We headed together to the restrooms for showers before breakfast. Iris waited and waited and while lots of men came out of the restrooms, no Fred. She bought a Sunday paper and waited some more. Miscommunication as Fred had returned to the boat. At least he was ok! Mid-morning, Iris had to take advantage of the laundry room and did a couple of loads of laundry. There she spoke with a nice lady whose husband had previously been assistant manager at the marina. They owned a slip and were on the slip-owners association board. After lunch we headed to another museum that always had intrigued us – what we called the ‘sewage’ museum. It’s real name is the Museum of Public Works. While interesting, we’d hoped to actually see working equipment – it was a passive exhibit. On our way back to the boat, we stopped at the Safeway across the street to top off our food. We stowed the supplies, filled our water tanks and went out to Austin Grill (also across the street) for a tex-mex dinner. Lots of our favorite Austin-based musicians were playing in the background and we thoroughly enjoyed our meals. Back aboard, we watched a DVD – “Sounds of Thunder” based on a Ray Bradbury book, using our laptop as our viewer. It worked out pretty well.

We checked out at 8:15 after showers ashore and breakfast – using our family radios to coordinate re-entry into the marina. Iris had returned our entry passes so needed to be let back in. The marina would have been happy to send a dock-hand to let her in had she asked. We’d decided to top off our fuel and get a pump-out at Baltimore Marine Center since it was right next door and had good fuel prices. ($2.30 vs the $3.50+ we’d paid in Manhasset). Fred hailed the marina as we approached it and got no answer. Let’s dock and then find someone to help us. OK – except that we’d parked in front of gas pump – not diesel. Iris checked – the fuel dock opens at 9 and it’s 8:45. Let’s wait. So we moved up about 100 feet to the diesel pump and waited. Meanwhile, we had a nice discussion with a young (or perhaps not so young) man who ran a local sailboat charter/sailing school operation. He lives aboard in another marina and we talked boats for awhile. While Fred chatted with the dock-hand when he showed up and fueled/pumped-out, Iris made phone calls while we still had a good connection calling for mail, adding Bob and K to our SSCA reservation and calling the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections to see why we hadn’t received our absentee ballots yet. And calling her good friend, Diane, to wish her happy birthday. Fred, meanwhile, learned from the dock-hand, that the main reason fuel prices had gone up since April had nothing to do with oil prices or shortages. Starting in April, ethanol was required to be at least 10% of the gasoline formula. Ethanol is a solvent and so can’t go through the pipelines because it would remove too much sludge and clog it. So it had to be shipped by truck. Meanwhile, it also corrodes old gasoline tanks and cars/boats who are older than 10 years old are going to have problems if they let the new formula sit in their tanks. Prices have started to come down as the oil companies dealt with the issues created by the new formulation. Didn’t hear that on the news, did you?

We didn’t get off the dock until 10am or later – not the early start we’d hoped for on our trip to St. Michaels on the Miles River in Eastern Bay. We motor-sailed and motored to St. Michaels and anchored in Fogg Cove very close to another sailboat in tight quarters. They seemed concerned and Iris was unhappy. But we had a good set and no real alternative. Out of practice in just 3 short days, Iris had forgotten to run the refrigerator while we were motoring all day. So we were forced to run the generator for a 1/2 hour in the late evening to get the freezer temp down. Iris started to work on a website update. Tomorrow we hope to tour St. Michaels in the morning, have lunch, and then move to Granary Creek on the Wye River to do some hiking on Wednesday.

Not a good night. At around 1:30am the cats were fighting and Iris got up to see what was going on. Frosty had been acting lethargic and ill (besides being ill-tempered) the last two days and hadn’t been eating her full dose of meds either. Up again at 5 to the sounds of a cat getting sick. Yep – Frosty again. Iris cleaned things up, made sure both cats were stable. While up, she went on deck to make sure we weren’t too close to the other boat or shore as winds were clocking. All was ok and she went back to bed.

Fred got up to the smells of corn muffins baking. We ran the generator and then put the dinghy in the water for our trip to town. St. Michaels has provided a nice town dinghy dock. First stop was the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Not! We were too early and it opens at 10. So we walked about the quaint town, got our bearings, checked out restaurant menus and then returned to the museum where we spent most of the day. After lunch we both agreed that we should spend another night here and go to Granary Creek tomorrow morning – still giving us time to hike. The museum fascinated us as it seemed a combination of Mystic Seaport (Connecticut) and perhaps the wooden boat museums in Maine or Newport. It thoroughly covered life on the Chesapeake and it was hard to imagine as we sailed the next day, the thousands of oyster fisherman/crabbers working the waters while steamships moved about from town to town. And seeing photos of the areas we were standing on over a hundred years ago – filled with docks and canneries vs the sleepy tourist town we now beheld. After the museum, we walked around town some more, looking for the street that would lead to a ‘back-door’ entrance to St. Michaels on the San Domingo Creek. Unsuccessfull, we stopped at Acme Supermarket for a few items and dinghied back to the boat. Earlier in the day we’d noticed that the sailboat next to us had departed, so we no longer were too close to anyone (altho’ Iris feared we were too close to the nearest dock). While relaxing in the cockpit we listened to the latest weather forecast. We expected a frontal passage but not northerly winds of 15-20 knots. Quick change in plans – let’s go to Whitehall Bay tomorrow and explore Ridout Creek off Whitehall Creek. That way we’ll be heading south on a short trip to Annapolis instead of a 30 mile trip against the wind.

Dusty kept us up all night. She’s become quite insecure after having been the dominant cat for over 12 years. At night, especially when feeling ill or perverse, Frosty positions herself in front of the food/water bowls and blocks passage to the cat box. Dusty must dash through and sustain attacks to reach either. Wanting attention from either of us, she’d move to the other when shoved away. Iris couldn’t stand it anymore, got up, moved Frosty to the settee and made sure Dusty ate, drank and used the box at around 3am. Did that fix anything? Nope – soon Dusty was back in bed with us pestering once again. We got up in the morning feeling like we’d just done a passage.

We brought the dinghy back up on deck after breakfast and headed out at around 9am. Iris was thrilled with her new deck wash and was able to blast the mud off the chain and anchor! No wind. We had to motor all the way to Whitehall Bay and made our way up to Ridout Creek. Private homes nestled in lots with tall trees surrounded us. We passed a Valiant 40 docked as we entered the bay – named ‘Promise’. We’ll have to look her up. The anchor dragged a bit before it set. The winds seemed lower than forecast and later weather updates seemed to imply the front had weakened a lot. Maybe we were over cautious to move here but we’re the only boat at anchor and it seems a good place to hang-out should there be severe storms tonight. We enjoyed the warm temperatures for the afternoon, did some chores and read. Tomorrow we head to Annapolis for the boatshow, SSCA meeting, Valiant Party and rendezvous, we hope, with friends.

Iris had a bad night – poor Frosty had several seizures. It’s possible that the frontal passage and winds scared her and exacerbated her issues. In any case, Iris got back to bed around 6:30am and we slept in a bit. Around 10am, we called Annapolis Landing Marina (ALM) to see if our slip was available already. Yep. So we raised anchor and motored the 5 miles. Winds had clocked overnight to the north. although they had been light in the protected anchorage. We had assistance in docking at the fixed docks at the inner end of a tight fairway and it took awhile to get the lines set up as the stiff northerly winds were blowing us onto the dock. Our dock assistant was going to be doing the Caribbean 1500 in her 45′ Island Packet, Arctic Tern. We checked in, had lunch, and called our friends John and Carla to make tentative plans for dinner. The cell phone connection was insufficient for reliable logging on with our pc and there was no working free wifi in the area, so we signed up for Beacon Wifi for a 3 day plan (using our minimal cell phone connection). We received an email confirming that they got our money – however we were unable to connect. Frustration – as we’d updated the website on our pc and wanted to upload it as well as do some bill paying. Make it work or give us our money back! Unfortunately – by now it was after 5pm, the technical support number said leave a message and we were going out.

John and Carla picked us up and we headed into Annapolis for a casual dinner. They’d gone to the boatshow that day and the forecast was for dismal weather on Friday. (Bob and K from Rima also went on Thursday in expectation of the rain). We enjoyed catching up with them on what had been going on since we last saw them a couple of years earlier. By the time we got back to the boat it was drizzling hard. We would try and see John and Carla again at the boatshow for lunch, if we went. Additional attempts at getting on Beacon Wifi proved futile.

Fred added lines in the middle of the night to keep us off the dock. The winds were blowing in the high 20s or more with gusts into the 40s predicted and it was a very noisy night. By the end of Friday we had nine lines holding us – and our hurricane configuration is usually around 14! Rain on top of the wind was making for quite an unpleasant day. After Iris had warmed the cabin with a biscuit breakfast, she called the water taxi. A recording informed us that it was not operating due to the weather conditions. So much for going to the boat show. A good day to cocoon instead. Iris called Beacon Wifi who cancelled our plan and refunded the money (turns out the Annapolis server had been down for a while – we thought we were being clever by creating the account using a connection from the marina across the creek.) But a few minutes later, when she turned on the pc, she noticed that the wifi was running and our account still showed as active. When she spoke to tech support again, the rep said that he hadn’t cancelled our account and that we could use the remaining time (2 days) for free – a good will gesture since we’d probably be at marinas with Beacon Wifi in the future. Perfect outcome for a cocooning day! We made a few phone calls to friends and then worked on the website, browsed to our hearts’ content, and watched some cable tv – catching the premiere of Battle Star Galactica on the scifi channel – one of the few shows we watch. When we went to bed, power was out on the dock – we weren’t sure whether it was due to a power failure (most likely) or turned off deliberately due to extreme high tides. But we slept better knowing that our lines were properly adjusted for the conditions!

Today was the SSCA gathering at neighboring Port Annapolis Marina. We’d selected ALM for it’s proximity to the SSCA mtg and for its water taxi headquarters and discount. Alas – the latter was to be useless to us on this trip. We got up early and walked over just as Bob and K (Rima) and their friends Deanna and Nick (Caribbean Soul – docked in St. Augustine, FL) arrived. While the seating was enclosed in a tent, the temperatures were in the low 50s and we were all freezing. While bundled up, Iris was sockless, wearing her Tevas – much to Bob’s amazement! We enjoyed, but shivered to talks on Power Systems, and by a survivor of the Phuket tsunami before breaking for the bag lunches. The six of us headed back to Windwalker to get out of the cold while we ate lunch (and Iris put on some socks and enclosed shoes ;-). After lunch, Beth Leonard spoke about her circumnavigation and Suzanne Glassman tried to motivate the women in the audience to take a larger role in the cruising lifestyle (eg – docking, anchoring, navigation and maintenance). The afternoon ended with silent and live auctions – not of interest to us. Bob and K and Nick and Deanna left to drive back and check on Rima (and get more clothes!), while we spoke with Al and Carol of Voyager. Iris had met them in Florida as both Al and Iris were working at West Marine as part-time associates. We enjoyed the barbecue dinner and then headed back to Windwalker to pill Frosty, returning to chat with the foursome who had returned from Rima (anchored in West Annapolis). We all enjoyed the songs of Eileen Quinn – a fellow cruiser who accurately, emotionally and sometimes,humorously portrays all facets of the cruising lifestyle in her works. We have 3 of her CDs and have played them frequently. After the meeting, we said our goodbyes and headed back to a once again ‘powerless’ slip. This time all the docks were dark and the marina had intentionally turned off the power until after the extreme high tide. We had no wifi either – so were even happier that we weren’t paying for it. Both of us are quite anxious about how in the world we’ll get out of the slip if the winds are anyting like this tomorrow!

It was a sleepless night for both of us as we both (individually) visualized getting off the dock and the possible disasters that would await us. Fred was not in the best of moods as we went to Port Annapolis Marina’s Wet Dog Cafe for a so-so breakfast and to buy a Sunday newspaper. Our nerves were in high gear as it was still blowing over 15 knots from the north and we were pinned against the dock. Fred removed a few of the loose lines and then went to the bath house. Iris, meanwhile, saw that the owners were aboard the Sea Ray 38 next to us and struck up a conversation with them. (Their boat’s bow had a mean looking anchor on it that stuck out about 3 feet beyond their bow pulpit into the fairway – so if we ended up on their bow – both boats would get hurt). They were nice folks who were heading out in a couple of hours, but offered to help us with lines to manuever out of the slip. They were going to have that slip next season (and wanted it for some reason). She held a bow line and he helped turn our stern in front of his bow – keeping us off the dock and allowing Fred to get way on backing out of the fairway. It was a smooth end to our imagined nightmare scenarios. We’re thankful they were there to help!

Out on the bay, the winds were light and we were surrounded by sailboats racing with their spinnakers out. We were able to sail for a couple of hours until the winds died altogether and we motored the final couple of hours to Granary Creek. It was a lovely setting, with 3 trawlers, a powerboat and 3 sailboats by nightfall. But there was plenty of room. The cats roamed the decks and were thrilled to be wandering about in the sunny afternoon. While we wanted to dine in the cockpit, mosquitos drove us below. After dark we came above to listen to the sounds of ducks, geese and crickets in the fields and woods around us. Tomorrow we plan to dinghy ashore and do some hiking!

We had a good night (although Iris got up a few times with a severe headache) with totally calm conditions. While it was foggy at around 7, it cleared quickly, and by 9am we were putting the dinghy in the water. We dinghied to the muddy landing spot for the Wye Island Nature Preserve and looked at the bulletin board with a trail map and park description. Wye River and Wye River East surround Wye Island – much of which is part of the preserve. We began hiking Dividing Creek trail and ended up taking a wrong turn which made the loop slightly larger. But the trail took us by the conference center which overlooked our anchorage. After about 2 hours of hiking we returned to Windwalker for lunch. Iris went below to do some housekeeping while Fred took the dinghy opportunity to work on hull stains. Late in the afternoon we decided to do some dinghy exploring with our depth sounder. We headed out into the river a bit then headed to the head of Granery Creek to see how far up it we could have anchored. On our return, we were waved over to Midwatch – a sailboat that had anchored next to us the night before. Their dinghy had escaped and lodged itself under a dock a few hundred feet away. We gave the guy a lift to his dink and towed it back. They’re from Wakefield, RI and just completed a 2 year trip around the Caribbean.

Back at Windwalker, we brought our outboard and dinghy aboard, had dinner and watched some news on PBS – the only tv station we were getting. We’re headed to Solomons, MD tomorrow, but Iris also did some future trip planning.

We left Granery Creek around 7:30am, expecting no wind and finding none! We also had around 1 knot of current against us almost the entire way. While we’d stopped in Solomons on our first trip in 1999, it was purely a convenience stop – as Iris was quite ill and we were freezing. We’d gone into a marina, eaten out, and ran the heater to warm up. This time we planned to anchor and did so on Back Creek off of Hospitality Marina by 3:15. We were happy with our location and anchor set and put the dink back in the water to go off and explore. It took us awhile to find Hospitality’s dinghy dock. For $2/day one gets dinghy dock parking and trash disposal. We were on a mission to walk to West Marine (to exchange a damaged fuel filter), mail some bills at the post office and check out the Gourmet Market where we bought a few items. We saw that the Naughty Gull had dinner specials and decided to come back in for dinner. That’s where we ate during our last stop here and Iris remembered liking it despite her malaise. Dinner was enjoyable and we brought leftovers back to the boat. We found free wifi from the direction of the marina and were able to log on quite late into the evening from the cockpit. Tomorrow, ashore to explore Solomons maritime musuem.

After breakfast, Iris logged on to check out the weather forecasts. The wind doesn’t seem too bad given the description of the frontal passage and high affecting the area. We ran the generator and then dinghied to shore in search of the Calvert Marine Museum. We enjoyed their exhibits on fossil finds in the area, estuary life and the seafood industry. And we got a tour of yet another screwpile cottage-style lighthouse – this one from Drum Point. The Drum Point lighthouse keeper was able to have his family live with him – so the furnishings (based on the memories of the grand-daughter of the last lighthouse keeper) were much less spartan than those found at St. Michaels’ example. We filled a fast-food craving at Roy Rogers and then returned to the museum. The drizzle was becoming quite heavy and we decided to opt out walking in search of Solomons’ downtown. But we did stop at the Gourmet Market to get additional supplies – perhaps for the remainder of the trip as we knew that our planned stops had no groceries.

By now it was late afternoon and we did some trip planning for tomorrow. While Iris originally wanted to make a 2-day stop at Crisfield in order to catch a ferry over to Tangier or Smith Island, the forecast was not going to oblige. Perhaps next trip ;-). We brought up the dinghy and after dinner played dominoes and did a final weather check before stowing the laptop.

Dusty kept awakening Iris for most of the night. She got up at 5:45 to check the weather. The forecast was still for strong SW winds on some of the forecasts, W on others. We delayed our departure, turning on the engine at 8 and underway by 8:20 – still debating alternatives. We’d ruled out Crisfield, targeted Antipoison Creek with the opportunity to once again stop at Mill Creek off the Great Wicomico if conditions required. We found that the winds were lighter than expected and were able to sail on and off, doing the 55 miles and anchoring in the first cove in Antipoison Creek at 5pm. The creek got it’s name, supposedly, because the native Americans used some mud from the creek to counteract a sting-ray wound on Capt. John Smith. It was a beautiful, rural setting with nice homes. No tv or cell phone coverage however. Enroute down the Chesapeake, earlier in the day, we were hailed by a large trawler, Valkyrie – who previously had owned both a Valiant 40 and Valiant 42 (by the same name). We’ll have to look him up in the Valiant owners database.

A small trawler had anchored in the middle of the Antipoison channel right before our cove. We worried that a commercial fishing boat might come barreling down the channel at night – but hopefully they fared well over night. It was a quiet night until the expected frontal passage – but Windwalker stayed put.

We were on our way by 7:45, bound for Hampton Roads. The trawler had already departed. We mostly motor-sailed, although we did try sailing for a couple of hours. There weren’t a lot of boats up and about on this extremely cold morning. By 10, hot chocolate hit the spot, followed by hot chili for lunch. It was difficult to stay warm. Iris called Ocean Marine in Portsmouth to make reservations for Sat. and Sun. nights. We listened to the frost warnings for tonight and shivered some more. We planned to anchor in Willoughby Bay. But the forecast was calling for strong west winds which would bring up a fetch on the bay. Iris looked for alternatives and suggested Mill Creek on Hampton Flats. We’d looked at it on a previous trip and for some reason decided it wasn’t an appropriate anchorage. However this time we thought we’d check it out and if we didn’t like it, we could always head to Willoughby or head to Hospital Point in Norfolk/Portsmouth. 4 trawlers turned into the creek, passing Ft. Monroe, ahead of us. A few sailboats were already there. We dragged at first but got a hard set after letting out more scope. The anchorage was quite pleasant with a nice view of the military marina and the highway traffic disappearing into the tunnel under the bay. (Willoughby Bay is the other end of the tunnel with a similar traffic view ;-)). No wifi, but a great cell phone connection. We once again discussed (not seriously) doing the Dismal Swamp. But we didn’t want to take 2 days when one would get us to Alligator River. Dinner followed by dominoes – snug in our cabin. Our plan for the marina tomorrow is to do what may be a final laundry, some R&R and to get our mind-frame set for the southbound trip. It’s hard moving almost every day and we talked about trying to make it fun – not just an ordeal.

