tug Fort Macon works on the replacement of the Steel Bridge in Chesapeake VA.

I was surprised to learn there’s a lock in the ICW, the Great Bridge Lock. I was even more surprised to learn the USACE contracts the operation and maintenance of the lock to a company called US Facilities.

I must read more about the ICW, but in WW2 it proved a safe route for commerce when enemy submarines preyed on vessels offshore.

Paradise Creek pushes oil along the ICW today; when I started this blog, it was a regular workhorse in the sixth boro of NYC.

The color of ICW water is determined by natural tannins.

The ICW is composed of wide open bays and sounds–which have narrow channels-as well as narrow cuts. Here Evelyn Doris of the ICM fleet pushes a covered barge–soybeans, I’ll wager–northbound, possibly to Norfolk.

Ahead is the US Rte 64 Bridge over the Alligator River, a swing bridge.

Note the proximity of the photo above to the Atlantic Ocean.

Tannins in the Alligator River water create this color.

North Carolina today protects a lot of its coastal wetlands. Hunting is permitted, and in fact, VHF radio picked up a lot of communication with folks hunting in there.

Parts of the ICW flow through cuts like the Alligator-Pungo Canal.

This moment of arrival in Belhaven meant a lot to me, because just around the point in the center of the photo is the hospital where I was born. I hadn’t known it, but Belhaven also considers itself the birthplace of the ICW.