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.

Departure time on day 3 was 0600, Jupiter and Venus were higher in the sky than the rising sun.

Aurora Mine looms over the Pamlico river. Potash export happens through Beaufort,  documented on tugster here and here a few years back.

See the mine area on the south side of the Pamlico River below.

Hunting abounds here.

Note the spelling. 

Belhaven used to support a fishing fleet.  I’ve no idea how the size of the fleet and market in Hobucken has fluctuated over the years.

Day 3, early afternoon we depart the Neuse River for the Trent by passing through the Cunningham Drawbridge.

Tortuga is docked here for winter.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.  Again many thanks to the USMMA Sailing Foundation for inviting me to crew in winter relocation for Tortuga.

270 nmi to Rendezvous with Kings Pointer

This is day 8 of the GHP&W series, so let me break pattern a bit.  If you missed the beginning, GHP&W is not a law firm; it’s abbrev for “gunk holes, harbors, ports, and wharves.”  I haven’t dusted off any wharves yet, but two-thirds of the months still lie ahead.

The story here is that TS Kings Pointer was out serving as a training platform and not at Kings Point, although there was a potential meeting somewhere south along our track to Portsmouth, VA.

Mile 1, 0738 Wednesday, heading for the Throg’s Neck Bridge.

0756.  Passing SUNY Maritime and TS Empire State. Click here for photos from her summer sea term 2015.

0804, Robert Burton, a Norfolk boat.

0907, Mary Gellatly with a sand scow at the southern tip of Governors Island.

1010, passing the northern tip of Sandy Hook but looking back at Naval Weapons Station Earle, with USNS Medgar Evers at the wharf.

1017, Romer Shoal Light and Coney Island.

1517, Capt. Willie Landers northbound off Beach Haven, I think.

1612, FV Jonathan Ryan and tug Pops in the distance.

1618, entering a grid marked “numerous scientific buoys.”

1657 off Atlantic City, with unidentified tug and barge

1740 and about to switch watch.

Thursday, 0852, looking north into the Chesapeake after going wide around Fisherman Island.

0910 . . . it’s the current  TS Kings Pointer, ex-Liberty Star. . .

 

. . . heading along Virginia Beach

before turning northward toward Long Island Sound.  Her former sister ship–Freedom Star–was in the area but we did not see her.

Meanwhile, we head north into the Thimble Shoal Channel Tunnel and into port, which you can follow tomorrow.  And that tug and crane barge in the distance . . . survey work for new infrastructure or maintenance dredging?

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, with thanks to the USMMA Sailing Foundation for inviting me to crew in winter relocation for Tortuga.  It was a smooth trip.

Port of Kings Point

aka GHP&W 7.  Kings Point (KP) is to the United States Merchant Marine Academy as Fort Schuyler is to SUNY Maritime College or Traverse City is to Great Lakes Maritime Academy.  Today’s post is intended to introduce some of the KP boats;  if you’re interested in the buildings that have expanded beyond the former waterfront estate of Walter Chrysler, click here for a fabulously detailed USACE report on the USMMA’s historic district.   Walter Chrysler is himself quite the interesting character.  Click here for the USMMA Foundation’s newsletter.

The boat above–Tortuga or ex-Georgina–was in the basin until last Wednesday.  Today’s post and tomorrow’s feature photos taken Wednesday and Thursday.

The blue-hulled Liberator and the tug Elizabeth Anne are two of USMMA’s vessels.

 

 

Growler (ex-USCGC Catenary WYTL 65606) has been at the USMMA in KP for about 20 years.  Click here for previous Growler posts.

 

The USCG boats docked at KP include a 29′ RB-S II in front of an RB-S.   Tortuga is to the motor vessel to the left.

The white building slightly left of center below is the former Chrysler estate.

 

0651.  about to depart.

Click here for a previous post on Tortuga.  Click here for a post I did in 2007 about the previous T/V Kings Pointer;  tomorrow I’ll post photos of the current vessel by that name.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

For clarification of geography, King’s Point is the first Nassau County town when you drive east from northernmost Queens, i.e., it’s Long Island, no longer NYC.