Iris was up a little early – unsuccessful in getting Frosty to take her meds. We had a nice breakfast and then called the marina to see if we could come in early. They assigned us A19 – the same slip we’d had before on the ‘party dock’, as we’d named it. We came in around 11:30 for fuel and were in the slip by 11:45. We were in need of some filters for the engine and Iris had called ahead to find out when the parts dept. closed – they said noon. So while Iris check us in, Fred ran to the parts building. Fred came back – no joy. He said that a sailor from the ‘Great Chesapeake Schooner Races’ had been waiting since 11:30 (they were already closed up) for needed parts and marina staff were unsuccessful in finding anyone to open it. The sailor was quite angry.

Iris headed to the immaculate and empty laundry room – once again running the gamut of the party dock folks enjoying their beers clustered in chairs on the dock. Meanwhile Fred did some engine and generator maintenance. We tried the marina wifi which had worked poorly last time we were here. This time we couldn’t get it to do anything. Around 5 we headed out towards the ferry docks, intending to head to Norfolk for dinner. We’d just missed a ferry and walked around looking at schooners docked at the landing. We decided it was silly to go to Norfolk just for dinner and then rush back for Frosty. Why not eat here in Portsmouth. So we checked out a few of the restaurants we’d looked at last time and decided on Lobscouser (sp?), a seafood place with wonderful sounding early-bird specials and low prices. The service was outstanding as was the ambiance and the place was full. When we left, there was quite a line waiting for dinner.

We stopped in the Dollar Store on our way back – and bought some additional catfood (since Frosty is rejecting various flavors and not eating) and litter. The party-goers had all gone on an excursion at 3, so the docks were clear for our return. We were watching tv when we heard explosions. Fireworks at Waterside in Norfolk. Standing on deck we saw quite a show! And as the fireworks lit the sky, one of the largest ships we’d ever seen came down the river. It had 3 tugs and was humongous. A fine end to quite a pleasant day!

Iris awoke at 6:30 to the thrashing sounds of Frosty having a grand mal seizure. After comforting the kitty, she then started breakfast and finally ran out of propane on the first of our two shorty 11 lb. propane tanks. We think it was a record; usually a tank lasts us about 6 weeks and this was closer to 3 months! And no – we didn’t eat out a lot more ;-). We did our Sunday morning routine of paper and political shows and some additional chores. We caught the 2pm ferry over to Norfolk, headed to McArthur Mall to catch a movie (“Departed”), found an ATM to make some deposits, and then had dinner out at yet another Outback (to satisfy Fred’s prime rib craving). Dinner was very quick as the restaurant was quite empty on a Sunday night – so we made it back to Windwalker by around 7:45. Frosty rejected food yet again – but finally at a partial dose at around 9:30. We’re going to leave tomorrow at around 8am, so that we can make the first bridge’s 8:30am opening. We anticipate a tense day, despite resolving to try and make the southbound trip fun.

More cat issues as Frosty had another grand mal at 6:30. She ended up having a couple of more seizures throughout the day – to be expected when her eating becomes erratic. Anyway, we left the dock a minute ahead of schedule at 7:59 and joined the southbound procession. All of the southbound boats got ‘clogged up’ at the first bridge. Then we were stuck at the second bridge as the opening was delayed by a freight train. The Great Bridge lock was exciting with 18 boats filling it completely. No one had to raft to another boat, as was apparently happening at the first Dismal Swamp lock (based on VHF announcements). 10 of the 18 were power boats and trawlers. The remaining 8 were sailboats. After the Great Bridge bridge, things thinned out since the power boats went screaming ahead while the sailboats puttered along. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice ride, arriving at Coinjock at around 4:30. We had to do a u-turn to dock against the current.

Iris had made a reservation for the night at Midway Marina as soon as she saw how many boats were waiting for the first bridge. The dockmaster told her that they’d been turning boats away at night so we’re glad we called. She’d asked for the face dock (to expedite our early departure) and they have us in a spot on the southernmost end in front of the restaurant. Great – except that we couldn’t get any wifi there. We carried the laptop to a picnic table near the marina office/store and captured weather forecasts before dinner at Crabbies. After dinner, we showered on board as the facilities on shore were less than adequate. Our plan is to leave by 7am because the forecasts isn’t the best and we want to get across Albermarle Sound as early as possible.

Up at 5:30 to get things going – however Frosty didn’t oblige and refused her food. Then we topped off our water tank, and left the dock at 7:05 after waiting for a couple of power boats and a large catamaran to pass us. Sunrise wasn’t for another 20 minutes or so and it was pretty dark. We motored, then motorsailed the remainder of Virginia Cut, almost getting pushed into the shallows by a passing powerboat. Albermarle Sound was flat despite the adverse forecast and it didn’t begin to rain in earnest until a couple of hours after we’d anchored. We expected strong south winds but were looking for protection from all directions and decided on either Deep Point (if empty) or Bear Point where we’d anchored before. The Alligator River bridge operator on duty was a pro, and she told the 4 sailboats approaching to keep on coming as she smoothly opened the bridge for us. We anchored at 2:30, once again using a trip line, albeit a shorter one. We’re hoping it doesn’t become a problem for us in the morning. The VHF airwaves were filled with group think, as one by one, several boats talked themselves into an anchorage we’d used once before. It would be great in southerly winds, but should the winds clock, they’d be open to the entire fetch of the river. By nightfall, their collective anchor lights looked like jewels across the water (or like a little city in the wildnerness ;-)). Dinner and dominoes and early to bed – we want another early start!

Heavy rain and winds kicked up at around 4:30am. Iris heard the anchor alarm and Fred went in the pouring rain to check. We’d clocked to the west but all was ok. Wondering about the gang around the bend, we turned on the VHF, but no one was talking. Back to bed. 5:30 Iris’ alarm went off but it was still pouring, so waited until Fred’s 6am beep. We were on our way by 7:15 and as far as we could tell only 2 boats were ahead of us. We motorsailed and were making 7 knots in the Pungo Canal. Our selected anchorage, Slade Creek past Belhaven, was coming up to soon – we’d be there by around noon. Our next choice was Bear Creek, which we’d get to around 3pm or so. Decision point at Slade – let’s keep going. Near Hoboken Cut, our mast was attacked by a swarm of angry looking wasps or hornets. The cloud either looked like it was going to land in our mast slot or stay with us indefinitely. We brought in the sail – but they stayed. We turned on our radar hoping to fry them, or at least discourage them, but on they came, even more furious. Fortunately, the wind picked up and they could no longer keep up. We put out a bit of the mainsail again and a couple more peeled off. Phew – that would have been unpleasant. We continued making good time and decided that Bear Creek was too early to stop. Let’s head to Broad Creek on the Neuse! Our only time there was in our ’99 trip north and we recalled that the entry seemed pretty tricky at the time without the aid of the chartplotter. We also weren’t sure of the anchorage and were in very shallow water. But this time the approach was easy and we anchored (group think?) nearby some other sailboats in not the most protected spot, but one with plenty of water and close to the entrance for an early departure. 3 dolphin accompanied us into the creek – and we’re always happy with dolphin sightings – so an nice end to a long day! Do we leave here tomorrow, go out Beaufort Inlet and head overnight to Wrightsville Beach? Or do we stay inside and face the ordeal of the stretch through Camp Lejeune over two days? Unfortunately, the coastal forecast was adverse. We’d plan on making distance tomorrow but stay inside.

Dusty had been such a pest the previous night, that Iris decided to sleep on a settee to keep peace between the cats. Getting up at 5:30, she once again was unsuccessful in getting Frosty to eat. On deck, we found thousands of little stubby flies or perhaps termites, mostly dead. They’d been attracted to the anchor light – not sure what caused their demise. We raised anchor at 7:15, followed out by a smaller boat, Spirit, who we’d passed a couple of times before. While motoring down Adams Creek canal, Fred spoke with a British boat that we had passed on each of the last 2 days, Pegasus, who was ultimately Bahamas bound. But for now they were going to stop in Beaufort to see if there was a window, or to head out. They had insurance restrictions and were going to leave their boat in Jacksonville for a couple of months while returning to UK, before continuing on to the Bahamas.

Where to stop? We set a go/nogo decision point for Swansboro. It it was after 3pm, we’d stop. If earlier, we’d try and make it through Camp LeJeune and then anchor in Mile Hammock basin. While enroute, we listened to LeJeune announcements. The target range was active and they closed the ICW at 1:00, not reopening it until 2:30. Then they only planned to keep it open an hour before closing it again. Our ETA for Swansboro was now 3:30 and with the openings/closings we opted to stop and anchor there – which was a new to us stop anyway! Our choice now was to either go into one of the two larger marinas or anchor near a fixed bridge with a fierce current. As we approached, we saw that no one was anchored in the anchorage area so we could pick our spot. We set at 4pm in fairly strong wind but the current was light at that time. Our expectation was for much more of both – and at its peak – we saw about 1.6 knots of current and 18-20knots of wind (around midnight).

After dinner, we decided to go into the cockpit in the dark of the evening and watch what there was to see. Suddenly we were under a spotlight! A sailboat came in (it was Spirit from this morning) and tried to anchor very close to us. Thankfully, they dragged and decided to move quite a bit further away. A few minutes later, a large single-handed catamaran (Ka Honu) came in and anchored across the channel. We found a free wifi signal and brought the laptop into the cockpit to do some pc work. By around 9, boats were still arriving – one anchored right near the bridge. Another sailboat with an unusual deckhouse, Actuator, anchored almost on top of us. Fred hailed them on the radio, and while not asking them to move, mentioned that we were all going to clock with the current and were expecting around 15-20 knots tonight. They didn’t respond after that, but moved a bit further shortly thereafter. We’ve never seen so many boats manuevering down the ICW and anchoring well after dark on previous trips. Is it that everyone has chartplotters and radar and trust their instruments implicitly? Don’t know, but it’s not something we’d want to make a practice of…..

We got up several times during the night to check our status with the current change and expected strengthening north wind. We left at 7:10, while it was still fairly dark, determined to get through Camp LeJeune. The catamaran, Ka Honu had already left. As we approached it, we heard them announce that they closed the waterway (at 7:30) and that it would remain closed for 2 hours. We asked in advance if we could just anchor mid-ICW and they replied that yes – that’s what all the boats did yesterday. So we slowed down a bit and were passed by a Norfolk ferry – the Carrie B. When we reached the range tower and navy patrol boat, we saw that Ka Honu was already anchored, and Carrie B was beaching herself on the shore rather than anchoring. We passed in front of her and dropped anchor right behind the catamaran – prepared to sit in the cockpit and read on this fine, sunny day. Not! Within 5 minutes the patrol boat decided that the firing range wasn’t ready to do anything, and so we were let through; they closed the ICW immediately after letting us enter and it would be closed until 11am. Phew – that was fortunate. Our next ‘obstacle’ was the Onslow Beach Swing Bridge, still on base. The 3 boats rushed to make the 10am opening. We arrived in time but the bridge tender said ” Sorry, but we’re going through our annual oil change and will be closed for awhile”. What? Annual oil change? Fred asked if it would be a long delay, intending to anchor if so, but they said it would not be very long. So Carrie B beached herself again while we and Ka Honu tooled around. But the wait was only for around 15 minutes and we were off to the races again! Carrie B dashed off ahead of us. Ka Honu stayed within sight as we rushed to the also restricted Surf City Bridge – which opened only on the hour. We weren’t going to make the 11am opening, given the adverse current. Iris saw a slight jog on the chart for the waterway ahead and asked whether putting up sail was an option. Yes! That gave us an extra knot of speed and we squeaked through on time. The stress was building. The next bridge – Figure Eight Island Bridge opens on the hour and half hour. But if we didn’t make an ‘hourly’ opening then we’d have to wait 1 1/2 hrs for the Wrightsville Beach Bridge which only opens on the hour. We tried every trick up our sleeves, but weren’t going to make the bridge – being about 7 minutes late. Ka Honu was making better time. Fred hailed the bridge tender and begged for 3 minutes – the bridge tender said sure. We and Ka Honu were the only ones who needed it anyway. But Ka Honu reached the bridge ahead of us, the bridge tender started to open it, and we still were going to be 7 minutes late. We weren’t proud – Fred begged. And the bridge tender said floor it and let us through. (Later, Marshall on Ka Honu told us he would have slowed down to hold the bridge open for us). By now our stress levels were pretty high – the day was intense and this is one of the stretches of the ICW we really hate for the reasons above. One last bridge and we didn’t want to miss it and wait another hour. Made the 4pm Wrightsville Bridge – and felt charmed for the day. We noticed Ka Honu maneuvering in reverse for some reason but didn’t think much of it. We anchored at 4:30 – exhausted. We were both depressed and felt we had to rethink how we’re doing this trip. As we did last time, we’re turning it into a forced march instead of enjoying it.

Enroute, Iris made reservations for Charleston Harbor Marina at Patriot’s Point for Tuesday and Wednesday. This would allow us to have our mail sent, and for Iris’ mother to mail our absentee ballots. And we knew we could make it to Charleston by then whether we chose to do an offshore jaunt from Southport to Winyah Bay and hang out a couple of days or work our way down the ICW. Iris continued to be upset that Frosty was spitting out her meds – expecting a seizure at any time.

We’d decided to take a day and rest in Southport – so while the cats got Iris up early, it was nice to get back into bed, make a big pancake breakfast and not rush around in the morning. Iris called Southport Marina who told her that they weren’t taking transients – the docks were all torn up and being redone and would be completed in January. Next on her list was South Harbor Village Marina – a fairly new complex whose website she’d checked out the previous night. Success – she told them we’d be there around 2pm. As we raised anchor, we motored by Actuator (see our Swansboro night) anchored nearby. We saw that he was from Pt. Arthur, TX. We waved and he hailed us on the radio. He claimed (a joke?) that he was really out of Pt. Aransas but didn’t know how to spell it! Didn’t know Rima but thought he knew the boat Concerto (another Valiant) but not the owners. The Ka Honu hailed us – he thought we were ahead of him but in fact we were about an hour behind. We’d seen him manuevering before the Wrightsville Beach Bridge – turns out the steering linkages broke on both hulls and he had to be towed to his destination marina. He was also planning on spending the night at the same marina as we were.

We had favorable current for all of the trip, with the exception of Snow’s Cut, and were even doing over 10 knots on the Cape Fear River stretch of our trip. We arrived at the marina at 1:30 and docked at the fuel dock, topping off the tanks. Ka Honu moved himself to the other side of the face dock (the transient side). Once fueled, we had to move as well, and the dockhand, along with Marshall (who we later met), helped us dock in the stiff wind and current. We asked for the end of the dock for another easy (we hoped) departure tomorrow. Tied up, we spoke w Marshall a bit – single-handing to FL from Norfolk since his wife had a family emergency. We spoke with some other boats as well, finding again that the best place to meet other southbound cruisers was when stopping in marinas (or possibly, dinghy docks in anchorages that have shoreside destinations). Iris rushed to the marina complex deli – in search of bread and whatever else she could stock up on. Not that kind of deli – more a sandwich place. While they seemed unused to her requests, they sold her a couple of loaves of bread, some chips and some cold cuts. Meanwhile, Fred had completed marina related chores and we were ready for a walk. We passed a local park which ended up with a great view of the ‘pipeline’ anchorage we’d considered as an alternative to the marina. We weren’t sure we could have gotten in there (due to water depth) except at mid-to-high tide and still aren’t sure – but the anchorage had about 8 boats, a couple of which could be considered cruising boats. It did look like a great, protected place to stop if one could get in there. More excitement on our return. A 65′ motor yacht was trying to dock on the same side of the transient dock as we were, but further in between two sailboats. The wind was getting hold of his bow and there were several near crashes as the sailboat owners stood watch trying to protect their vessels. Finally, the yacht gave up his attempt and moved to the fuel pump side of the dock – much to everyones’ relief. The restaurant in the complex, Joseph’s Italian Bistro, came highly recommended. We were also advised to come early. We got there at 5:15 and there was already a line. By the time we left the wait seemed quite long. Our meals were excellent – quite a find. Back at Windwalker, we filled the water tanks, watched cable, and did some email using the cellphone/laptop combination. Our spirits were lifted and we felt re-energized.

Dusty was a pest all night. Iris got up at 5:30 and we were off exactly at 7. We had a little trouble with the wind and current swinging our stern out while it looked like the spring line Iris was holding got jammed – but she freed it and we were on our way. Several of the boats we’d been hearing on the southbound trek were on the airwaves that day – most of them behind us. Our first, most restrictive bridge was going to be the infamous pontoon bridge – but we were able to make the 11am opening. It rained on and off and then started to pour as we approached Barefoot Landing. We’d set a goal – if we got there before 3pm we’d keep on going into the Waccamaw River. Otherwise, we’d stop at the Barefoot Landing marina and check out the shops/restaurants. But we passed the landing at 1:30 and continued on. As we cleared our last bridge, the Socastee Bridge, another sailboat that had been traveling close behind us, moved up to closer than within a boat length as we rushed towards our anchorage. He didn’t try passing or hailing us and Fred turned around and glared at him. Must have worked as he backed off. We got to the oxbow anchorage and motored through it – already filled with a few trawlers and a couple of sailboats. We dropped anchor (once again using a tripline – altho’ we were the only ones who did and we were again fearful of the consequences), dragged a bit and set. The sailboat that followed us tried anchoring in several places and ended up being closer to the ICW channel than he’d hoped. Another sailboat came in after dark and anchored between us and the next boat up, a trawler. No cell phone coverage but 3 tv stations… We went to bed, a bit concerned about the float wrapping on our prop, but not so much to keep us awake….

At 1am the anchor alarm went off – but all was ok. We turned due to current and Fred turned off the alarm. Dusty must have been tired and behaved. Iris got up at 6am, and neither of us went to check if the float was around (intentionally?) until after we’d had breakfast and were getting ready to go. Hurray – it’s still there! We raised anchor at 7:15, retrieving the float and Fred manuevered around the small sailboat (Sea Elephant) that had anchored after dark. The crew poked out their heads and Fred apologized for waking them up. They said no problem, they were already up. Right around then we ran aground, while the depth still read 9′ (as did the depth sounder on Sea Elephant). Fred tried power us out, but we were either in mud or stuck on a tree and didn’t budge. Sea Elephant offered to take one of our halyards to pull us over. Fred declined, saying that we’d likely dislodge their anchor. We were about to put our dinghy in the water to try and set a kedge anchor, when the next boat up, a trawler, yelled “Windwalker – we’re about to leave anyway – how about if we try taking a line and pulling you out!” Sure! Fred rigged a dock line with our trip line and float and threw the float to Betsy on Molly Blossom (out of South China, ME). She caught it and her husband, Martin, tried towing us out. We were turning on our keel and the trawler was getting awfully close to Sea Elephant – who decided to raise anchor and get going at once! We apologized and thanked them as they left. Now Molly Blossom had more room to manuever and Fred thought we were free, so they released our line. Nope – still hard aground and the tide going out some more. Iris said we’ll just have to wait for the tide – but they offered to try again and this time we were freed! We were grateful and thanked Molly Blossom again. On our way by 8am – we passed Sea Elephant in a little while and thanked them again as well. Based on the predicted strong north winds, Iris preferred the Minim Creek anchorage (one we’d loved on our first trip north in 1999) instead of the more exposed but equally scenic Avendaw Creek. We anchored at around 1pm – a very short day. But we had the creek to ourselves, we were able to enjoy the sunshine and sat in the cockpit while Fred read and Iris worked on the Windwalker log. The cats were allowed to roam for the first time in several days so they were happy too. An altogether pleasant and relaxing afternoon after the stresses of the morning. Obviously no wifi but a couple of tv stations and somewhat usable cell phone connection altho’ insufficient for logging on. We were also at the anchorage early enough to see how the current would turn us and to view the low tide and high tide effects.

NO alarms went off overnight and we slept fairly well. But it was bitterly cold outside (in the 40s) and only in the mid-50s below. We bundled up and Fred went up to start the engine at around 7:15. Not! Sounded like the battery was weak, so Fred ran the generator for a few minutes. No go. We contemplated options – obviously we were safe so there was no need to call for a tow or help of any kind. But would we have to reschedule the marina and stay here another day? Fred tried all the tricks he’d used back in Bristol, RI when our engine wouldn’t start. He finally got it going a little after 8 and we were underway by 8:30. As we were leaving the creek we saw a Sea Tow or Towboat US boat heading down the ICW, and saw a sign for TowboatUS on a nearby post. Not in as quite a deserted area as we thought ;-). About 30 minutes later we passed the TowboatUS boat towing a small sailboat to the north. Oh no – it was Sea Elephant – who waved as they went by. We’d noticed that their VHF radio was below decks and we didn’t want to make them go down – so didn’t hail them. They too probably had engine trouble. What a morning! We made our way towards Charleston, reaching several areas with significant shoaling. A trawler who had passed us mid-morning was hard aground as we approached the Ben Sawyer bridge area; they were being towed off by what looked like a small local boat. The trawler then passed us in what was very thin water for both of us – but all was ok. Throughout the entire day we were freezing. This was by far the coldest ‘moving’ day of our trip so far. We wore several layers of clothes, watch caps under our hoods and gloves. Hot chocolate mid-morning did only a little to warm us up.

We were anxious about current and wind for docking at the marina. We made our way up towards the Cooper River close to slack tide – but the north wind was blowing at 15-20 knots. We also noticed that the floating docks were wood, without any kind of rubrail or fenders. A docking drill as we got to the fuel dock. Then the fuel nozzle wouldn’t fit our tank opening – it was the high speed kind. So the boat in front of us had to be pulled further forward to move us to where a different hose/nozzle was located. Fred checked us in and they assigned us a spot on the transient face dock for easy manuevering. Easier said than done – we ended up on a spot further up and the dock-hand and Iris pulled the boat back to the power pedestal they wanted us at. No cable tv. What? Well the transient docks take waves and it’s hard to keep the cable going so we don’t put it out here. Wifi? That should be ok (and it is!). Iris went to collect our mail while Fred got the power hooked up. On her return, Iris was greeted by Frosty having one of her worst seizures. Scary for both cat and Iris. But at least her post-seizure hunger made Frosty take her meds!

The transient dock is quite unusual – we feel like we’re docked in the middle of Charleston Harbor. Dolphins swam by in and outside the breakwater/dock. Huge ships pass up and down the channel and there’s nothing (except the floating dock) between us and them. We have a nice view across the river, at downtown Charleston. We had dinner at the Hilton (part of the resort) and Fred began working on the mail we had waiting for us while Iris worked on the website. Tomorrow we hope to tour the carrier Yorktown – the main reason we came to this marina!

We ran the heater all night – record lows were being set as far south as FL! Despite wanting to stay tucked under the covers, Dusty insisted Iris get up at 6. Success on giving Frosty her meds – so Iris stayed up to work on the website and to check weather forecasts (not great for a passage on Thurs. to St. Mary’s river inlet). After breakfast we headed to the Patriot Point Naval and Maritime Museum – expecting to spend 3-4 hours there and come back to the boat to do some trip planning. We ended up staying there the entire day, getting back to Windwalker close to 6pm. The museum vessels are actually within the marina complex – like the marina was built around the display. We toured the WWII era vessels – Destroyer Laffey, Coast Guard Cutter Ingham, submarine Glamagore and the carrier, Yorktown. The ships had more access to interior spaces than we’d ever encountered in similar exhibits, including the engine rooms. We finished our tour viewing a WWII movie on the Yorktown – and wished that positive movies like that were made about our armed forces in Iraq. Finally, as the place was close to closing, we rushed through a replica of a Vietnam Support Base Camp. On our way back to Windwalker, we were treated to a couple of dolphins surfacing along the breakwater.

The weather doesn’t look great for an offshore passage to the GA/FL border tomorrow. As we finish the day, it looks like we’ll spend another day here, recheck the weather, and possibly head down the ICW to Beaufort, SC on Friday. We really don’t want to go south through Georgia on the ICW because of the significant shoaling that has occurred since our last trip, and will probably wait for a weather window in the Beaufort area to make the ‘jump’.

Dusty was a pest overnight. Very insecure. Last night we’d planned on staying in Charleston an extra day – however the forecast was for winds in the 25-30 knot range for Fri and Sat, and we weren’t sure we’d be able to get off our dock or out of the very exposed marina under those conditions. So move we must. At around 6am we heard engines – a boat was leaving. An hour later – more engines. This time we saw a powerboat in what looked like an impossible position – it appeared to be on the wrong side of the breakwater. Closer examination revealed that the 60 ft. sportsfishing vessel was sideways in it’s slip as it struggled to get out. Fred threw on his foulie and offered his help which was gladly taken by the 2-person crew. The wind had grabbed the boat’s stern and despite the 4000 hp engine, the captain couldn’t straighten out in the slip. Fred and one of the crew pulled the stern over and then Fred held the bowline while they powered out. What’s that going to mean for our departure with a measly 43 hp?

We had breakfast, took showers ashore and finished up the website. Slack was at 11 and we planned to wait for as close to that as possible. We loosed the lines and took off at 10:56 without incident. The current was with us and we made the Wappoo Creek bridge opening at 11:30am, arriving at Steamboat Creek Landing at 3:30. We’d stayed at this anchorage 4 years ago – but this time we were the only boat anchored and had our choice of locations. The landing was used for steamboat ferries many years ago and a very striking building remains. (We have a picture of it in our photo album from 4 years ago – no pics this time as it was very dreary and drizzly). Although there was a stiff current we allowed the kitties a brief time on deck. At dusk another boat came in and anchored closer to the entrance of the creek. We have to get an early start tomorrow morning – with a goal of getting in Beaufort downtown marina for the blow. Hopefully, the engine will start. It didn’t sound very good this morning.

Dusty was ready to get moving at 1am, but Iris got up at 5:30. It was pouring and totally dark. We were ready to go at 7 but it was too dark to see markers so we waited. Fred started the engine at 7:15 and we were on our way by 7:30 – passing the Hunter that had anchored last night. Skipper Bob had mentioned lots of shoaled areas so we took our time. At 8:30 Iris called Beaufort Downtown Marina – they could take us for one night but had boat clubs coming in for the weekend. Next she tried Lady Island Marina – full. Working down her list Iris tried Port Royal Landing Marina who could take us. They were up-front about pointing out that when the forecast winds kick up we’re going to feel it on the outside face dock and rock some. But we really had no choice and the marina sounded good. She made a reservation for two nights.

We wore our foulies all day while it rained off and on. Several powerboats and trawlers passed us and we saw no cruising boats although we heard several on the radio. As we approached the face dock they told us they had 60′ of space between two boats and recommended that we turn into the current to dock. No problems – although this ultimately put our stern towards the strong south winds that would come in the next 24 hours. The staff was extremely courteous and helpful and at check-in Iris reserved the free courtesy car for an hour on Saturday so that we could mail our absentee ballots at the post office and find our bank in order to make a deposit.

After we got ourselves set up, it was time to take a walk. We went to West Marine in search of filters for the engine (no luck at the small express store) and then on to Piggly Wiggly supermarket to top off supplies. Back at the marina and food stowed, we headed to the Back Porch grill for dinner. Very casual and most of the cruisers and liveaboards were in the bar – with lots of interesting conversations – but too smoke-filled for us and we at in the outer room. The winds started to pick up when we got back. Windwalker and the trawlers near us were pitching like crazy. Fred added more lines and adjusted the fenders. We were both quite concerned and even prepared a mini-ditch bag should we and kitties have to abandon ship. Since we were on the face dock, we had no pilings to keep us from bashing against the dock. Offshore there were gale and even storm warnings and a look at the weather showed that this massive system was affecting the entire east coast.

We had a rough night. Fred got up to check the lines about once an hour – with the winds peaking at about 2am. Meanwhile, Iris wanted to sleep in a bit in the morning but we’d left all of our alarms on which went off at 5:10, 6:15 and 6:50. We picked up our car at 10 and got to the post office. Our atm experience was less than satisfactory when we found that the machine was down. We put in a couple of gallons of gas as a thanks and stopped at the Piggly Wiggly again to buy some heavier items – too heavy to carry on the 1/2 mile plus walk. As we passed the laundry room at around 11am, it was empty – time to take advantage of it. Alas, when Iris got back with her items, the two machines were full and a 1/2 full bag remained. And to make matters worse, the washer cycle was 30 minutes long but the dryer cycle was 90 minutes! So she’ll have to make sure no one else got in there in the wash cycles. She planted herself in the closest chair, read and waited. Occasionally the ‘owner’ of the wash in progress came by and they chatted about cruising. The lady was one of 6 couples and 4 single-handers that lived aboard in the marina. They were headed south in March or so. This was one of Iris’ longest elapsed laundry times – completing her two measly washes at 3pm. Meanwhile, Fred was changing the transmission oil, as well as the fuel filter since the engine starting was difficult. He also made a sta-set X eye splice and replaced our chafed mainsail outhaul.

Finally back at Windwalker, Iris signed up for wifi at $4/24 hours, and checked on various upcoming items needing action online. Frosty was uncooperative and Iris only got a partial dose of phenobarbital into her prior to dinner. We headed back to the Back Porch Grille for another casual dinner. After dinner, Fred worked on photos for the website. Tomorrow we hope to head offshore for St. Mary’s River inlet. We wanted to bypass the undredged and shoaling ICW in Georgia – lovely as the terrain is, we didn’t want to run aground.

Unfortunately, daylight savings ended today – but not for the cats. We hoped to leave between 11am and noon, which would get us into the inlet tomorrow at dawn or so. Leisurely breakfast, passage prep, Sunday paper. Fred, antsy, got us going at 10:40. Many dolphins accompanied us as we left for sea via Port Royal Sound. Fred spoke with another cruising vessel that hailed us as we passed them – Bonnie Lass. They agreed to touch base later in the night. 2 other sailboats were behind us in the distance. After dusk we saw only two lights – Bonnie Lass had been passed by those boats as well. It was going to be a motoring passage with light and variable winds. Unfortunately, the wind was on the nose but the seas were flat. Most of the passage was uneventful. Just as Iris was to take her first watch at 8pm, Fred was dealing with a small cruise ship coming out of an inlet south of Savannah. We were on a collision course and Fred diverted to avoid the ship. However the ship changed course and then came to a complete stop. Fred hailed the ship, without a response – so we went around its stern. Suddenly the vessel resumed its way out to sea – we didn’t see any pilot get off or a pilot boat nearby. Iris took the remainder of her first watch and all 3 remaining watches were without excitement. The moon was very bright, drowning out the wonderful sky until it set.

We made our approach just before dawn and were anchored by around 8:10am. Iris closed our float plan with her mother and we sat down to breakfast. We both did post-passage chores, Iris made several doctor appointments while Frosty roamed the deck. A few other boats came in and anchored shortly after we did. Many boats were already in the large anchorage. We’d anchored here 4 years ago as well – however at that time we didn’t go ashore. Today our goal was to explore! After lunch, we put the dinghy in the water and went ashore to Cumberland Island National Seashore, at the Sea Camp Dock. The ranger took our admission fee and gave us a trail map and tips on the best route. We took the River trail towards the ruins of Dungeness – a mansion amonsgst several on the island owned previously by the Carnegie family. Along the trail we had several armadillo sightings. Other than road-kill, we hadn’t seen armadillo close-up since we lived in Austin and had one tearing up our lawns. We visited the museum outlining the history of the island and the mansions and then proceeded to follow the trails amongst the various building ruins. Next, we headed along the Dungeness Beach trail – a mix of road, boardwalk and dune trails through varied terrain (grassy wetlands, marsh and dunes) to the ocean beach. In the distance we saw the wild horses and along the trail we were greeted by wild turkeys wandering around. The beach was beautiful for walking with hard, very fine sand. We found the return Sea Dock boardwalk trail and returned to the ranger house – all in all about a 5 mile walk. In a few minutes the ranger was due to make a nature talk (primarily to a crowd of folks here on a daily ferry), so we decided to hang around. She spoke about sea turtles and what was being done in the area to preserve nesting sites. Only 2 in 2000 turtles reach adulthood so the odds were against them. We dinghied back to the boat, glad we’d gone ashore. Fierce no-see-ums drove us below. Fred crashed early as we planned to leave at sunrise.

Up again at 5:10, it took Iris over a half hour to get Frosty to eat. But we were still anchors aweigh and on our way at 6:30. Shortly thereafter, Florida at last! Dolphins everywhere along the way. We were motoring passed Fernandina Beach and approached a turn where Iris had run us aground 4 years ago. Just as we were at the location, a sailboat, Magpie, decided to pass us. Fred tried calling him on the radio saying this is not a good time to pass to no avail. Fred then yelled “I’ve got 5 feet of water here!” Magpie, up til this point oblivious to our plight, said “Come on over” and swerved to the right, continuing his pass. We were quite unhappy with him – however a few miles later he slowed down and told the bridge-tender that there were 2 sailboats behind him and he’d wait. Fred thanks him on the radio, but once again got no response. He and the other sailboat, Southwind, turned west when we got to St. John’s River, headed towards Jacksonville. We crossed the river and continued to our destination anchorage, passing a Valiant 42 named Sahara out of St. Simon’s Island docked at a marina. (Iris wasn’t able to find the boat in the Valiant database.) Pine Island anchorage included vistas of wooded marshes surrounded by salt grasses. We were anchored, pleasantly alone, at 2:30. Not! Ten minutes later two trawlers came in. By evening there were 3 sailboats and 3 or 4 trawlers. But there was plenty of room, although the current and wind opposed each other and the boat motions were squirrely. We relaxed during the afternoon doing reading and trip planning, took showers and played dominoes after dinner. Frosty, meanwhile, had a rough day with a few partial seizures. A quiet Halloween….

Cat mayhem got Iris up at 5am. She tried to return to sleep but stayed up after 7. Fred slept in and then We had a pleasant late breakfast and Fred worked on greasing a squeaky winch while the generator ran. It was time to explore Pulpit Harbor. We dinghied to the town dock and then walked to North Haven. While our older cruising guide and friends had talked about the beautiful walking on country roads – perhaps the information was old. The roads were pretty – however the car traffic flew by at 40-50 mph without any shoulders on the roads. It was about a 3mi walk into the village of North Haven. Too early for lunch and the prospective lobster dinner restaurant Iris was searching for didn’t pan out – the only ‘lobster’ place was closed for the week. We headed back to Pulpit Harbor – stopping at the North Haven Grocery for a few small items and lunch. Fred tried some blueberry coffee and really enjoyed it! Incidentally, the grocery has free wi-fi – but we didn’t have our laptop with us.

Back at the boat, the forecast for the next couple of days wasn’t pretty – remnants of tropical storm Ernesto were due to pass over the area after making a mess of the mid-atlantic coast. We needed a secure anchorage in which to spend the next couple of days. Holbrook Island Harbor (near Castine) would be it. We left Pulpit Harbor around 1:15 and were anchored at Holbrook in about 17′ (MLW) at 4pm. We were the only ones in the small cove – altho’ we knew the situation would change over labor day weekend 😉 Dinner in the cockpit was lovely, marred slightly by the appearance of pesky mosquitos. We went below at dusk and ran the generator while cleaning up from dinner. When Fred went up to set our anchor light, he found that another sailboat slipped ahead of us in the cove – anchored almost at the shoreline. We ran our heater and the cabin felt toasty – however 40s were predicted for the night!

The winds were calm – Ernesto hadn’t arrived yet. Any exploring would have to be done this morning, we think. We slept in and had a large breakfast and dinghied to the rock strewn shore at 10. This was another harbor that we’d visited in 1999 but didn’t explore. This time we hiked to the Holbrook Island Sanctuary headquarters and got a trailmap. The tall fir and spruce trees were beautiful as were the views of the harbor. The trails went through pastures, ruins of old estates, family cemetaries from the mid 1800s, and around a pond created by a beaver dam. The latter trail, not surprisingly, was a wet one and Iris’ Teva sandals were mud-caked by the time we left the trail. At the beach we noticed that the boat that came in last night (a local one) was replaced by a couple of other sailboats. We returned to Windwalker for lunch. Meanwhile several other boats came in during the afternoon, anchoring throughout the harbor. The forecast is full of mixed-messages with small craft warnings, high seas on the coast, high winds for tonight and tomorrow. Fog. We decide to go for a ‘last’ dinghy ride for views of nearby Castine and around Ram Island – a small island in the harbor. Then we prepared for ‘sea’ by putting both the outboard and the dinghy back aboard Windwalker. If we go anywhere tomorrow, we don’t want to be trailing the dink behind us. As we brought up the dinghy we noticed that it had deflated quite a bit after our long ride. There is a slow leak somewhere but the boat had stayed inflated for almost a week without adding air. Something about the long, fast planing ride hastened the leak (or did we cut the boat somewhere on the sharp rocks?). We prepared ourselves for a rough night….

The winds were from the east, as predicted. We had a quick breakfast and raised anchor at 8am. We’ve found so far on this trip, that our best sailing has been on days with small craft warnings and today was no exception. We had a 40 mile day ahead of us and were able to sail most of the way to the St. George River, doing 7-8 knots for much of the way! The winds were gusty however, and the autopilot wasn’t handling them well enough so Fred took on hand-steering. Good thing as the pot floats became thicker and thicker. By the time we reached the approach to St. George River it wasn’t clear how to even get through the maze. Fred’s video-gaming steadiness brought us through unscathed! Our selected anchorage, Maple Juice Cove, was more exposed to the east than we’d like, so we selected Turkey Cove immediately across from it, and anchored at around 2:30pm just as the drizzle from Ernesto began. There were a few homes hidden on the shore. We set anchor near a small (15′) sailboat on a mooring. A person (owner?) on shore watched as we anchored. We were close, but not in danger of hitting the boat; it probably looked bad from shore, however. Other than that we had the sheltered cove to ourselves. It began to rain on and off and we stayed below-decks.

During dinner we heard an engine – a small powerboat must have circled us (perhaps to make sure we weren’t near the other boat?). He landed on a mooring near the house dock and dinghied ashore. By late evening it was pouring. The heaviest rain wouldn’t come until the middle of the night.

Rain it did, accompanied by gusty winds. However our anchor was set well and we slept well until the anchor alarm went off at 5am. Pea soup fog and we’d turned to the west. No problem with our anchor and we weren’t dragging. By 7am the fog was still thick. The forecast was for west winds – on the nose for us if we were to go to Boothbay. But the winds were forecast to be light and if the fog lifted, there was no reason to stay. We waited and by around 8:30 the cloud ceiling had risen, altho’ it was still a gray day. We left at 9:30 – it was only going to be a 20 mile day. The pot slalom continued as we motor-sailed towards Boothbay. While we had a few choices of marinas, we were opting for a mooring at Tugboat Inn and Marina – where we’d stayed 3 times previously. Iris called and reserved a spot when we were a couple of hours away. In 1999 a post-labor day mooring was $15, in 2002 $18 and now $20/day. We like the Tugboat Inn because it’s only a 1/2 block from our favorite lobster place as well as the village. We got in at 12:30, put the dink in the water and had lunch aboard. At 1:30 we went in to settle with the dockmaster, take showers, check email (in the hotel lobby). While we’d planned to return to the boat first, we opted to head into the village. Within minutes (this has happened on our previous trips here) – we purchased our $5 t-shirts, went to the shoe outlet for Tevas for both of us (25% off since Labor Day is the end of season here), checked out the village grocery, candy store and Sherman’s Book Store where we spent quite awhile browsing its excellent selection. We love it in Boothbay and it seems to be the only place we end up splurging too 😉 The vendors all seemed to have had a good season, altho’ Labor Day weekend was a semi-bust due to the Ernesto forecast.

We returned to the boat just before a brief down-pour. It looked like Frosty had a grand-mal seizure. She’d had a mild one in the morning and was to have another one around mid-night. Not great. We headed back ashore for an early dinner at Kalers (another ritual) and icecream. Iris asked the waitress at Kaler’s about free wi-fi. She told us where to find the library and two coffee shops and we headed there after our dessert to make sure we knew where they were. Maybe we’ll bring the laptop in for breakfast tomorrow.

After we returned to Windwalker, Iris pulled out the pc to see if she could get any wi-fi connections from the boat. There were a few with almost usable connections, Perhaps putting the laptop in the cockpit in the morning will be more fruitful!

Up early, Iris brought the pc into the cockpit. A useable connection!!! We quickly did some banking and correspondence and then brought the pc back down. Website and other stuff can happen later. Let’s go in for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes with Maine maple syrup. Yum! Then back to the boat for generator run, housekeeping, website work and engine and transmission oil-changes. Plans for the afternoon including a longer walk to play miniature golf and of course, another lobster dinner. Tomorrow we have a 23 mi day to get to Snow anchorage further southwestward. It’s time we start heading towards our dr. appointment in NYC on 9/18…

No miniature golf – this may have been true on our last trip here as well, but our miniature golf place had been converted to doctors’ offices. We walked back and along the other side of the harbor to see if there was another dinner spot we preferred to Kaler’s. We’d tried several before and they were still there – but not worth the walk. On our way back to Windwalker we made stops at Sherman’s bookstore again as well as the Village Market. At the boat we updated the website and then went back ashore for our lobster dinner

The cats got Iris up at their normal hour. After a big breakfast we dinghied ashore for showers, returned to the boat and prepared for ‘sea’. Our first stop was Carousel Marina for fuel and water. We got there but Brian, managing the docks, was tied up moving boats around in the marina – so we docked and waited. Fred filled the water tanks and Brian showed up. As we fueled up, we had an interesting conversation about local politics, what winters were like, and life in a small town in general. Brian had been the chef at the restaurant at the Carousel but was glad he was no longer in food service.

We got away from the Carousel at around 10:30am motoring towards The Basin. Three sailboats were ahead of us – two kept on going and the one we passed turned in towards New Meadows River as we did. However while we motored towards The Basin, it looked like they were headed to Snow Island – but not on the course we’d expect. Perhaps they encountered rocks for they came to a sudden stop, turned in place for awhile, and finally headed along the same course we were following, entering The Basin about 10 minutes after we’d anchored. We had a very peaceful evening and night. By nightfall there were about 7 other cruising sailboats in the anchorage. None of us ran generators and the only sounds were of lobster boat engines headed up the New Meadows River.

Since we’d decided to head to Provincetown, there was no point in heading out early. Our planned departure was for 2pm to arrive in P-town around 9am the following morning. A leisurely breakfast was followed by passage prep and some naps. All the other boats had departed The Basin by 9am or so. We had dinner at lunchtime so that a light dinner would suffice during the passage.

Anchor up at 2pm and off we went, motoring and then raising our mainsail. After supper, we were engulfed in dense fog at around 7:30pm. While radar helped, visibility was nill as we passed targets in the night. A full moon made the fog an eery light color and we got occasional glimpses of the moon when looking upward.

By 1:30am the fog lifted. Iris had a close encounter with a fishing vessel (close being around 1.5 mi ;-)). But when she saw 3 targets closing in quickly, she awoke Fred an hour early, much to his unhappiness. Two of the vessels (either container ships or very large fishing vessels) passed safely in front of us. However, the third vessel, something with a derrick on it, was traveling at about 20 knots. We were not in a channel and had the right of way. When he got within two miles of us, Fred decided to change course radically and turned left to avoid collision. The vessel passed within a 1/2 mile as it charged on its way.

At around 6:30am we were crossing Stellwagen Bank – famous for being a whale hang-out. We saw lots of whales – however our photography was far from successful. Based on the size and motions of the whales, we think they were Minke. As we rounded Provincetown (noting that the Race Pt buoy no longer existed) and passed several boats fishing (and probably chumming), Iris saw a very large ‘fish’ turn on it’s side to escape collision with Windwalker. Her first reaction was that it was a dolphin – but no – that tail sure looked like a shark and it’s entire length was about 10 feet with grey on top and white on it’s bottom. If we snag a pot – neither of us is going in the water here!

We hailed Provincetown Moorings and were on our spot at 9am. They told us that we couldn’t get a launch until noon. Fine with us – we need to sleep! After lunch we took the launch into town to check-in. Our goal for the afternoon was to walk to the mile-long breakwater, walk across it to the beach, then return to town for dinner. We got there alright – but Iris absolutely hates rock-hopping – lacking balance. She was land-sick on top of it and just standing was difficult. About 1/2 way across, complaining all the way, she suggested that Fred just go on ahead and she’d wait right there on the rocks. He declined and we made our way back. If you won’t do the breakwater, will you climb the tower? Sure! But then we got the bright idea that surely we could walk to the beach since we saw cars driving on it. So we followed the road along the ‘moor’. Fred saw a huge vegetation covered dune that he wanted us to scale. He was determined to have an adventure. He charged up the sand mountain, Iris went up a bit and turned around – there wasn’t going to be any way to the beach from there. So she continued along the road while Fred did his thing. Aha – a trailhead. There were hundreds of bicycles attached to a fence. A path to the beach at last! Iris waited for Fred to catch up and we headed along the path ‘to the sea’. We followed a few men who were ahead of us. We all were wading in the watery paths between the moor grasses, hoping there wasn’t any quicksand. Far ahead we saw more men walking as couples or singles heading to or from the elusive beach. There were dunes to scale ahead as well. Neither of us wanted to wade deeper than knee deep as we were wearing our dinner attire. We asked a couple of guys returning, whether there was another way to the beach. They said they didn’t think so and that it would get deeper up ahead. Time to turn around!

As we waddled back through the water we acknowledged that 1) all the people walking towards the beach were males, mostly single, 2) we were in Provincetown, 3) perhaps we wouldn’t have been welcome at that beach nor been comfortable there after all. But we were still determined to reach the water and continued up the road into Province Land part of Cape Cod National Seashore. Beach at last! The road ended at a bike trail and parking lot with bath house and beach. We walked amongst families enjoying the late afternoon, walked in the water a bit, then rinsed our feet for the hike back to town.

More stops as we enjoyed cold drinks, went through a small bookstore, visited the army/navy store where Fred bought a backpack and a few marine items. Finally – our lobster dinner at Townsend Lobster. Turns out that the launch guy (who recommended the place last time and who remembered us this time) is the father of the owner! We topped off dinner with ice cream and then took the launch back to Windwalker – feeling the over 7 miles that we’d walked on our adventures.

We had a quiet night on our mooring and left Provincetown at 9, headed for the Cape Cod Canal. With the favorable current we made 8 1/2 to 10 knots. Our progress was made uncomfortable by the wind against current which resulted in steep little wavelets that had a period badly timed for Windwalker. We were still steaming ahead at 9 knots when the right turn was coming up for Onset. How in the world are we going to make the turn? We figured we’d try and if unsuccessful, may have to ride the current passed Onset, turn around and try again against the current. But Fred gunned the engine and we made the turn into the channel, only to encounter a large (eg 45′) sailboat under sail tacking out the channel. Boats were veering right and left to avoid collision – and struggling to stay in the narrow channel while the guy played macho sailor. Fred yelled ‘get a motor’ and the guy thanked us for the advice 🙂 We anchored by 2pm, close to where we’d been a few weeks earlier. Iris checked phone messages. Oh no! Most of our trip had been scheduled around being in NYC for a dr. appointment on 9/18. We had a message saying the appointment had to be rescheduled. But it was Sat. afternoon and there was nothing we could do about it until Monday. Had we known earlier, we may have stayed in Maine longer, despite Ernesto.

Where to go tomorrow? Jamestown, RI – not great in the forecast NE winds. Newport would be better but we’re tired of it. Bristol is close to Fred’s sister, Kathie – but 15 miles further. No matter which we select, we have to be out of there around 6am to take advantage of slack current.

We both got up early since we hoped to depart at 6:30. But it was more like 7:15 when Iris finished cleaning the chain – the cement-like mud was stuck in each link. Fred had no idea what was taking so long and was frustrated when 3 other boats raised anchor and were on their way while Iris struggled on the bow. But we didn’t want to head out into the channel until all was secured as Fred anticipated a maelstrom at the entrance. Our fears were unwarranted as the current was still fairly mild and our turn to the west was without mishap.

We were able to sail most of the way to Narragansett Bay, although we weren’t making as good time as we hoped to. As we passed Newport Harbor, we also passed a blue-hulled Valiant 40 hull number 263 named Southern Cross. VHF Channel 16 had a stuck mike so if they were trying to hail us we weren’t able to receive it. At around 2pm we decided that we’d keep on trying for Bristol. We passed Jamestown (Conanicut Marina) and went under the Newport Bridge and were almost at Prudence Island when we decided we wouldn’t get to Bristol until after 6, we wouldn’t be able to relax and have a Sunday paper. Let’s abort and head back to Jamestown. So we did an about face and rode the current back. We were on a mooring at 3:30. The launch took us ashore where we checked-in, took a walk around town to see what was new since we were last there 4 yrs ago, took showers in the remodeled and improved bathrooms, and had dinner out at Chopmist Charlie’s. We spent a rocky evening pitching from the NE winds (we expected that) but read our newspaper and watched tv. When we checked in, we made reservations for Wed and Thurs night moorings so that we could attend the Newport International Boatshow on Thursday.

The NE winds were up and conditions were pretty rough. We hailed the marina and told them we were leaving and that we’d pick up our receipt on our return on Wed. Prior to leaving the mooring, Fred juggled and rescheduled his doctor appointment to September 20th. Iris called our UPS store to have our mail shipped to Jamestown. We got underway a little after 9am headed to Bristol, RI. We motored against the wind in steep chop – sure hope Bristol is as sheltered as we expect it to be. Bristol Yacht Club could accomodate us and their launch led us to our mooring. The mooring field is huge and from a distance it looked like there couldn’t be any room for another boat. But up close the spacing between boats was more than adequate and we didn’t feel cramped. The wind was fairly strong from the NE but there wasn’t any chop and we felt well secured for the passage of Ernesto. Iris called Brewers Capri Marina in Manhasset for reservations for 9/18-22. The person said one had to email or fax in a form and that reservations couldn’t be made on the phone. Just great…. email us the form then. We’ll need to plan how to get to Manhasset by leaving on Friday. We wanted to find places where we could anchor out instead of being forced to take a slip or a mooring ball. Let’s work on it later – time to ‘play’.

We took the yacht club launch (Bristol Yacht Club doesn’t require yacht club memberships in order to rent a mooring to transients) to the clubhouse to check-in. Close by was Colt State Park. The park had a mixture of woodland and waterside paths and trails and we put in about 5 or 6 miles before returning to the yacht club and launch. It was sunny and the winds had abated somewhat and we spent a pleasant late afternoon in the cockpit. We made arrangements to meet Kathie and Ro in Bristol at 4pm tomorrow. We’ll play tourist during the day! When Iris logged on she still hadn’t received the reservation form from Brewers, so she found their website and sent an email with her request to the general information email address.

When Iris checked email in the morning, she saw the reservation form – she emailed that in (sans the required credit card info) and then called to see if they’d received it. The general manager said that he’d already responded to her original email and that our reservation was confirmed. One less thing to worry about – now all we have to do is get there! We’d been told that the yacht club was hosting the North American championship of “A” boat catamarans. Around 35 boats streaked by us as they headed to their racing location.

We had the launch drop us off at the Bristol town dock at around 10:30. Our first stop was the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. museum – where we spent over 3 hours viewing the displays, movie, and vessels of this fine American boat-builder team of two brothers. We fit in a self-guided tour of the Linden House on our way to meet Kathie and Ro. The house, built in around 1804, had been owned by the same family for 7 generations. All the furnishings were original – and family names included Colt (as in the park yesterday), DeWolfe, Barrymore (Ethel was married to one of the family members). We met Kathie and Ro at the waterfront and then had a casual dinner at Leo’s Italian restaurant. We felt pressure to return to the yacht club before 7. The launch folks had said they’d run the launch until 7:30 but if we missed it – how were we to get back to Windwalker. And Frosty needed her meds!

Kathie and Ro dropped us off at the club house as we rushed down to the dock. Nope – no one in the launch office (but it was unlocked) and both launch boats were tied at the dock. We asked a person nearby whether the launch was still running and he said “they’re gone for the night – they stopped at 7pm”. It was about 7:05 and we were pretty anxious. We used the VHF radio to call the launch and yeah!, someone replied and said they’d be right down. Around 10 minutes later the launch driver showed up and took us back to the boat. The winds had entirely died down but the evening was quite chilly. Tomorrow – back to Jamestown.

We took it easy getting ready for departure because we didn’t want to get back to Jamestown too early. On the other hand this was to be our chore day there – doing laundry and some provisioning. At 9:30 Fred said he’d start the engine. All was ready. Not quite – the engine wouldn’t start! What now? Fred tried all his techniques to purge air. He purged the injectors, pumped the lift pump. No go – it didn’t even fire. Around noon Iris called the yacht club to say that we were having some problems and could we stay on the mooring until we could get it going? No problem. She also gave us the name and number of a local diesel mechanic. We’d worried about the fuel from Havre de Grace and hadn’t really been using the larger of our two tanks while in Maine. Fred had switched to that tank when in Onset. The fuel in the Dahl filter looked awfully dark. We’d never had contaminated fuel before but this didn’t look good. Time to turn the boat upside down (more like the v-berth) to dig out a new filter and switch back to the ‘good’ fuel. We’d also run the generator to charge up the battery bank. After changing Dahl and secondary filters, checking the airflow through the turbo, purging air from every accessible tap, Fred tried again – each time with the sea water thru-hull closed so that we wouldn’t flood the engine. No joy. We’re stuck. Iris asked that Fred try the lift pump technique again. She cranked the engine in the cockpit with throttle wide open while he manually worked the lift pump below with the priming pump going full bore and lo and behold we had ignition! The engine sounded like it was about to take off before Iris turned back the throttle and Fred dashed below to open the thru-hull. Time to get going (now 2:30). We were able to ride the current and were on a mooring at 4:15. Iris already had her laundry and lists ready so we took the launch in, did 3 loads of laundry and while waiting, Iris provisioned at McQuade’s market next door. Laundry and food stuff crammed into canvas bags, we trudged back the several blocks towards the docks, stopping along the way for a pizza dinner and ice cream. Amazingly enough we were back at the boat for Frosty’s 7pm meds. Fred spent the rest of the evening working on bill paying while Iris stowed everything. What a day!

Newport International Boatshow day. We took the launch ashore at around 8:20, purchased round-trip Jamestown-Newport Ferry tickets and walked around. The ferry left promptly at 9am however when we got to Bowen’s Wharf landing there was a huge motoryacht blocking the ferry’s spot. The crew made a couple attempts to tie up the ferry however the passengers were going to have a difficult time getting off. So they moved to a municipal dock to let us debark and told us to check when we returned to see which dock they were using. We really didn’t want to miss the last ferry back to Jamestown (6:20pm). Next stop was the boatshow ticket line. The show opening time was 10am and many of us wanted to use credit cards for our tickets. Their computers were having problems, however, and it was a little after opening before they could handle ticketing for credit cards. Opening day shake-out. Last night we’d decided that we really needed to purchase the C-Map/NT electronic chart for the NY/LI Sound/Hudson area. It’s the only chart we didn’t have from the Canada border down through the Caribbean. Our paper charts plus gps would have been adequate but the weather forecast for Fri/Sat was for fog. And if we had to do the trip to NY as an overnight it would simplify things. So our first stop at the show was the C-Map booth. The guy there couldn’t even identify the appropriate chart for our (older) NT+ format and referred us to the Bluewater Books/Armchair Sailor booth. We tried a few other vendors first who sell the chart but couldn’t burn the cartridge at the show. Bluewater, however, gave us a show discount and burned the cartridge on the spot. Our mission for the show was accomplished. Now time to make plans to meet Ed and Nancy of Syzygy – friends we’d met on our first and second trips down island. We made a date to meet at the Red Parrot at 12:30. Time to checkout the booths and boats! Always fun, especially when one doesn’t particulary need anything.
Then off to the restaurant where we caught up on the cruising plans of Syzygy, and their friends Gayle and Steve. Both couples were going to send their boats to USVI from Newport via Dockwise transport in mid October. Ed and Nancy have done this a few times now and have been quite satisfied with the process – not having to look for additional crew nor have the wear and tear on their boat.

