Sailing Into American History

By Ian Verchere

THIS IS THE DIARY of a British sailboat's passage up the US Intracoastal Waterway, observing America's lifestyle, history and cultural paradoxes and written with gusto and empathy. It's a well-crafted book steeped in the euphoria of travel and ending with some sober thoughts on the demonic 9/11 attack on New York City. A fascinating insight into early North American history set against the backdrop of a boating adventure along the eastern seaboard from Florida to New York.

MOST PEOPLE EXPLORE North America from coast-to-coast. Others journey up the eastern seaboard's Intracoastal Waterway -- with its tricky ocean inlets, shallow estuaries, violent climate - and have a very different perspective. This is the fractured landfall along which intrepid sixteenth and seventeenth century colonists from England first set foot in the New World after crossing the Atlantic. In some places the coast is still a raw, impenetrable wilderness; in others, the orderly symmetry of restless humanity encroaches. A delightful and informative read...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legend Press
• Release date: May 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781785076305

Book preview

2015

1

An East Coast Diary

Most people explore North America from coast-to-coast via its back roads, interstate highways or railroads. A small two-seater plane is another good vehicle if you have a pilot’s license and a pair of wings. To the less orthodox traveller with a taste for history and boats, however, journeying up the eastern seaboard with its shallow estuaries and tricky ocean inlets provides a very different perspective on the colossus now called the United States of America.

This is the fractured landfall along which intrepid sixteenth and seventeenth century colonists from Europe – English, Dutch, French and Spanish in particular – first set foot after crossing the Atlantic. Their fortitude must have been extraordinary in the face of such daunting discomfort, remoteness and isolation. In some places the coast still remains a raw, impenetrable wilderness; in other parts, the orderly symmetry of civilization brings you abruptly back to maritime activity, marinas, shopping malls and restless humanity.

My first trip to America was aboard a Sunderland Flying Boat in 1946 at the tender age of eight. My father had been involved in the British Admiralty’s anti-U-Boat operations in Bermuda during the war. At the end of hostilities, we were flown to Baltimore en route to New York City where we boarded the re-commissioned Queen Mary and sailed back to Southampton. It was the first of many trips made to a country for which – nothwithstanding some aspects of its muscular foreign policy and boisterous history – I have always had great affection and admiration. By virtue of its sheer size and diversity, America remains a place of infinite experience and possibility.

This is the short diary of a passage various friends and I made up the Intracoastal Waterway – better known in North American sailing circles as the ICW or The Ditch – over two summers from Fort Lauderdale on the Atlantic coast of Florida to New York City at the mouth of the Hudson River, with various detours and historical excursions along the way.

The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway is a navigable inland passage that runs parallel to the coast through the sheltered bays, estuaries, rivers, inlets and canals that characterise much of America’s eastern seaboard. Inevitably, such an adventure provided ample scope for British reflections upon America’s lifestyle, history and cultural paradoxes, something in which your opinionated diarist has indulged with great gusto and empathy.

We undertook this thousand-mile trip aboard Contigo, a forty-one foot sailboat built at Whitney Operations Boatyard, New York in 1970 and designed by British yacht designer Alan Gurney. The US Army Corps of Engineers – whose responsibility it is to maintain and dredge the Intracoastal Waterway – seldom guarantees depths of over twelve feet along much of this tortuous thoroughfare. As Contigo draws six-and-a-half feet, there was always ample scope for running aground and other adventures…as we would soon discover.

2

Into the Gulf Stream

FORT LAUDERDALE (Florida) – Roy and Pat – two retired cops from the Miami-Dade Police Department – have volunteered to help us negotiate the five lifting bridges that we’ll encounter on the passage down the New River to Port Everglades on the southeast coast of Florida. Extra hands with local knowledge are always helpful. It’s the month of May and we are still in Fort Lauderdale. It’s high time we headed north to explore all those east coast destinations that resonate from the colourful pages of American history.

