Sunshine, t-shirts and palm trees…this is what we signed up for! Leaving Beaufort we cruised the 5 hours to Harbour Village Marina near Topsail Island, North Carolina. The day was warm and sunny, and the pace was a bit slower. This part of the ICW is flanked by low sand banks on the east and… Continue reading The south coast of North Carolina

Leaving Rhode Island in 70 degree weather, we packed bathing suits and wore tee shirts and shorts. Heading south toward warmer weather, we envisioned days of sunshine and maybe a few cooler autumn nights. It was 43 when we woke up in Beaufort with a north wind gusting past 25, dropping the wind chill into… Continue reading Brrr..fort

Apparently, this part of North Carolina is known as the “Inner Banks” (who knew?) As opposed the “Outer Banks”, which includes Cape Hatteras, often referred to as “The Graveyard of the Atlantic”. Looking at the chart and talking to the locals, we’re glad to be on the inside. Leaving Alligator River Marina, we headed for… Continue reading Cruising the Inner Banks

A slow pass is not a southern thing, it’s an ICW thing. There are sections of the canals, that the charts show are only 80 feet wide. However, cautionary notes indicate that this may be less, do to shoaling. Most of the powerboats range from skinny (13 feet wide) like us, to fat mega yachts,… Continue reading Perfecting the Slow Pass

We got a late start leaving Coinjock and attempted to make up time but were hampered by a temperamental oil pressure gauge. The smallest increase in speed pushed the oil pressure from 50 psi to 150. Slow down and the pressure corrected. Speed up a little and it would be ok… sort of. I finally… Continue reading Gas Station Fried Chicken

We prepare for our travels by filing up the fuel & water tanks. Our route is entered in the chart plotter and the IPad is displaying our color coded path. We are loaded for bear and leave Portsmouth…behind a tug pushing a barge full of sand, 5 sailboats and 3 trawlers… all crawling…all crawling at… Continue reading First Day on the Intracoastal

74 miles down the Chesapeake and we stopped at Tidewater Marine in Portsmouth Virginia. The weather was predicted to be exactly the same as yesterday, but today we had gentle rolling swells and kept up a 10 knot pace. As you can see from the AIS on Marine Traffic, we had a lot of company… Continue reading Portsmouth Virginia…Welcome to the South!

Leaving Annapolis at dawn, we headed south hoping to get to Reedville Creek some 90 miles away, but willing to divert to Solomons if conditions got too ugly. The Chesapeake didn’t start out bad, but this was not to last. The tide was with us (good) the wind was against us (bad) and the waves… Continue reading Tacking down the Chesapeake

We left Cape May at 8 am and transited the short canal into Delaware Bay. The wind and waves would be with us all morning. Quartering waves from astern eventually gave way to a manageable 2 foot chop, as Delaware Bay became the Delaware River. As we made our way north at 10 knots, we… Continue reading The 100 Mile Day

We took our time leaving the Sassafras River, enjoying the first signs of foliage as we meandered out into the Chesapeake. With only 40 miles planned, we cruised at one Kumeiga (8 knots for the uninitiated) and arrived at Annapolis at 1:30, taking a slip at Annapolis Yacht basin, because we planned on spending two… Continue reading Onward to Annapolis