Rain was in the forecast and rain it did. During lunch it started to pour, and continued to do so for the remainder of the afternoon. We had done most of the booths, and while we went aboard a couple of more boats we were reluctant to go below and drip on all the fine furnishings and wood. We made a second pass through a couple of tents to inquire about FL and Bahamas boat insurance. BoatUS folks didn’t have an insurance person in theirs (altho’ we’re pretty sure they cover it), several others said if you’re a FL resident and have insurance be happy because we’re not covering FL any more. NBOA said they still wrote policies for FL and Bahamas. All painted bleak pictures. Sounds like we’ll have another round of insurance woes before heading to the Bahamas in the winter/spring!

Enough of this. We opted to take the 4:30pm ferry back (still leaving from the municipal dock), rushed to the Conanicut Marina chandlery for a gallon of oil for the engine, and waited for the launch. And waited. And waited. There were several of us waiting under a gazebo. Oh no! One of the launches was being towed by the pump-out boat. And the other one was over working in Newport for some reason. While waiting, we struck up a conversation with a couple who had a Cape Dory 24 (?) – bad on names – her name was Kate) who wanted to move up to a Valiant. Fred invited them to see Windwalker (much to Iris’ chagrine as the boat was a total mess!). The launch dropped the 4 of us off and we gave them a tour of our boat and talked Valiants. After they caught the launch to their boat, we had dinner and did trip planning – all contingent on the weather.

So are we going to take fuel or not? We decided to keep our small tank full since that didn’t have the suspect fuel. The fuel dock was supposed to open at 8 so we headed over there right away. Fred called the marina on the VHF and they said they’d be there in a few minutes – so we docked and waited for them to open. While we were there, Iris got rid of remaining trash and we also filled our water tanks. All set for a few days before heading to a marina, we departed Jamestown at around 8:50. As we were once again sailing during a small-craft warning kind of day with favorable wind direction, we had great sailing on a broad reach and exceeding Fred’s 6 knot planning number. The only negative was that it poured the entire way and it was very clammy as well. Not so nice. We got to the Stonington area (1st potential stop) too early – let’s keep going. Next possibility was East Bay on Fisher Island but it was also too early and too exposed. Iris had called two places on the Thames River in New London. Thamesport Marina had moorings but no launch and to pay the $40 we’d have to pull up to their fuel dock at 8am tomorrow. Burr’s Marina also had moorings ($1.35/ft – very unusual). But when she asked about a mooring for tonight the guy said no way – we’re closing in 5 minutes (this was at 2pm). OK – here’s Iris’ proposal – Reed’s says that Greens Harbor is also an anchorage. So let’s go to New London and if we can’t find an anchoring spot we can always rent a mooring from Thamesport. A plan! Rain and thunder as we entered the Thames River. We anchored at 3:30 in 20′ between two empty moorings and got a good set on the anchor. We went below to dry ourselves out as well as the paper chart-pack which collected water because it was enclosed in a plastic envelope with a broken zipper. We dried off the individual pages with paper towels and the ink and paper quality was excellent. The ink didn’t run and the paper didn’t swell. We discussed options for tomorrow. We made about 41 miles today. Fred suggested that we try for Milford, a 49 mile hop. We can stay at their very nice municipal marina (see Windwalker Voyage 1), have dinner and ice cream out. Get a Sunday paper on Sunday morning. Sounded good to Iris!

It didn’t seem to rain overnight and we had a pretty calm night with the occasional wake from a passing ferry or ship, as this is a commercial river. We got up early, had breakfast and were on our way in sunshine before 8am, heading to Milford. We had less than 5 knots from behind and had to motor sail. At 9:30, we figured we’d call ahead and make a reservation. This was a Saturday, however it was also the first day of their off-season. What a disappointment – they were full. And not only they but the adjoining marinas as well – filled with a yacht club trip by the Mt. Sinai (NY) yacht club. Forget Milford, where else can we go? How about Pt. Jefferson – about the same distance, 53 miles instead of 49. We changed course and motored all day in flat seas with little traffic. Pt. Jefferson has 2 or 3 possible anchorage areas and if they didn’t work, we could pick up a mooring from Pt. Jeff Launch. Upon entering the harbor we could see one of the anchoring areas near the entrance – quite near the channel (and ferry traffic). We opted for the Old Field Beach anchorage – with entry via a narrow channel (altho’ the area must have been dredged – the depths were far deeper than charts would indicate). The convention seemed to be moorings on portside, anchoring on starboard side of the channel. It was an area that could have accomodated many more boats and was quite protected. There were no ferry wakes, no wind and the only motion was caused by the dinghies streaming by. Lots of folks were having fun and it seemed like a nice weekend hang-out for locals and cruisers alike. We enjoyed a very pleasant evening, eating dinner in the cockpit.

A very pretty sunrise was enhanced by the calm waters. So do we stay here another day and explore Pt. Jefferson and make it a longer day to Manhasset on Monday or leave? Let’s leave so we can check out yet another anchorage as well as get to Manhasset early on Monday. It was an absolutely beautiful day with warm temps, but unfortunately, no wind. So we motor-sailed, zig-zagging amongst tons of power boats out fishing for the day. We anchored in West Harbor at around 2:15 and lounged in the cockpit with temps in the 80s. Should we swim? Nah. We anchored far away from others, pretty much in the middle of the harbor. Privacy yes. Wakes yes. Every boat entering or leaving decided to do so at full-speed. Fred was starting to get sea-sick. Iris worked on the website and was also pleased to have a wifi connection. It was pleasurable to have another dinner in the cockpit. And after dinner the traffic died down and the anchorage was calm except for the occasional speed-boat. We played dominoes and decided we’d plan to arrive at the Brewer’s marina a little after noon tomorrow.

No need to leave early. But do we want to stop and the fuel dock and top-off our ‘good’ tank and get a pump-out prior to going in the slip? The timing seemed to be right for passage through Hell-gate and the East River for Friday morning and that wouldn’t allow us to get fuel then. Let’s do it. We heard a sailboat trying to reach the fuel dock on channel 16 without success. Our cruising guide said they monitor 9 and 71. We tried both and reached them on 71. Someone would be with us a in a few minutes. We were about to dock ourselves when the dockmaster arrived and helped us secure. No pump-out, it’s broken. Oh. Fuel was good though altho’ we’d hit a new record for high price. Oil and gas prices have been dropping in the last week but apparently not here! We were charged $3.80/gal and they were asking around $4.29 for gasoline. What a rip-off. We also paid for our 4-night stay and made our way over to our assigned slip. Nice floating docks although either Iris broke our cable TV hookup or the pedestal didn’t work. The dockmaster shrugged and pretty much said it may or may not be working. Oh well. We checked out the facilities – laundry room had 2 washers/2 dryers – none in use. Showers were clean but inconveniently layed out. We made arrangement to meet Iris’ mother at 4:30 and we rushed to clean up the boat a bit and to take showers as well. We had a nice dinner with Iris’ mom and Fred installed DSL on her computer. We logged on and weren’t happy to hear that Hurricane Helene would most likely result in big swells on the weekend. Not great for a passage from NJ to Delaware Bay. We’ll have to keep watching weather developments. We’re glad we weren’t headed through the East River today through Wed. The UN General Assembly meeting with President Bush as well as many country heads of state was playing havoc with traffic on land and sea. Our Sprint cell-phone signal wasn’t sufficient to do email on the boat nor were there any ‘free’ wi-fi connections. We’ll have to do our online work at Lilly’s house.

To us, marinas are work stops. Today was to be a work day. Iris made arrangement for her mother to pick her up and drop her off at a laundromat. While she did the equivalent of 10 loads of laundry (rugs, comforter, sheets, towels- all heavy/bulky stuff), Fred changed the oil, and did quite a few maintenance tasks. Iris and Lilly went in search of a few other things Iris wanted to get and then Lilly dropped Iris off at the marina with her loads of laundry and packages. Time to get to work scrubbing areas the cats had really messed up, wiping mildewed areas with vinegar water, vacuuming and putting our slip-covers, rugs and bedding back on. We also ran the air-conditioner to dry things up some more. The boat actually felt dry and smelled a lot better!

Dinner with Lilly at Fish-Kebob. The early-bird specials include lobster and that’s what why we went there. Best price of our trip, however the lobster itself was so-so when compared with Maine or Provincetown (proclaimed the best of our recent experiences). But with hummus and greek bread, large greek salads, vegetables and bulgar pilaf all included with the $15 meals, we were happy! We visited with Lilly and made plans to meet in the morning. Iris’s mom was kindly going to give us a lift to the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) train station so we could catch the 9:11 train in the morning and connect with the subway to take us to Fred’s dr. appointment. A productive day, albeit a slightly drizzly one.

Lilly picked us up at the marina promptly at 8:30 and dropped us off at the LIRR station. We purchased round-trip tickets to the Woodside Station in Queens where we could change for the subways. We’d never tried going this way before – previously heading into Penn Station and taking buses to the east side. But Woodside worked out perfectly and we were able to get into the city and to our subway stop in 50 minutes! We had a great doctor’s visit and then went in search of a place to have lunch. It was 11:45am and we were amazed that many of our favorites weren’t open yet. A couple of spots said they’d open at noon; others clearly weren’t going to open until dinner. We ended up in Cinema Cafe a couple of blocks from where we’d started. Next on our schedule was a visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art. It had always been closed on days we were in the city. We enjoyed the Hopper exhibit but were disappointed to see that one of the floors was closed for a new exhibit development and we didn’t like the rest of the materials.

We reversed our tracks (sic) and made it back to Manhasset by 4:05 – very pleased with our train connections. We borrowed Lilly’s car to get a head start on our provisioning – focusing on the non-perishable items at Stop and Shop. The car was filled to the brim when we got back to Lilly’s place for dinner. We got back to the boat fairly late and Iris stowed the items until after midnight.

Iris got up early to continue stowing. It’s Fred’s birthday – but he decided to go along with Iris and help with the provisioning. Since we had access to the car we were going to do the major provisioning for our return trip – with the opportunity to ‘top’ things off ahead in Baltimore. We sent to Stop and Shop and King Kullen and West Marine – once again filling the car to the brim and returning to Windwalker around 11:30. Removing packaging and preparing items for stowing as well as actually stowing took a another couple of hours and we didn’t get to Iris’ mom’s apartment until mid-afternoon. Iris planned to do a last load of laundry that evening but we decided to do it at Lilly’s complex instead. Fred uploaded the website while Iris started the wash and Lilly and Iris went to Whole Foods for frozen fish and a birthday dessert! Iris cooked the standing rib roast – Fred’s traditional birthday dish, when we got back to the apartment. We had a pleasant evening and Lilly got us back to the boat by 9pm. We had to do some passage prep for our departure early in the morning. The weather forecast still looks like we won’t be able to do the passage to the Chesapeake until Mon/Tues. But the current and weather is perfect for getting through the East River tomorrow morning. Then we’ll wait it out at either Atlantic Highlands, NJ or Great Kills, Staten Island – neither of which we’ve been to before!

Showers ashore or not? Since we had time and were up early, we took advantage of a last hot shower, at least for several days! By 8:15 we were underway and motoring towards the East River and Hell Gate. Hell Gate, just west of the Triborough Bridge, is notorious when at peak current – with waters from the East River, LI Sound and Harlem River. For a vessel our size, it’s only safe to go through at slack current. We’d done it previously in the opposite direction. As we went under the Throggs Neck and Whitestone Bridges, we ‘collected’ other sailboats and a trawler all headed the same way. On the VHF we heard the Coast Guard hailing a motoryacht and telling them that they’d have to pass east of Roosevelt Island. (This was due to security for the UN General Assembly Meeting). There’s a bridge on the east side of Roosevelt Island and we’d planned on passing on the west side. “Voyager”, a sailboat, then hailed the Coast Guard and confirmed that everyone had to go on the east side. He was told that the bridge was going up every 10 minutes or so. Not a problem as long as we were in slack but if we had to wait very long it would be impossible to deal with the 4-6 knots of current in that area. We’d checked the notices to mariners last night and there was no mention of the restrictions. When we approached Roosevelt Island we saw Coast Guard and NYC Police vessels blocking the west channel. Fred hailed the Roosevelt Island Draw Bridge who told us to hurry up and catch up to a large ketch in front of us if we wanted to make the next opening. Fred replied that we were moving as fast as we could and we managed to get through with the other boat.

After that, we had an uneventful passage down the remainder of the East River and motored on to Atlantic Highlands. The mooring field was large and the convention in the harbor seemed to be anchoring on one side of the channel and moorings on the other at the harbor entry. But we saw a ‘hole’ between two of the first moorings and promptly grabbed it – anchoring with a good set. It better be because we plan to sit through a frontal passage there! The forecast is remaining constant – between the expected front and large ocean swells from Ernesto, Monday seems like a go. We’d overheard two slightly smaller sailboats heading offshore at around 3pm that afternoon – the forecast seemed terrible for such a passage. There were a few other cruising boats waiting for weather there and we were sure there would be more by the time the weekend was out!
We played dominoes, logged on with the cell phone and prepared for a lazy day tomorrow, waiting…….

It rained in the morning and the forecast remain unchanged. We did some email and Fred reprogrammed his PC waypoint database. Cruisers continued to stream in. Several of the boats were from Canada, one was from Australia and there were a couple of US boats as well. The migration was starting! We wondered if all would head out on Monday morning. This really was the first stop on our trip so far that we were primarily waiting for weather. We prefer to move whenever we can – but if we’ve learned anything, it’s that one shouldn’t head out into deteriorating conditions. So more waiting………

Either we’re in a protected spot (probably) or the forecast pre-frontal winds haven’t materialized (also likely). After breakfast and watching one of our news shows, we put the dinghy in the water and went in search of a Sunday paper. We left the dink at one of the few docks that wasn’t posted, dropped off our garbage in an adjacent bin and wandered about the waterfront. We saw the dockmaster’s office and kept walking towards some restaurants. As we asked about newspapers, we were directed to vending machines (empty). Next try was in small store and they directed us to a newstand near the movie theater. Success. The town was sleepy at 11am and it was too early to stop for lunch. So we hiked back to the dinghy, planed back to the boat and decided to bring the dink/outboard back up and do passage prep prior to reading the paper. We don’t want to get caught with the dinghy in the water when the front gets here.

Late in the afternoon the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club launch stopped at an adjacent mooring. Shortly thereafter a large 55+ foot ketch circled us and the mooring. One of the folks onboard yelled out ‘Windwalker – how much chain do you have out?’ Fred replied 75′. She said she was worried about when the wind changed direction (after the frontal passage). We decided we were ok and stayed put. However we did begin to worry that after the front the larger vessel may be sitting directly over our anchor. And we want to head out at dawn. Oh well – nothing we can do about it now!

Neither of us slept well – both worried about the vessel next to us and about the upcoming passage conditions. But we had no difficulty raising anchor at 7am and heading out of New York Harbor. As we entered the ocean it looked like 6 other sailboats from our vicinity were taking the weather window and heading south. As the day and night progressed, it seemed like all of the boats either stopped at Cape May or earlier. By around 8:30am we were able to turn of the engine and sail with mainsail, genoa and then added the staysail. What beautiful conditions. We were thrilled. But by evening things weren’t quite as lovely. Instead of a beam reach we were close-hauled and bashing into 2 and 3 foot chop and coming to a stop with each wave. Down came the jibs and on came the engine to power through the waves. Iris was useless when she came on watch – taking one look at the seemingly hundreds of radar targets along the shore (there were a lot of them anyway). Fred stayed up in the cockpit until 9:30pm when he went below to sleep. Iris decided not to look at the radar at all unless she saw a target she couldn’t deal with. Fred got about an hour’s sleep before wails from Iris got him back up there at 10:30 – we were coming up on a target in less than a mile and there was also a tug and tow ahead. The target ended up being a sailboat that we were catching and the tug and tow was a factor for them. They started to point a spotlight at their sails (not that the tug would have cared). Fred stayed up and sent Iris down to sleep. The cats were having problems and Iris got about an hour sleep. She poked her head up at 11:45pm and Fred said he wanted to talk with her. She needed to take a watch from mid-night to 3am because we’d be approaching Delaware Bay and heavy traffic at around 3:15 and he needed rest. Up she came, once again avoiding looking at the radar. (While far offshore passages have readily identifiable traffic and targets, close-in passages are filled with small fishing boats, tour boats, buoy lights and lots of lights on shore that are either red, green, solid white or blinking). Regaining some self-confidence, Iris kept us going passed several targets (fishing boats and tugs/tows). As she passed a fish haven with several boats, she saw a light pop up that looked like a bright fishing boat, outside the haven on the chart. Looks like a red – we’ll pass port to port – ok. Nope – suddenly she saw a green and decided to look at the radar – two huge blips less than 4 miles away. She turned right 20 degrees and the wayward autopilot decided to turn some more. Got it under control but more shouts got Fred back into the cockpit at 1:30am. Fred’s first impression was that this was a fishing boat. But as it approached, it was clearly a tug and tow and the turn Iris made was the correct one as it passed within a mile of us. By this time, we were approaching DE Bay and both decided to stay up, each with about an hour’s sleep.

We approached the bay where shipping traffic lanes converge – fortunately there was little traffic except for a container ship that was behind us and passed us after we’d made the turn. By now ‘dawn’s early light’ was gloaming and we were able to stay outside the channel as we made our way against the current. We’d arrived a bit earlier than planned and would have adverse current for a couple of hours. With light and after coffee and breakfast, we both traded off taking the helm while the other one slept an hour or so. The chop and winds started to abate by mid-morning, the current became favorable and our ETA (estimated time of arrival) at Veazey Cove became a reasonable 3-5pm instead of the 7pm or later. We caught the C&D Canal right at slack and sped through the canal with the current and were anchored in the shallow cove by around 4pm. This passage seemed a lot harder than it needed to be and we were both relieved to have it over with.

We’d been in Veazey Cove twice before and wanted to head towards our past anchoring locations. We got close but the entire cove was blocked, it seemed, by two small boats using trotlines for crabbing. All of the floats they were throwing out or raising from the water seemed connected by a single line. We didn’t want to pass between the floats. Still – the water was quite shallow anyway and we anchored in about 6.5′ depth. Dinner, showers and we both crashed – Fred by 8 and Iris by 9. The cats were thrilled to be allowed to spend time on deck and were both in great moods!