Roy’s a congenial guy who says he probably typifies many American policemen: in his case a white refugee originally from the leafy suburbs of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Lacking the resources and background for a university education, he’d enlisted in the US Army and trained at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne – America’s crack parachute regiment – and become a very skilled para-medic. For the next five years, explains Roy over an early-morning beer, he led an exciting and sometimes dangerous life variously deployed in Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq as well as on discreet military missions with America’s South Korean, Japanese and NATO allies.

After army service and an abortive attempt to become a movie star in Hollywood’s hedonistic dream factory, Roy joined the Los Angeles Police Department in search of stability, direction and a fresh start. The department’s police academy – one of the best in the country – gave him professional credentials fit for any career within the multi-layered world of American law enforcement. Ironically, the only handicap to these aspirations was that of being labelled a Wasp – the US demographic shorthand for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – in a state such as California coming increasingly to terms with its Latino migration and cultural influences. ‘What that meant,’ he continues, ‘was I found myself a victim of reverse discrimination with very limited career prospects. At the time, you had to be Hispanic, black or female in California to make any career headway. And so I quit and moved on. Race and ethnicity count a lot in America, especially where the police are concerned.’

Already this chatty policeman and his girl-friend are setting the stage for a fascinating voyage of discovery into the social mores and geographical labyrinths of this very big and diverse country. Along the New River’s winding waterway, we pass an impressive inventory of opulent homes and immaculate gardens on both banks of the river. This is well-heeled Florida maximus where pseudo Hispanic architecture predominates and the only missing component is real people.

The apparent absence of human beings, explains Roy, is largely due to an over-dependence on air conditioning, the power of television and, in a lot of cases, absentee landlordism. The exceptions are teams of Mexican gardeners – most of them under-paid illegal immigrants – busily cutting grass and pruning hedges; and the occasional set-piece cocktail party where well-groomed Anglos seem more like characters from the pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel The Great Gatsby than Fort Lauderdale on a Friday evening. We float by acknowledging the occasional wave from passing vessels and cocktail socialites until we reach a point where the New River meets the Intracoastal Waterway.

From here, the Intracoastal Waterway is a one thousand-mile coastal passage that meanders northwards along a mainly inland route from Miami in south Florida to Norfolk in Virginia and beyond. It is popular with American and Canadian boaters – both sail and power – although its well-marked channels are sometimes no more than five to twelve feet deep. We follow its southerly route for half a mile to Fisherman’s Landing where we drop off our friendly police escorts and then motor on past more impeccable waterside residences to Lake Sylvia.

The weekend here is spent at anchor preparing s/v Contigo for the long passage up the inland waterways, river estuaries, ocean inlets and canals of America’s eastern seaboard. Occasionally when the weather is fair, we’ll go offshore for a day-sail up the coast to make good time. But mostly, we’ll follow the inland route up the Intracoastal Waterway through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. Having spent the last few winters exploring Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida, the prospect of thrusting north along this continent’s fractured coastline sends a frisson of anxiety and excitement through the ageing skipper’s frame.

Next morning, we weigh anchor and motor-sail along the winding waterways to the Seventeenth Street Bridge – a maritime dividing-line between Fort Lauderdale’s murky rivers and canals and the deeper waters of the Port Everglades turning basin – where towering cruise ships line the docks on all sides and exude the appetising aromas of fine dining and comfortable living.

A large proportion of the world’s cruise traffic passes through Florida’s main gateways – Miami, Port Everglades and Port Canaveral – which represent an important part of the state’s tourism infrastructure. Passengers arriving here board a new generation of magnificent 70,000 and 120,000-ton floating hotels – nearly all designed and built in the specialist yards of Italy, Germany, France or Finland – with tax-efficient hailing ports like Nassau, Georgetown, Panama and Hamilton discreetly daubed on their curvaceous sterns.

The Seventeenth Street Bridge’s next