Joyner Marina, NC

While cruising down the ICW, we decided to go home for the holidays and visit our families and pets. To do this, we needed to leave our boat somewhere safe and affordable. We were close to Cape Fear, so we decided to pull into Joyner Marina. 

Having lived aboard for five years, I know a nice marina when I see one! The piers were floating so you don't have to worry about your dock lines as the radical tide grew and fell by over 5 feet. The quality of the wood and woodwork of the piers construction was an entirely different level to anything I have ever encountered! The boards on the pier looked like they were put together by a professional yacht joiner. Each board flowed effortlessly and flushly into the next, and at the edge of the marina was another trim board to finish up the dock.  

While a marina might just be a collection of piers and boats, this is not all that makes a marina great; it's the liveaboards that make the difference. Next to us, on a 37 foot Egg Harbor, was a lovely couple named Wes and Blair. They have two dogs and knew all the fun places to go in town for a good night. We would all go into town and eat at the local burger shacks and then pop over to the Fat Pelican, a famous dive bar, where you pick your own beer out of the giant walk-in cooler.  

Our other neighbor was Dale, who had been following us on YouTube and was very excited to see us arrive and be tied up near him. Dale was a wealth of information about the hydrography of the ICW and how to best plan the safest and least eventful journey down the ICW. He has an old pet ferret, that is living out its last months. Once his pet named "Possum" passes, he will head to the Bahamas and begin cruising! 

The last important part of a marina is the staff, and this can make or break a marina experience. The dock hands and dock master were all very happy and helpful people who had a way of making you feel like part of the family! They hosted a winter cookout and invited us to come join, where we ate hot dogs and burgers, while talking with the other liveaboards. 

While our boat was there for about 1.5 months, we were only at the marina for around 1 week total. In that short amount of time, we fell in love with the place and found it very hard to muster up the courage to set sail away from there.  We had such a great time there that we really never wanted to leave!

If you ever find yourself heading to Snow's Cut, consider stopping over at Joyner for a few nights to get a feel for the local flavors. It might even become a highlight of your trip down the ICW! 

Slowing Down

In the universe, particles with no mass are able to travel at the speed of light! They can travel at speeds we will never comprehend, speeds that we will never be able to attain with our current technology.

Particles with mass are not able to reach these speeds, but they are able to sit still! Mass-less particles can never stop and rest, but we with mass have the luxury to stop; a luxury that we should all take advantage of.

When moving, it is hard to evaluate what is going on around you. Picture yourself driving down the highway on your morning commute. Can you tell if the leaves are being blown in the trees? The trees look still and lifeless on the side of the highway as they stand there motionless, but if you stood under the tree even a subtle breeze would make the entire tree come to life as the leaves rustle in the wind!

You are only able to appreciate this by stopping, and if you pass on by, you will miss all the spectacles before you. 

When cruising, the same holds true. If you are moving, you will pass on by wonders that would be overlooked. When you stop and anchor, you can then appreciate what is really going on around you. The current becomes more apparent, as does the life in the water you are floating in!

Cruising is a wonderful opportunity that many dream of and few are able to make a reality. If you have the opportunity to go cruising, don't let the wonders around you pass on by. Be sure to stop and appreciate the world around you as you are being gifted a unique vantage of the world around you.

Polar Diagrams

Polar Diagrams are a graphical representation of the speed through water at various wind angles. They are very handy for planning your route as they will tell you (under ideal conditions) what speed you will make at varying wind angles. This will allow you to choose a route that is best suited to your yacht.

Polar chart of Wisdom. A full keel, cutter rigged, heavy displacement boat.

Now, a sloop with a very high-aspect ratio rig and keel will perform very well to windward. This will let you sail to a windward destination with ease and efficiency. In our case, the above polar diagram well demonstrates our performance statistics. 

As you can see, we do not sail well to windward, but we do sail quickly on a beam reach and down wind, but when we turn the wind forward of our beam, we instantly slow to a crawl.

After enough data collection, I was able to compile our own polar chart that will now help us choose a better weather route to our next destination. 

An important thing to note on a polar diagram, you will see that you will be able to point to windward, but you won't sail very fast. This means that you will not cover as many miles and you will get stuck somewhere as the weather changes over you. If you could choose a course that will have you sail faster, you will minimize the time of the voyage and allow you to get there in a quicker fashion. A quicker voyage means that the weather forecast won't expire before you get to your destination.

It's a Small World

People always say "It's a small world" but I used to just discount this statement as something everyone says without thinking about how large and vast the world is. We frequently meet people who have lived in the same place for generations, so this "small world" concept just doesn't seem to fit in. This bubble of an idea burst on Wednesday night when we were visiting friends from Baltimore.

We used to live in Baltimore in a marina for 5 years. During that time, we saw people come and go. One such couple was Collin and Ginnie. They moved in on a 30 foot sailboat with plans of doing the Northwest Passage. They worked to prepare their boat and then left the marina, for what I figured would be a cold cruise about a year before we left to go cruising.

After they left, another couple moved in, Ben and Kate, who quickly became some of our best friends (we were actually up from Cape Fear to visit them)! Ben and Kate lived in the marina until we left, and then moved to Annapolis.

Now, this is where the world gets small. In August, I texted Collin to see how his trip was going and he told me that they changed their plans and were heading down to the BVI and they would do their icy trip later. Then we come to Annapolis to visit with Ben and Kate, and there is Collin and Ginnie in the marina lounge!

They were just passing through and stopped in Annapolis to purchase and install a diesel heater in their boat, and they were having trouble lighting it. When he searched on YouTube "how to start a diesel heater" or video on lighting a Dickinson Diesel Heater came up first on his list. When we were neighbors, he used to come over and experience the sweltering heat it produced, so he figured he could trust our video on the matter. He was covered in diesel soot and about to give up, when he saw us walk in! So Collin and I went to his boat for a one-on-one tutorial on how to start a diesel heater.

While I was away, Maddie was talking with Kate and found out that Kate was in Maddie's cousins highschool class in North Carolina! We have known each other for a few years, but Maddie was already married to me at that point, so they never knew her maiden name.

This night was filled with wow's as we met up with old friends, friends that were far away, friends that had just watched one of our videos, and friends that grew up with our family members; all in one night of mind blowing small-world-ness connections!

Life Choices and Cruising

We live in a world where the norm is to grow up, go to school, graduate, go to work, retire, then do what you wanted to do, and then die.

Cruising, believe it or not, is really hard work. Everyday you get up and start exerting a lot of physical effort. Anchors need to be weighed, sails raised, and sheets trimmed. There are many long hours at the helm where you are not able to stop and have lunch, but instead you must work through the hunger until you forget about the fact that you haven't eaten yet today!

This is very demanding on your body, and easy to do when you are young, not so easy when you are older and retired. At this age, you will require the assistance of many technological devices that will mechanize and automate the processes for you. These come at a significant price, and yet are very prone to failure. When equipment that you rely on fails, you then are stuck, and this will incur added costs as you await for parts and repairs. 

All in all, cruising when you are older presents additional challenges, and will cost a lot more to carry out. Cruising when you are younger allows you to negate these amenities and lets you rely more on your physical strength to move your yacht. 

If you want to explore the world, and do so on a budget that you can afford, it would behoove you to go cruising while you are younger. Yes, you will miss out on work, but you can always work when you get back. Work will always be there waiting for you to return, but your health will not wait for you to be ready.