While there had been several wakes yesterday afternoon, the night was calm after all the traffic died down. Fred slept late while Iris looked at options for anchorages. We could stay put or move – but during breakfast we decided that we definitely wanted a marina for Annapolis and wanted to make reservations ‘early’. We didn’t have a good cell phone connection where we were and knew we probably wouldn’t on the Sassafras River either. Leaving Veazey Cove at around 10:30am we headed back out into the ship channel and motored towards the Sassafras. Iris made use of the good cell phone connection (probably from Havre de Grace) to make reservations at Annapolis Landing Marina. They said they were giving us the only slip left they had that would fit us but a small t-head sounded just fine. While she had the phone connection she also made some other phone calls including making reservations for the SSCA (Seven Seas Cruising Association) meeting in Annapolis for Saturday of boatshow week. It takes place at Port Annapolis Marina, withing a short walk from Annapolis Landing Marina on Back Creek in Annapolis (lots of creeks here have the same names).

We went up the Sassafras and tucked into the opening of Back Creek. A small sailboat was anchored at the approximate inner-most location we could handle depth-wise, but we were pleased with where we were and got a good set. The anchorage was far enough off the Sassafras so that the occasional powerboat had no effect on us. Lots of birds and fish were jumping around us. We decided that we’d head to Baltimore for the weekend (after the frontal passage on Thursday) and with an almost non-existant cellphone connection, Iris managed (with a few disconnects) to make a reservation at the Anchorage Marina in Baltimore for Friday through Sunday. We’d never stayed there previously, although we’d visited Bea and Cles on Haida Maid there a few years earlier. Decisions made, we could relax! The cats were once again happy to be enjoying the outdoors.

The front is expected this afternoon but it’s lovely this morning. Do we put the dinghy in the water and clean the hull? Nope. Do we go ashore to visit a plantation house only open from 10am-2pm on Tues and Thurs (we were anchored across from their historic tobacco hut)? Nope. We just did minor chores, read and watched Dusty happy in the cockpit, and Frosty happier than she’d been on the entire trip – walking around and around the deck of the boat. By evening, she came below on her own. By around 5pm the weather warnings on both the VHF and AM radios became alarming. The pre-frontal line of thunderstorms was appraching at 45 knots with hail and severe thunderstorms. Fred let out some more scope on the chain, we made sure that all was stowed if we needed to take action, and we waited, having dinner in the interim. While we heard boats on the radio at another anchorage, we remained alone. Even if we dragged, there wasn’t going to be anything for us to hit. So we waited. And counted time between lighting strikes and thunder. Nothing ever got closer than 3 or 4 miles of us. The winds and rain hit around 7:30pm and lasted about an hour. We played dominoes and made sure we weren’t touching the mast. Other than that, the frontal passage was pretty uneventful. The winds clocked, our anchor held and we went to bed. Other areas weren’t as fortunate as a tornado touched down in one town in MD, and there were tornado warnings on Delaware Bay.

Despite the small craft warnings, we had a quiet night at anchor. The wind clocked to the NW after the frontal passage so we were hoping for good sailing weather to Baltimore. We raised anchor with lots of mud around 8:30 then motor-sailed, then sailed with mainsail, staysail and reefed genoa. We had 20 knots or so however not from our ideal beam reach direction so the bay was choppy and it wasn’t what we’d hoped for. We motored the last hour up the Patapsco River to Anchorage Marina, docked and checked-in. All of the slips are privately owned and the owner of ours wasn’t expected back, probably, until the Fell’s Point festival next weekend. Trash and showers were the first order of business, followed by dinner at a new (to us) Outback Steakhouse and a walk to West Marine which just closed five minutes earlier. Oh well – we’ll get there tomorrow. We continued our evening walk to Baltimore Marine Center where we’d stayed and also done a quick-haul 4 years earlier. Where Windwalker sat on the tarmac was now covered with townhouses! Back at the boat a few phone calls to Bob and K on Rima and Lynn and Don and then we made plans for tomorrow. We’d like to take the water taxi to Ft. McHenry and then roam downtown. We needed to do some banking online and didn’t have a free wifi connection so paid the $6.95 for 24 hours of wifi from an outfit serving all the downtown Baltimore marinas. It was a fast connection and we got our money’s worth!

We’d searched every West Marine since our departure from FL for Delo 400 SAE 30 oil. We had managed to buy one gallon in Newport but we were still looking. At last! After breakfast we went back to West Marine and found shelves of it. So Fred purchased that, along with a new washdown hose/nozzle for Iris and an extension for our water hose. We returned with our purchases and then walked to Fells Point to catch the water-taxi to Ft. McHenry. $8/person for all day water-taxiing seemed like a good deal and we made use of it!

We toured the fort – the site of the War of 1812 battle (on Sept. 13, 1814) that inspired Frances Scott Key (who was watching it from a truce ship on the river) to write the Star-Spangled Banner. Next stop by water-taxi was a return to Fell’s Point – may as well have lunch there, so we stopped and ate and then returned to the water-taxi landing for a trip to the inner harbor. We lucked out to catch an outgoing water-taxi to Inner Harbor Marina where we went to the Visionary Arts Museum. This was another spot, as the fort was, that we’d always wanted to see on previous trips. The highly unusual artwork seemed, almost without exception, to be the product of untrained artists who were also severely mentally disturbed. Next on our agenda was to walk back to Inner Harbor and visit the large Barnes and Noble – one of our usual stops. Whole Foods was next, where Iris stocked up on more frozen fish. We dashed back to the water-taxi to get our frozen goods back to Windwalker. Then dinner out at Blue Moon 52 – a barbecue spot across the street from the marina. Fred worked online until our wifi connection ran out at 9:30. A fun day!

Iris got up at 6:30 and noted that the boat felt quite warm. The air-conditioning wasn’t running. She turned on the fridge – nope that wasn’t working either. Both got turned off immediately, as the systems share the same thru-hull and we definitely had a clog. So much for our departure time. Our unclogging drill in marinas is quite effective – Fred runs a water hose to the thru-hull, removes the basket (usually filled with some unpleasant object – eg jelly fish), and blasts the clog out. We were ‘up and running’ again by 7:30, said our goodbyes to Bob and K and loosed the lines right at 8:30!

It was a windless day and extremely hot – part of the heat wave gripping the entire east coast. We motored through the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers – but even the breeze generated by our motion was unpleasant. The poor cats remained motionless below-decks, cooled slightly by the fans we kept running in the salon. Fred had a brief VHF conversation about anchorages with another sailboat, Jewel. They were the folks who had dinghied over in Wrightsville Beach. They too were Norfolk bound, but on a slower schedule.

Mid-afternoon we were ‘attacked’ by biting black flies. Out came the trusty flyswatter. Iris and Fred fought over it as they defended themselves from the onslought! The cockpit looked like a battleground riddled with bodies after we were through. We’ve been looking for new to us anchoring spots on this trip – so decided to head into Slade Creek, near ICW Mile-marker 140, just short of Belhaven. It was a slightly tense, GPS-enabled entry as both sides of the channel had depths of 1′-2′. And visibility is non-existent in the wine-red waters. There were only a few homes along the banks, only one of which had cars (and later, lights on). We anchored around 6:30pm, had dinner, and tried to cool the boat from 97 degree interior temperature to about 87 with the a/c. The water temperature was close to 90 degrees as well, but the refrigerator/freezer managed to do its job. Fred planned tomorrow’s route – Little Alligator River anchorage was our next target – also new to us.

We were able to sleep through the quiet night, helped by the fans’ air motion. For the second day the skies were very hazy, purportedly due to Saharan dust that reached the US. We got underway, continuing up the ICW, at around 7:45, seeing only 3 or 4 boats the entire way. Iris noticed that 2 of the dodger’s zippers were breaking. Foolishly, she’d decided not to bring either the light-duty Singer or heavy-duty sailrite sewing machines with us. The dodger is secure, but should we have to remove it for hurricane prep, we probably will be unable to put it back on without some serious hand-sewing! Bad decision.

Mid-afternoon, like clockwork, the flies renewed their attack but we ultimately prevailed. Fred spoke briefly with another sailboat as we approached the Alligator River Bridge. They were Chesapeake bound – and altho’ their home port was Wickford, RI – they’d never been there (RI has no sales tax on boat purchases – many boats with home ports of RI or Delaware, have documented the vessels for tax avoidance). They’d purchased in Ft. Lauderdale, spent a season in the Abacos, Bahamas and Hilton Head, and now were northward bound. Anyway – they were under sail and moving very slowly. We said we’d slow down to allow them to go through the bridge with us. But instead of taking down their sails and moving along, they slowed due to lack of wind. We told the bridge we were waiting for them and hung around awhile. Suddenly the bridge started to open and told them (the 2nd sailboat) that if they didn’t move it, they weren’t going to make the bridge with us. We scurried on through, and they finally dropped their sails and powered through.

Every other time we’d anchored in the Alligator River we’d used a trip line. Given our Waccamaw River adventure, we were gun-shy and decided to forego the float. The anchor set well – Fred asked “did we just drag and then grab a stump or something?”. Iris, with foot on the chain, didn’t think so. We decided that would be tomorrow’s problem and didn’t worry about it. After dinner, we partook of cockpit showers using the cold (86 degree) water. Shortly after, the water got quite choppy. It never was clear why, as the wind direction was from over land, and there wasn’t much current. But throughout the night we hobby-horsed in about 1′ chop. Not our worst night by far, but slightly unpleasant. We ran the generator for air and fridge and brief respite for the hot cats. 3 choices for tomorrow’s travels – 1) stop in Coinjock for a short day 2) keep on going to Great Bridge and hope the bridge schedules oblige 3) try the Dismal Swamp route. #2 was our original plan. #3 has been an option we’d rejected each previous trip. While the Dismal Swamp route is open and beautiful, we once again struggled with the max depth of 6′ in the center of the channel when we draw 5.5′. We decided to sleep on it and decide in the morning – setting alarms for 6am in case we decided to do the Dismal Swamp.

Hot! Hot! Iris moved to the settee around 12am. The fan was too loud there as well so she just turned on the light and started rereading all the info on the Dismal Swamp. She’d almost convinced herself that it was only 20 miles of shallow water and that the beauty would overcome the shallow water. At 2:30am she turned off the fan and tried to sleep.

Up bright and early at 6am. Fred’s first words to Iris were “We shouldn’t do the swamp – sorry you got up so early”. We agreed that if we had a 6′ draft sailboat, we wouldn’t even have been agonizing over this.

No snag – the anchor came up smoothly at 7:45am. We had an uneventful trip northbound. A trawler, Deborah, passed us before Coinjock and waved their red fly swatter; we saluted back with our yellow one! We were to see Deborah several more times during the day. They had a bad radio and some of the bridges (and we) had difficulty talking with them. It was very early when we got to Midway Marina (with signs advertising free wi-fi) so we decided to forge ahead. Frosty had a couple of seizures during the day – mid-day Fred went below and she exhibited the normal post-siezure friendliness and hunger. The heat has to be having a negative effect on her.

We made it through the last bridge at 6pm and tied up to the Great Bridge free-dock at around 6:30pm – we were alone except for about 30 minutes when a family in a small power boat stopped briefly. Later in the evening a few fishermen were crabbing and fishing off the dock.

After a nice dinner, Fred checked on the engine. Oh no! The back bilge was filled with water. Fred found that a small bolt that he’d picked up in the bilge the previous day had held a clamp on a pipe feeding the raw water pump on the engine. The copper pipe abraded and now had a hole in it – thus the flood. Fred dug through spare parts in the v-berth to find some air-conditioning water hose that would just fit over the pipe and he then struggled to slip the hose over the pipe. Meanwhile, Frosty got in the way trying to get into the engine room and Fred yelled at her to keep her out. Shortly thereafter, she howled and went into a grand-mal seizure. The stress had to have had an impact. More valium for her. We determined that we needed a marina and needed to order spares. Fred tested his jury-rig by running the engine and no water spewed out – a good sign. He went to bed telling Iris that he might need to stay in the engine room all the way to Norfolk while she’d have to get us through the lock and bridges. Not what she wanted to hear. Let’s hope his fix lasts!

Iris was able to find a wi-fi connection from Atlantic Yacht Basin across the channel and had a pretty good internet connection til late in the night.

Iris awoke to a siezure by Frosty around 3am. Then she got up at 6 as the cats made it clear they wanted breakfast. Frosty had another mild seizure about 30 minutes after her meds. We untied from the dock at 7:45, went through the 8am
Great Bridge Bridge opening and were the only boat in the lock. Iris called Ocean Marine to make a reservation. We’d stayed there before and liked the facilities. They also advertised that they were a Volvo parts dealer (and they have a boatyard) so we’d have a chance that the part may be available. Their website also advertised wi-fi – as did Waterside in Norfolk. As we got through the final Norfolk area bridges, the marine police boats were very visibly patrolling the waters. We hailed Ocean Marine and went to the fuel dock for a fill-up and pump-out. We then went into our slip ‘home’ for the next few days. It was on A-dock – which turns out has many liveaboards on large motor yachts. It’s known as the party dock and for good reason. The ‘community’ would line up their chairs, bar, grills, tables (blocking our path to/fro our boat) and party into the wee hours. Friendly, but not our cup of tea.

The wi-fi, turns out, was quite unreliable, probably because our slip was very far from the building antennas. But the facilities were as we recalled them – nice showers, laundry room and the ferry to Norfolk ($1/way) was only a block away. We hung around Windwalker and enjoyed the air-conditioning for the remainder of the afternoon – doing some clean-up chores. Fred looked up the part numbers for the Volvo parts and Iris called the parts department to order them. Turns out that Ocean Marine is a gas engine (not diesel) dealer – so they had to order the parts from a distributer. We asked that they be shipped overnight so that we’d get them on Monday. A severe thunderstorm around 5:30pm heralded the break in the heat-wave. The cats were thrilled to sit in front of the air-conditioning vent in the aft stateroom. We ate dinner aboard and then went for a short walk at around 9pm.

Chores in the morning – Fred changed the oil, Iris vacuumed and cleaned below. We did a quick look at the weather for Tues on out – another front and/or light winds are predicted. After lunch we decided to catch the 1:30 ferry to Norfolk. Our first stop was a marine bookstore that advertised in our cruising guides (and that we’d walked by in the past). Closed on weekends. Next was the mall – where we bought a couple of books (for Fred), a hand-held Sudoku generator for Iris, and a USB-wireless adapter for our laptop – so that we could move the antenna around without having to take the laptop outside. Next, we decided to walk towards the Nauticus museum/USS Wisconsin – stopping at the Provision Market. We’d gone to the market on past trips and been able to buy several provisioning items. Unfortunately, the store has changed in 4 years and had minimal useful items – no vegetables/fruits/meats. We bought a loaf of bread and kept on walking. We stopped at the Wisconsin and once again walked its decks. Then we headed back to Waterside, walking by the Norfolk Jazz Festival, recalling that we’d been here the same weekend 4 years ago – with the same Jazz Festival. We’d planned to eat dinner at Waterside – but it was only 4:20, we weren’t hungry and didn’t want to just ‘kill time’. So we ran and caught an outgoing ferry, returning to Portsmouth. In search of diet coke, we walked to a pharmacy several blocks away which had been closed on Fri night, and just before their closing, were able to buy a couple of cartons. Lugging all of our purchases back to the boat, we played with our toys briefly and then headed to La Tolteca, the Mexican restaurant next to the ferry dock. 4 years ago the restaurant had just opened and we enjoyed it immensely. Things had gone a bit down-hill in the interim. The server’s service was sporadic, the bus-boy seemed to have difficulty keeping up with the few tables. Iris’ carne asada was a bit on the dry side. But the food was tasty, the view was great and the desserts were fantastic. We watched as crowds got off the ferry headed to the amphitheatre right next to Ocean Marine – where a concert by Widespread Panic (a southern rock group) was scheduled for the evening. Boat streamed by as well – all headed in our direction.

We negotiated the chair slalom as we returned to our dock. By now the dock was strewn with beer cans and the group was pretty happy ;-). Back onboard, we listened to the concert from the cockpit. Frosty had been in a great mood all day – probably a precursor for a mild seizure at 8:15. Another small dose of valium for her.

Iris got up early (the cats are on a definite schedule) and got the Sunday paper. We headed to the Renaissance Hotel (near the north ferry dock) for buffet breakfast – served by a young lady named Paulina from Cracow, Poland. We recalled all the eastern-european servers we encountered on our last trips, primarily in New England establishments. Kids come over for the summer, have a US experience, get lots of tips and go home back to college. We watched our news shows and read the paper. Iris checked out the laundry room – empty machines were just too good an opportunity to pass up so she dashed back to the boat to collect our clothes. No one else did a wash – perhaps most of the liveaboards have machines onboard their massive yachts.

At around 3:30 we decided to head to the Portsmouth Visitor’s Center to pick up a walking tour map of Portsmouth Olde Town. Many of the homes in the district date back to the late 1700s to early 1800s. We were able to get a tour of the Hill House, built in around 1807 and remaining in the family until the mid-1960s when it was donated to the preservation society. Remarkable in that the furnishings were all original and period appropriate to the house. Totally documented. Lafayette and several presidents had visited the family – altho’ none had ‘slept there’ ;-). We walked around looking at exteriors of other homes in the area. Most were of the English basement style. The government only taxed property on the size of the first floor (known as basement). So homes were 2-4 stories high and narrow to minimize ground-level square footage.

Back to the boat for dinner, showers, and another Widespread Panic concert – much less well-attended than Sat. night. Fred planned the waypoints for our passage to RI while Iris struggled with the wi-fi connection and began work on the website. Should the correct part arrive tomorrow afternoon, we plan to leave the marina on Tuesday morning and then wait for weather in the anchorage at Willoughby Bay about 7 miles away.

Up at our normal cat time, we did some more chores and awaited our part. Iris worked on the website. We confirmed that the parts had arrived at the distributor and were told to pick them up around 2pm. Eager, we got there early but the parts hadn’t arrived yet. The pipe was the correct part, although the lip seals Iris had also ordered ended up being the wrong size (Fred was on the wrong page in the parts book). Perhaps we can exchange them at one of our regular Volvo diesel dealers either in Annapolis or back in West Palm Beach). Fred put in the new part and tested the engine. Now – we have to seriously look at the weather. Can we leave on Tuesday directly from the marina? First glance looks like we’ll encounter two frontal passages as well as mostly northerly winds. Waiting a day may help a little with the strength of the winds and wave size – but we’ll probably be doing a lot of motor-sailing nonetheless…. We’ll file a float plan with family, no matter which we day we decide to leave……..Next stop, hopefully, Newport, RI.

