Several years ago when we decided to make our way through the Panama canal and get up to the US East coast, the idea was to take Sunny up the intracoastal waterway and do some exploring of this side of the country. Both Tom and I were raised in California, and except for a couple of business trips, neither one of us has seen much of this coast. At the time though, we didn't realize how hard that would be in Sunny. The intracoastal waterway is a combination of natural and man-made channels traveling from Florida up to Norfolk Virginia. It makes for a safe and scenic way up the coast, through swamps, quaint towns, meandering rivers, etc. The charts we had showed a minimum depth of 12 feet all along it and a minimum bridge clearance of 65 feet at high tide. Sunny has a draft of 7 feet and a mast height of 65 feet (once all the antennas on top were removed) so we thought "no problem". Unfortunately it appears that our charts have not been updated with the true depths and bridge heights. The dredging is another unfunded government mandate, required by law but without a budget. While some cities dredge through their limits, it seems nobody picks up the areas in-between. Shoaling has reduced the depth to less than 6 feet in many places. Friends of ours going up ran aground at least 6 times, each in the middle of the channel, and they only draw 5.6'. Plus a number of cruisers said that there are several bridges that are well less than 65', even at low tide.
Well we made it up to Georgia by hopping out to the open ocean, going north a day or two to an inlet we could get in, then ducking back in. Very tiring and not a good way to see anything interesting. We figured we had three choices; not do any sightseeing, keep frog-hopping up the coast, or do the seeing with another vehicle. We briefly entertained the thought of trading in Sunny, but all the things that make her hard for the East Coast, make her a good blue water boat and since we plan on moving on someday, the thought of trading her in didn't last long. So we decided what we needed was a van conversion or a small RV that we could travel around and camp in. I called up my Mom for advice since she has been RVing the last four decades and she said come get her RV! She was going to sell it since it's gotten too hard for her so it's ours if we want it. So instead of flying back to Georgia, we did a cross country road trip.
Here’s our land yacht :-)
Her name is “The Paddy Wagon” (from my mothers old cat). She’s 22 feet long, a perfect size for getting around but with enough room to spread out inside. We’ll be exploring in style.
Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom
