If you put two mariners traveling the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) together, one of them will bring up Bob. As in, “Do you know about Bob?” Or “Are you following the Bob track?” And “Have you joined the Bob423 Facebook Group?” Bob has made it his mission to find the deepest water the ICW has to offer along the Eastern Seaboard. The ICW is a series of interconnected rivers, cuts, sounds, and bays from Norfolk, Virginia, to Brownsville, Texas. Bob’s track starts at Mile Marker Zero in Norfolk at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and ends around Mile Marker 1243 in Key West, Florida. Every year, Bob motors up the ICW in his sailboat equipped with sonar that maps the waterway’s limited depth. Cruisers can upload his track to their onboard chart plotters, follow his ICW route, and attempt to miss the shoals — spots where the moving waters drop sand and silt on the bottom of the channel, creating potential obstructions for boaters. Experienced East Coast mariners tell us newbie cruisers, “It’s not if you run aground, but when you run aground. We all do.” Not a comforting thought.
Joe and I both have a deep fondness in our hearts for Bob423 or, dare I say, love? We haven’t met Bob, but I consider him a friend. He wrote the handbook for boaters on the ICW and updates the book annually: ICW Cruising Guide. His social media handle is well known. Recent additions of the guide list the author as Bob423. We’ve been followed his track through difficult spots since we started cruising the ICW. So, when Joe picked a marina stop off the Bob track, I said, “If Bob didn’t stop there, are you sure we should?” Joe’s response was nonverbal, but I’m pretty sure his shoulder shrug, followed by a deep exhalation, translated to: You’ve got to be kidding me!!
I wonder if I’ve become overly reliant on Bob’s track. There’s a connected network of waterways to explore if I can convince myself that we can leave the safety of Bob’s route. Joe’s ready. I need to learn to be more confident in my ability to read the instruments, the charts, and what I see on the water.
We spent the first night of our Fall 2023 cruising season in North Carolina at the Coinjock Marina and Restaurant. The marina is a long wooden dock, and the restaurant encourages boaters to call before arriving to reserve an order of their prime rib dinner. We opted to order off the menu while on site. On waterways, both of us love to order the “catch of the day.” Blue Wander, our small tugboat, was sandwiched between two large yachts on the dock. Both vessels departed before daylight. The predawn thrum of their diesel engines entered my dreams. Yachts with professional crews are not sight-seeing but hurrying to a destination.
That afternoon, we planned to leave the Bob track. Joe reminded me, “That’s how we boated in Lake Michigan. We picked a port and cruised toward our destination.” When we shoved off that morning, the dock was quiet. The air felt damp, but it was warm in the sunshine. For two hours, we motored south in the greenish-brown waters of the North River. Houses were few and far between on the grassy banks of this wide waterway. I watched an osprey swoop down to the river and spear a fish with its talons, then fly up to the bare branch of a tree. The brown and white raptor used its curved beak to tear bites off its catch. There was a ferocity to Osprey’s eating style that made me think he was trying to pick his talons clean.
We left the Bob track halfway across the Albemarle Sound. The water depth was 12-15 feet, which felt like an abundance of riches as our boat draws about four feet, and at low tide, some sections of the ICW are impassable. On this stretch of the greenish-brown waterway, it was just us and the crab trap buoys. The breeze picked up, and the buoys winked in and out of the wave froth, making them difficult to spot. It was like running an obstacle course. The placement of the buoys has always felt like a code I could not crack. Late in the afternoon, we saw a boat traveling toward us on a zigzag course. This was unusual, as vessels tend to motor along straight lines. Joe asked, “What’s that boat up to?” I peered at the craft through my binoculars and saw a fisherman in yellow coveralls pushing crab traps off the back of the boat. “It’s a fishing boat, dropping crab traps.” Working boats have the right of way, so Joe changed course to steer clear of the vessel.
Our destination that afternoon was the Albemarle Plantation Marina. Joe picked this out-of-the-way stop because the community has an outdoor Olympic-size pool, and he loves to swim. As we came into the dock, the wind sang through the sailboat masts. It’s a familiar moaning sound that I think of as the ghost chorus. The dock master welcomed us, helped us tie up our boat, and gave us passes for the pool and keys to a golf cart. Occasionally, a marina will have a loaner car, but unfettered access to a golf cart was a first.
Joe loved swimming laps in the outdoor pool, but I’ll remember this marina as a good sleeping spot. It was beyond quiet at night – silent, as not a sound emanated from the local community. Gentle waves moved the boat as if we were sleeping in a cradle, rocked by an unseen hand.