Prior to leaving Ocean Marine, Iris called our mail store to have our mail sent to Fred’s sister Kathie in RI. We were hoping to arrive in Newport on Friday so requested 3-day UPS. We left the marina at 9:20am motor-sailing for Willoughby Bay – a spot we’d used for staging for passage out of the Chesapeake previously. Enroute we heard military police on channel 16 demanding a couple of boats to change course because they were entering military zones. They were not identifying the boats by name but saying that if they didn’t alter course they would be fired upon. Boaters were piping in on channel 16 and say ‘who are you talking to?’. We too were getting agitated. A police boat came zooming by us and we figured some kind of fireworks were going to ensue. However the police boat hailed the military boat and said “Do you require assistance?” The MPs responded that they were doing a drill. The police replied that perhaps they should move to a different channel as they were alarming all the traffic on 16. From then on, we heard no more about military zones and fire!

Dolphins accompanied us into the bay. Our plans were to start our passage the following morning, so we spent a quiet afternoon. Fred checked out our weatherfax/SSB/laptop arrangement since both our laptop and weatherfax software had been upgraded since last we cruised. OK. Around 2:30 we had a heavy line of thunderstorms. Iris neglected to dog the ports tightly and discovered water streaming into the salon and galley from unusual spots. Wet settee cushions – however freshwater was better than salt would have been. Like last time here, we were the only ones anchored – watching late afternoon small boat races as we prepared for passage. Late in the evening we emailed our float plan from Norfolk to RI and agreed that neither of us is enamored of passages. It’s just the fastest way to get from point a to point b. We did have great tv and cellphone signals at Willoughby so we were able to get an update on the news and handle last-minute correspondence.

Iris got up at 5:50 am wanting another weather update before beginning our passage. What a change in a few hours. A strong cold-front was predicted for Thursday night through Saturday with northerly winds for Wed. We’d have to motor into the northerly then get hit with pretty strong SW winds with the frontal passage. Decisions – go? Wait? Do something else? We decided to keep moving up the Chesapeake. Iris picked out an anchorage for tonight, Fred went to do the route plan while Iris sent emails to abort our float plan. We also told our family that we didn’t know where we’d next have cell-phone coverage. With all our scurrying around we still raised anchor by 8:15 and began our northerly trek. We made 57 miles, mostly motorsailing with the wind on our nose. There was a lot of ship traffic, but we stayed out of the channel. Our wild-life sightings consisted of some dolphins and more battles with flies.

At one point, while diverting for a ship, Iris remarked that last night she’d had flashing images of a huge ship bow that we were about to collide with. But she’d forgotten about it and it had no part in deciding to abort our float plan. Fred responded that he too had a nightmare about getting struck by a ship. Perhaps it was a good thing that we weren’t going by our original route….

We anchored in a very pretty creek. Homes were nestled in the woods. We were tired and stopped near the entrance, but purportedly further up the creek the scenery became even more natural with no home sites. We anchored by 6. We also determined that we had a new kind of problem – our dripless shaft seal bellows was taking in air when we would heel – removing water from the seal – which resulted in overheating of the shaft and a squealing noise. Fred burped the bellows (after the shaft had cooled) and tried the engine and the squeal was gone. As we suspected – there would be no cellphone coverage and not even any tv signals on the creek. Our plan for tomorrow was to get to Mill Creek on the Patuxent River – it would be repeating an anchorage however the distance was right and it was a secure spot for a frontal passage.

It was a gray morning and there were a lot of jelly-fish (sea-nettles) floating by as we raised anchor at 7:45. The wind was more favorable and we were able to sail all day once we got to the main channel. But while the sailing was good, it poured most of the day and despite our foulies, we were pretty wet. As we approached Solomons, we were hailed by an Island Packet named Winddancer out of Corpus Christi, TX. They had seen the Valiant, Rima, and the captain thinks he’s spoken with Bob a couple of times. Iris was able to get cell coverage earlier in the day and called her mother to let her know where we were. Good thing, because this Mill Creek also didn’t have any cell coverage. We anchored in mud with a lot of chain out, expecting the front tonight. Not a great set since it was mud, however other than another small sailboat in the middle of the cove, we weren’t concered. A bowl of hot soup took off the chill as we relaxed in the late afternoon. Quiet night with little traffic going to the upper reaches of the creek.

Iris had a rough night, waking up at 3 am, feeling ill. We’d turned to the north. Frosty was in an extremely mean mood and kept attacking Dusty. Anchor up at 8am. Oops – the shackle was sideways on the swivel. Iris hates when it does that – but a sharp pull on the swivel freed it. Tons of mud imbedded in the chain and on the anchor – it took awhile with the deck wash to ensure that most of it didn’t end up in the anchor locker! The other boat was making ready to depart as well – we noted that it was a single-hander, female on a boat named Circe. The forecast was quite unpleasant but we decided to head out into the bay and check it out. Worst that could happen would be that we’d return to this anchorage or one further upstream for another day.

Fred took the helm for most of the day. The winds were from the north and fairly strong and gusty and there was a lot of chop. The autopilot was struggling, we were closed-hauled and making good progress despite the conditions. We took water over the rail quite a few times as we heeled all the way. We’d picked some earlier anchorages but decided to head on to Whitehall Bay, just north of Annapolis but just short of the Chesapeake Bay bridges. As we approached, the shaft once again began to squeal and Fred stopped the engine, burping the bellows. As before, this fixed the problem. We kept our distance from the only other boat anchored in the bay when we arrived at 6pm. By nightfall, several other boats had arrived. We had good cell-phone and tv coverage. The boat rocked from wakes from the bay – but those also abated early in the night. In total, we’d glad we hadn’t holed up for the frontal passage and ‘wasted’ a day.

Another bad night for Iris, awakening at 4:30 feeling ill. When it was time to get up at 6 – she couldn’t do it and stayed in ’til 6:30! Our goal for the day was to get to Veazey Cove on the Bohemia River with plans to head through the Delaware Bay potentially direct from there the following day. We raised anchor at 7:30 and motored north – once again into large chop and strong north winds. This was slightly uncomfortable here in the bay, but if we had gone offshore it would have been extremely so in big waves. Not a lot of boats out for a Saturday morning! By late morning the seas had flattened out and we started to make good progress. Now what are our options? We were going to get to Veazey pretty early – should we continue up the C&D Canal to Summit North Marina and get fuel/water and relax for the night? We’d staged return trips to the Chesapeake from New England there. Should we stop earlier in the canal, such as Chesapeake City and get some fuel at Schaeffer’s Canal House? We’d feel better if we started a passage with full tanks. Iris called the marina – Summit North had no fuel – some kind of problems with their tanks. But she made a tentative reservation with them anyway. Next we overheard someone on the radio asking for nearest fuel in the area as there didn’t seem to be any on the canal. We wondered – what about the Canal House? Iris called a marina that carried diesel just near Veazey – but their approach depth was tricky and the dockmaster didn’t give us a good feeling we could get to the fuel dock. She then tried calling the Canal House – the phone number had been disconnected. We spied the bridges at Havre de Grace in the distance and Iris exclaimed “why don’t we go to Havre de Grace – if nothing else, for fuel?” We took a sharp left out of the channel and made our way to the small town we’d visited back in 1999. Tidewater Marina, where we’d stayed that time, was completely full for the night. They referred us to a marina next door. No answer. On a second try, Iris got the dockmaster – a lady named Thalia. We gave her an estimated arrival of 3pm and told her we’d also want fuel and she said to call her on her cell phone. She’d be wearing an orange t-shirt and be out on the docks. She described the approach – a small opening in a breakwater in front of some gray condos with no signeage.

As we approached the marina, we decided that we’d head to Tidewater for fuel first. We’re quite careful about trying to get fuel from marinas that turn over a lot of volume. Our first glance at the docks in front of us led us to believe our destination marina was not such a place 😉 But as we passed the breakwater to go to Tidewater, the next marina, we saw a lady waving like crazy from a fuel dock with a guy standing beside her doing the same. It was about 5 minutes before 3. Iris suggested that Fred keep on going to Tidewater, but he decided to turn around since they were waiting on us. Thalia tied us up at the fuel dock and things seemed to go downhill from there. She told us that we’d have to wait awhile for the pump to get primed since it was old. When we asked about Boat US discount – yes – for cash. Same for the slip. Fred wiped the nozzle and it came off black, but the fuel at least was pink. After we’d fueled, Thalia informed us that the slip we were assigned only had 4 1/2 feet of water at low tide and that they’d been having extreme low tides due to the north winds. “But we want to leave around 8 or 9 tomorrow for passage through Delaware Bay!” We checked the tides and low would be at 7 – so our ability to leave might be hindered. She said that the side-to tieup ahead of the fuel dock was reserved for a 50 foot boat that was due to have arrived by 2:30 – we could pull into that space and risk that he might still show up. If he didn’t arrive by 5, it was ours. OK – we decide to stay tied up and wait awhile, cause we really didn’t like the 4.5′ deep slip. While we waited, Thalia went to try and reach the powerboat. We looked at the distance to power and water. Neither our power cord nor our water hose were going to reach. Would we have been better off at anchor?

By now the winds were up to about 20 knots, the floating docks were bobbing up and down, boats were having difficulty negotiating the entry into the marina and we were getting anxious. But amazingly enough – everything worked out. Thalia decided to move us to a close slip – whose ‘owner’ was away for the weekend. Our first attempt failed as the wind caught our bow and we started to move sideways down the marina. Fred did a great recovery and we got into the slip on our second try. Our hose and power cord reached and we were able to wash off the 1/4″ of salt coating our decks and stanchions. Thalia told us where we could get to an ATM, gave us literature on the town, completed our check in and told us a little bit about herself. She and her partner (husband) took 18 years to circumnavigate in their 32′ Westsail (parked right in front of us).
We thanked her for her help and got to work getting cleaned up.

ATM found, some snacks purchased and sated after a pleasant dinner at MacGregors (seafood) Restaurant – we got back to the boat and discussed our options. If we left at 9:30am tomorrow, we could get the current and tides just right to get through the C&D canal, get through Delaware Bay and start on our passage to Newport, RI. We’d checked the weather (great cell-phone coverage in Havre de Grace!) and we’d have light SW winds, starting to get stronger over the 2 1/2 day passage. By Monday afternoon we’d have 10-20 knots with 4-6 foot waves behind us – seemed manageable. Seemed like a plan.

Iris got up early and did a weather check – the forecast seemed a bit worse but the window was holding. We heard something about 15-20 knots on Monday night with seas building 5-8′. Not dangerous, but not as nice as the previous description. Plan is still a go and Iris sent out float-plan emails. We always have an option to stop in Cape May or Atlantic City. Fred spent some time talking with Thalia and Bob (boatname Renaissance, out of San Francisco). Neat couple.

We headed out of the marina at 9:30. What a difference a day makes – the northern reaches of the bay were filled with boats. It was sunny, warm and the winds had died down. We entered the C&D canal and got a nice ride with the current. As we passed Schaeffer Canal House we noticed that the docks were roped off and the place was for sale. Good thing we didn’t hope to buy fuel there. The current was giving us a good 4 knot lift as we sped through the canal, and by 2:15pm we reached the entrance to the Delaware Bay. At this point we still had 2 knots against us in the bay. Shipping traffic began almost immediately. Midway down the bay, a drilling ship, McFarland, headed west, suddenly stops and then started to turn around in the channel – pointing directly at us (1/4 mile out of the channel). Fred asked them ‘are you turning around? what are your intentions?’ Yes – we are turning to go to the offshore disposal area! They whipped in front of us headed towards the mouth of the bay. At around 10:30pm, while briefly having cell-phone coverage near Cape May, Iris called her mom with our location. We’d seen a beautiful sunset enroute, the air was quite cool and the water temperatures had dropped to 74 degrees! We felt cold and got colder – putting on sweatshirts and sweatpants and then our foulies on top of that. Instead of our normal watch schedule we both stayed up – the mouth of the bay is filled with ship traffic coming from all directions and trying to plot which ship was a threat when there are so many is very stressful. We both had binoculars out and pointed out various targets to each other. McFarland was still in the mix, turning around once more right before we left the bay. By now it was after 11pm and Fred took his normal watch, suggesting Iris go below and get some rest. We were motorsailing with just the main out.

We were on a course of 60 degrees, as was another sailboat a mile or two ahead of us. At around 3am, Iris tried to hail the vessel stating our name, course and trying to reach the boat now less than a mile in front of us. A guy answered – he too was on the same course – but in a powerboat. He asked for our location – Iris responded, and then he never came back. The sailboat remained silent. Meanwhile, the powerboat headed into Atlantic City. At around 5am Fred turned off the engine and we started to sail ‘wing and wing’. We listened to the offshore forecasts which had gotten quite a bit worse. Now the winds were to be 15-25 knots with gusts to 30 knots with seas building to 5-8 and then 8-10′. This was going to be a sleigh ride. At around 11:30am we got down to just our mainsail and we were doing over 7 knots. The winds weren’t too bad yet but we were bracing for worsening conditions. The winds were building and by 3pm winds were up to 20knots and seas were about 4′. By 6pm we had a pretty steady 20 knots behind us and the seas were about 4-8′. We reefed the main right before Iris’ first watch and still were doing about 7 knots. Through most of the night we had about 7-8′ seas with winds mostly 20 knots with 25 knot gusts. The motion was quite uncomfortable – but kitties and we were doing ok. The other sailboat was still within a mile or two of us. We wanted to slow down enough not to have to enter Block Island Sound (just east of Montauk Point on Long Island) in the dark. Last time we’d gotten there at dawn with hundreds of other targets (mostly fishing vessels) on their way out.

Dawn came, the seas remained high and occasionally we could see the other sailboat. However no one else was in sight. No fishing boats were crazy enough to be out this morning. RI and Long Island beaches were expecting 10-12 foot breakers. As we passed Block Island at 8:45am, Iris called her mother to close our float plan – we weren’t in Newport yet but the worst was behind us. Visibility was less than 2 miles and after we passed Block Island it began to pour as the front passed. We were glad for fresh water to rinse off the boat! We picked up an assigned mooring at 1:30pm and our engine was off. We had never seen so few boats up and about in Narragansett Bay – it seemed like the middle of winter! But we were motionless at last……

We made plans to meet with our family members, Lynn and Don, staying in Newport this week for dinner. Then we spent the remainder of the afternoon cleaning up the boat and ourselves and taking brief naps before taking the launch ashore. The four of us wandered about, wanting to try a new spot since we tended to go to familiar places. We stopped at The Rhode Island Quahog Company – Fred and Iris had missed the family lobster feast on Sunday so both had lobster dishes. Iris thought the place was ok – nothing special, but Fred enjoyed his lobster Scampi dish. Our return trip via launch took awhile – as a boatload of folks just sat there waiting for a driver. We didn’t quite know where our boat was in the dark (or even in the light) – just the mooring number. So it took awhile for the launch to find our home. Iris wanted an internet fix and was pleased to see that we were close to Goat Island Marina and the Marina Grill. Restaurant had a good wi-fi signal. She browsed the internet to her heart’s content.

We decided that at $3/person each way the launch wasn’t for us. We pumped up the dinghy and launched it. Fred went off for a ride to make sure all was in order while Iris worked on chores. At around 10am the launch stopped by and the driver said “did they tell you you’d have to move today?” Nope – we paid for 3 days. Yes – but the ‘owner’ of the mooring is coming back and you have to move to rental mooring #7 by noon. Fred returned a short while later, we started up the engine and moved to our new spot. Closer to downtown. Alas – away from the wi-fi connection…. Fred changed the oil while Iris got in the dink and tried to remove engine exhaust stains and the ICW mustache from the hull – with minimal success. As she’s mentioned before in the log – this is the only boating activity that has ever (and always does) get her seasick. Not a happy camper.

A little after noon we’d arranged to pick up Lynn and Don in the dinghy at Bowen’s wharf (site of the public dinghy dock) and head across the bay to Marina Grill. We were meeting Fred’s and Lynn’s cousin, Bill, for lunch. It was a perfect day out and the view of the harbor was breathtaking. After a nice lunch, the five of us went back to Windwalker for a brief visit. Then Bill was ferried back to his car at Marina Grill and the four of us went back into Newport for dinner at the Red Parrot. We made plans to see Doris Duke’s mansion, Rough Point, the following morning – accompanied by family Kathie and Ro. Fred also tried to contact a couple of high school buddies – successfully reaching one and not the other. We would also try and see him tomorrow afternoon. A full day planned!

The six of us met at the Newport Visitor’s center downtown to purchase our tickets for Rough Point (which included a shuttle to the mansion) and to await the shuttle. We were on the 10:45am tour. None of us had seen this particular mansion in all these years – it had just opened to the public 7 years previously. Many stories had been told about Ms. Duke as Lynn, Kathie and Fred were growing up in Newport and these tales were not addressed on the tour. But she used some of her fortune to form a preservation society that has renovated and maintained over 80 homes in the area. She always planned to donate the mansion to the society and so furnished it with artwork appropriate to it’s intended use as a ‘museum’. The tour-guide was outstanding as were the views from the estate. Next on our agenda was luncheon at the Inn on Castle Hill. This is an absolutely beautiful site on the entrance to the bay where one can watch the boats come in and out from high on a cliff-top. Our table was on the lovely lawn, the food was perfect – as was the company. It was a delightful morning and afternoon!

Back in town, Lynn and Don dropped us off at our mandatory Newport stop – the Armchair Sailor (nautical bookstore). Most every cruising guide we have has been purchased there. The store was purchased by Bluewater Books in Ft. Lauderdale several years ago. While we had a lot of detail on the Chesapeake and Maine, we wanted to add to our information on Long Island Sound, CT, and MA. Our book choice was a compromise but every one of our books has come in handy sooner or later.

At around 5:30 we met Fred’s friend Tom. The two of them hadn’t really seen each other and caught up in over 30 years. We took him back to Windwalker – his wife, Jan, couldn’t make it due to a conflict. After a couple of hours we returned to town, met Jan, and had a late, light dinner at Salas’ restaurant. We finally dinghied back to the boat at around 10:30. We’d only signed up for 3 days on the mooring. In the morning we’ll have to decide whether to leave for somewhere else or stay put.

Iris logged on early to check weather. Yep – there’s a front coming through Sat night/Sunday. Heavy rains expected for Sunday. We’re not likely to head for Mount Desert Island, ME by then and need to decide where we want to weather the front. During breakfast, we decided to extend here another day to take a tour and to do some provisioning. Kathie and Lynn had told us about a mansion tour that sounded fascinating – the ‘rooftop’ tour at The Elms. This is a tour of the infrastructure and servants’ quarters of the mansion. So we called Oldport Marine to let them know we were staying, dinghied to town, wandered over to the visitor’s bureau where we were unable to get tickets (altho’ when Iris spoke with them earlier in the morning, they told her to go there rather than directly to the mansion). We headed to the Elms, got into the noon tour and enjoyed it a lot. We then had lunch at the Newport Creamery close by (another Newport ritual for us), and then went to the supermarket across the street to top off our provisions. We’d brought 4 of our largest canvas bags along with us on the tour along with our shopping list so we were ready. Fortunately, it’s downhill from the market to the dinghy dock, albeit it’s about 1/2 mile away.

Back at the boat – Iris prepped the meats and vegetables/fruits for storage – removing packaging and preparing items so that minimal water would be needed and minimal trash when the product is used. Fred meanwhile, looked at options for getting to Maine. We’re a little behind schedule and need to get moving. On the other hand, we want to stay put on Saturday and Sunday during the frontal passage. Since we’re going to go somewhere tomorrow in any case, we did a ‘final’ trash run to town, snacked on some ice cream (we’d had dinner). Iris worked on the website, Fred did some trip-planning and we went to bed knowing we’d do something tomorrow but not what!

Iris got up with the cats at 6am. She got the weather and the forecast wasn’t great – we decided to stay another day and called it in to the dockmaster. Fred finished updating the website. After lunch and some time reading in the cockpit, we headed ashore. First stop was the Seaman’s Church Institute – a Newport fixture catering to people who work the seas – we bought shower tokens ($2/10 minutes including towel). Putting off our showers until after our walk, we headed in search of a church whose steeple we’d seen from the harbor and couldn’t identify. It ended up being a Unitarian Church right next to Touro Park. We walked part of the Cliff Walk, from the 40 steps to the beach, then returned via the Oldport Marine office to settle up for the mooring. Last was our showers at the institute prior to dinghying back to the boat. Fred spent the remainder of the evening working on our route plan while Iris did a handwash of underwear and rags. We were visited by the owners of MoonSail, a Catalina-built Morgan 38. They’d left Kemah TX in 2005.

A final check of the weather remained so-so. If it’s not pouring in the morning, perhaps we should leave – target 7:30am tomorrow. We read until bed-time in a salon strung with lines hanging wet laundry.

Clothes everywhere – wet clothes! Iris got up at 5:30 due to wind and cat noises. The cats fed, she started moving laundry around for better drying. It was gray outside but not raining. At 6:30 it began raining. Turning on the tv at 7, we saw the weather radar – there was definitely a line of heavy rain but drying afterwards. Winds were expected to be quite strong (20-25 knots) but from the southwest – advantageous to us. We decided to leave and dropped the mooring at 9:40, now 2 hours behind our original schedule. Many other boats had the same idea. Winds out of Narragansett Bay were on the nose and we bashed into 4-5′ waves – taking on more water than we’d had any other time on the trip. Unfortunately, we’d removed the duct tape covering our vetus ventilator for passages and much of that water streamed into the v-berth. Yuck!

Once we made the turn heading northwards, we raised sail and made good time doing 7 kts or more under sail. Most of the other boats looked like they were headed to Cuttyhunk while we forged ahead towards Onset – the last anchorage prior to the Cape Cod Canal. Pulling into the channel to Onset we hailed Onset Bay Marina to see if they had a mooring available. No – all full. While the harbormaster suggested a yacht club that might have a mooring, we opted to anchor right outside the mooring field. What a lovely evening. Just as we were glad we’d left Mill Creek (on the Patuxent) rather than waiting for weather, we once again felt that leaving Newport was the right decision. As we ate dinner in the cockpit, a large catamaran came into the harbor and anchored next to us. A brightly lit excursion boat playing loud ragtime selections came by later in the evening, – somewhat of a change in mood, although brief. After dark, we took advantage of a good cellphone (and thus) internet connection to do another check of the weather (a frontal passage is expected tonight) and handle email. Our plan for tomorrow was to go through the Cape Cod Canal with favorable current at 7am, spend the following night in Provincetown and then do an overnight passage to Northeast Harbor, ME.

We were up before 6 as the cats are getting up earlier and earlier due to the earlier sunrise further north. The front went through during the night and we now had light northerly winds. After a quick breakfast, we began our ‘raise anchor’ drill. Fred raises the chain up to 50 feet while Iris stays in the v-berth flaking the chain. Then she goes on deck to complete the operation. This prevents chain castles and jams. Fred was only raising the chain about a foot at a time. When Iris got on deck he informed her that something was wrong with the windlass ‘up’ air-switch. But the chain needed washing anyway, so the slow pace wasn’t an issue. We’d have to do some debugging before we anchored again – but our plans were to pick up moorings in Provincetown and NE Harbor.

The current pushed us into a right angle turn in the canal at 7:20. We raced along at about 10 knots with the tide and then once out of the canal, motored on to Provincetown with not enough wind for sailing. We were on a mooring by noon. The next couple of hours were spent on lunch and chores before we hailed the launch (included) to take us to the dock. The launch attendant recommended Townsend Lobster (at the end of the dock) if we wanted a good dinner. They’d just brought in 300 lobsters earlier that morning! He explained that these were hard-shell and full wherease what we’d have in Maine (which we knew) would be softshell – sweet meat, but not as much of it.

Streets were crowded – mostly with families. We walked about town and then checked out Townsend. Dinner was casual and great – just what we’d hoped for. Our shower stop prior to an ice cream stop didn’t work out so well for Iris. The 5 minute token operated shower was shooting more water out of the stall than in it – raining down on Iris’s towel, underwear and clothing. She looked a bit soggy as she stepped out of the ladies’ room. But not so soggy that she’s turn down ice cream!
Back to the boat via launch for a bit more passage planning and prep (jacklines, ditch bag, etc). All was a go for tomorrow’s passage. The only decision – should we refuel in Provincetown (opens at 8am) or wait until NE Harbor. The fuel dock looked intimidating but we’d feel better with full tanks…. Our cabin was still full of wet underwear.

We decide to forego the fuel stop and head out of the harbor at 7:30am. Brrrrrrrr – it’s cold out here and we put on sweatshirts and pants under our foulie jackets. The wind is from the north and we’re motoring with mainsail up. No whale sightings altho’ we did see some “mist spumes” which indicated whales, in the distance. By late evening we had quite a bit of traffic – primarily fishing boats on shallow banks. The wind had shifted enough for us to raise the genoa and sail. It wasn’t to be a restful off-watch for Fred and Iris called him up an hour early for help on closeby targets – as we dealt with the target we passed an unlit object (looked like research marker with a tall flag on it) within feet of us. Jeez – that was close.

By 1am, Fred turned the engine back on. Iris was nervous on her 2nd watch as well – with lots of fishing boat traffic and then seeing lobster pot floats going by in the dark. We were still an hour from Matinicus Rock when she got Fred up again at 4 – all we needed was to get tangled in a float’s rope while underway in the dark. Both of us stayed up from then on as we passed Matinicus Rock at around 5:30 and had another 30 miles to Northeast Harbor. Dolphins greated us enroute, as did lobster boats working early in the morning. We stopped at Clifton Docks at around 12:20 for fuel and water and then hailed the mooring agent for a mooring further in the harbor. Engine off at 1pm!

After lunch and a brief rest, we put the dinghy in the water and headed ashore. The mooring attendant and we met mid-way and while Iris held onto the attendant’s boat, Fred and he completed the $100 transaction for 4 nights. Once on land, we relieved ourselves of trash, found out the harbormaster’s mailing address so that Iris’ mother could mail us our absentee ballots for the FL primaries, checked out the DSL rates at the Chamber of Commerce ($5 for the day, any day, between 8 and 5) and went for a short walk. We were pretty tired and had dinner aboard. Early to bed.

Iris was up again at 5:30 – those cats are like an alarm clock! After feeding them, she returned to bed, once again to awaken at the abrupt sounds of Frosty having a seizure. Another bad grand mal one – climbing the bulkhead and stepping in the water bowls. No point in going back to bed, she let Fred sleep in until 8:30. We decided that we’d test our stamina and foot gear by doing a relatively moderate hike from NE Harbor to Jordan Pond via Elliot Mountain/Asticou trails – ending with lunch at Jordan Pond and take the Island Explorer free buses back to Northeast Harbor. Where is our backpack? Tearing up the boat, we couldn’t find it altho’ surely it’s here somewhere! A small canvas bag will have to do for our water, camera, etc. We were both unhappy with the state of our hiking boots, so Fred switched to well-worn, falling-apart walking shoes, and Iris switched to walking shoes as well. Fred, worried about his shoes, took along some electrical tape with which to tape on the soles.

We hiked up to Elliot Mountain and decided to alter our route and take the Harbor Brook trail down to join Asticou. It was a slightly soggy trail, but the brook babbled delightfully along the route and the light attempted to shine through the heavily wooded terrain. We rejoined the Asticou trail and got to Jordan Pond House. After getting on the waiting list (Fred was told 30 minutes), we just got into the gift shop to browse when Fred’s buzzer went off – not even 5 minutes! We’d opted for inside seating and the major wait was for dining on the gorgeous lawn. Lobster stew with popovers and then huge desserts replenished the calories we’d worked off getting there 😉

We tried the gift shop again. Fred’s shoes had all but dissolved in the walk – electrical tape had NOT done the trick. The shop happened to have some Columbia hiking shoes that fit him well. Given our plans to do more hikes – part of our reason for coming here, he made the purchase. As we lounged on the lawn with an expansive view of Jordan Pond and The Bubbles, Fred switched to his new shoes and we decided to throw out the others. We took the bus back to Northeast Harbor, picked up our UPS package at the harbormaster and were back in the cockpit by 4pm. Tomorrow – a work day – laundry (hadn’t done any by machine since Portsmouth, VA) for Iris; fix the windlass for Fred. While we ran the generator that evening, Fred noticed water in the engine room. It was from a loose hose clamp on the freshwater pump – he tightened it and that fixed the problem.

PS – the temperature in the cabin in the morning(s) was 56 degrees – pretty much the same as the water temperature. Every time we’re running the generator, we’re also running our ceramic heater. That get’s the temp up to about 66!

Up early again – this time because we wanted to be ashore before the washing machines below the Pine Tree Market in town, got filled up. We got to the dinghy dock around 7:30 – Fred carrying the laundry and Iris bags and detergent. 3 machines were already in use, one was broken, but 3 remained and she quickly filled them with our stuff! We set a time of around 9:10 for Fred to come back. Between wash and dry cycles, Iris checked out the market, walked to the Library (which wouldn’t open until 10, she discovered) to see about internet (unsuccessfully) and then did some provisioning until Fred came back. Meanwhile, he’d emptied the chain locker of both our chain and nylon rode to prepare for the windlass repair.

Back aboard Windwalker, Fred tested the connections, put in a new air-switch (which didn’t fix the problem) while Iris stowed clothes and provisions. Fred continued the diagnoses inside the solonoid box and verified with a jumper that the up direction was working from the solonoid forward. Cleaning the airswitch connections and tightening the airhose got the windlass working again (at least for now). Hoping that it’ll stay that way, we returned the chain and rode to its proper place in the chain locker. Chores completed – let’s do something with the rest of the day! We had an early lunch then took the bus system to Southwest Harbor – a major boating harbor we’d not visited by land or boat. We quickly walked through town, mailing our absentee ballots, stopping in West Marine and browsing through some of the shops. We’re done and it’s not yet 2pm. Why not head into Bar Harbor and have dinner there? We got to town, headed straight to the internet cafe we’d used before to do some email, checked out which restaurants had the best early-bird lobster deal, and then walked the Shore Path. Iris wanted to get back before 7 to ensure Frosty’s phenobarbital dose was on time. So dinner at the West St. Cafe (Grill?) and back on the 6:15pm bus. While Frosty had her pill on time, she still had a mild seizure about an hour later. Poor kitty.

We calculated backwards from a Dr. appointment that we have to make in New York City on September 18 and decided that we have quite a few days remaining to us in Maine. Fred made preparations for the Precipice Trail for tomorrow. It is one of the most difficult in Acadia and had previously been closed to us due to peregrine falcon nesting. Iris, having done it’s shorter cousin trail, The Beehive (Precipice) Trail – decided this was not for her! Fear of falling and lacking any balance are not good for a non-technical (sans ropes) rock climb.

The alarm clocks are at it again – up at 5:30! Frosty was playing ball and dashing around the cabin like mad. We had a big breakfast and then dashed around wanting to catch the 9:25 bus in order to make the appropriate connection to another bus in Bar Harbor. Major miscommunication. Iris planned to relax by Sand Beach while Fred hiked and wasn’t preparing to hike too. Fred intended to do another hike with her after he completed the Precipice. Different shoes, different clothes, need to take less. Scramble and snarl. We took our family radio along and arranged to check-in with each other every 30 minutes. The bus dropped Fred off (along with several hardy 20-somethings) at the Precipice Trail while Iris stayed aboard until Sand Beach. While he negotiated the treacherous ladders, iron bar hand-holds, and 1000 foot elevation change on the rock climb, she people-watched and read on the beach. Since Fred was so high up, the family radios did work for most of the check-ins, and we were reunited at around 1:30. By this time, Iris was able to talk Fred out of the additional hike. Instead, we took the bus to the Sieur de Monts visitor center where we visited the Nature Center, the Abbe Museum of Native Artifacts and the Wild Gardens of Acadia. Dr. Abbe lived in Northeast Harbor and played a large role in collecting native american artifacts. He was also the inventor of radiotherapy for cancer. A larger version of the museum exists in Bar Harbor but we didn’t visit it.

A quick stop between buses at the Village Green allowed time for ice cream. Spaghetti dinner back at home. What to do tomorrow – go or stay?

The cats don’t let up. This time Iris goes back to bed. Let’s stay, get the paper, use the DSL connection ashore to pay some bills and then go for a leisurely hike somewhere… (another miscommunication in the works……) It takes us a little longer than planned to handle our mail. Iris wants to do some additional provisioning so Fred returned to the boat with the pc, meeting her back in Pine Tree Market a little while later. While Iris stows the foodstuffs back onboard, we debate which trails to take. Fred wants rigorous, Iris wants a walk. It’s now 11:10 and one set of trails is accessible by the 11:25 bus. The next set is at least an hour later. Pandemonium and whining as we grab our gear, dash into the dinghy, rush ashore and Iris runs up the gangway to hail the bus while Fred ties up. Amazingly, we make the bus (meant to be?). Enroute to the Bubble Pond area trailhead, Fred looks at the elevation change on the topo once again for our intended trail (Cadilljac West Face Trail) and decides (good thing) that perhaps that trail isn’t something Iris would like. (Rated difficult +) He proposes an alternative – doing the Eagle Lake West trail to the top of Connor’s Nubble and then down to Jordan Pond via the Jordan Cliff Trail or carriage road. We had the topo map but not the trail descriptions. Iris agreed and off we headed to cover new ground at around noon. The Eagle Lake trail was dry (and could have been quite wet) but strewn with tree roots and rocks and then rock scrambling. It got pretty rugged and Iris resorted to scrambling and crawling between many of the rocks. We continued to forge on and came upon a mountain-biker staring down at the part of the trail we’d just done. We asked if he actually rode down this stuff and he said pretty much getting on the bike and falling off and carrying it 😉 Fred agreed that this trail was a bit more rugged than he’d thought it would be. The next couple we met said to look out for a porcupine in the trees about 100 yards ahead. There he was, staring at us! Iris had first seen a wild porcupine in Acadia when she was about 12! Other wild-life sightings for the day included a toad, a red squirrel and a few chipmunks. Later Fred would see a fawn too.

Finally atop Connor’s Nubble, we ate sandwiches at 2pm. It was overcast and quite windy and chilly. Once again looking at the map, we came up with another plan. We’d follow our intended trail and carriage road to the intersection with the Jordan Cliff Trail. Depending on the time (since Iris moves at a snail’s pace on difficult terrain), we’d either both take the carriage road back from there or split up. Iris pretty much went down the .2 mi. steep drop from Connor’s Nubble on her rear end until we got to less rocky terrain. We made good time back on the carriage road and got to the trail decision at 3pm. Iris had a bad feeling about the Jordan Cliff Trail (but didn’t remember exactly what she’d read) and opted for the carriage road. Fred took the ‘high’ road and we agreed to meet at Jordan Pond (this time sans family radios) at 4:30pm. Iris enjoyed a fast paced walk on the carriage road, with views of horse-drawn carriages, family biking ‘dramas’ and Jordan Pond in her quick half hour walk to the Pond House. Meanwhile, Fred was on a trail that was shorter but just as difficult as the Precipice Trail without as many hand-holds. The views of Jordon Pond from the edge of the cliff though were awesome. As the trail clings to the rock face, you have an unimpeded 900 foot drop down to the carriage road and the pond. Had Iris gone with him, we’d still be crawling along the trail at dark! We met at around 4:10, Fred purchased a weatherproof jacket he’d eyed when he bought his shoes earlier in the week and we caught the 4:35 bus back to Northeast Harbor. Time for the early-bird lobster special at the Docksider restaurant in Northeast Harbor and back in time to give Frosty her meds. The weather forecast for tomorrow isn’t pleasant. We may or may not leave. But it’s time to read our Sunday paper and relax.

Rain and heavy drizzle with more in the forecast for the day. We don’t really HAVE to leave – so let’s stay. Nice hot breakfast and then we head ashore to check out the library’s free internet access (open from 10-5), visit an ATM, check out the hardware store/chandlery – where Iris found some Raritan Toilet Water – a product we use with our head, but Westmarine no longer carries. We also paid up for tonight’s mooring and spent the remainder of the day working on updating the website. It remained rainy and gray. Fred did additional route planning – looking at the anchorages Iris had selected. We’ll have to make determinations based on weather. Unpleasant news, however, is the Tropical Storm Ernesto (soon to be Hurricane) is bearing down on West Palm Beach. Nothing we can do about it from up here. We hope we don’t have to deal with the remnants in Maine as it heads northward, as well. Tomorrow should be sunny and warmer with lighter winds from the north for the next few days. We plan to take on some water before leaving the harbor and head to Pretty Marsh Harbor on the west side of Mt. Desert – a new to us anchorage……

Since we’d worked so hard on updating the website, may as well go in and pay the $5 to do the upload 😉 We dinghied in with the laptop at 7:45am – but no one arrived at the Chamber of Commerce until around 8:15. After updating the site, we checked on Tropical Storm Ernesto’s status as well as weather outlook here as it would be our last chance to look at detailed weather until Boothbay. Back at the boat, we left our mooring and motored Windwalker over to the water float – where we tied up and filled our tanks. It was time to move on – so we left the float and our favorite Northeast Harbor around 10, motoring up the west side of Mt. Desert Island to the beautiful Pretty Marsh Harbor. Enroute we saw dolphins and plenty of cormorants. We anchored at 1, had lunch and put on heavier clothes as the high was a chilly 65 degrees and cloudy. Just a little bit of sun would have helped a lot! A sailboat came up near us and picked up a mooring – but apparently it was just a lunch stop and they left shortly thereafter. (We’ve noticed once again that it is the practice in Maine to pick up private vacant moorings, even for the night. Not our style – we prefer to know how our boat is secured (eg – unknown status of moorings) and don’t relish the thought of having to vacate a mooring when the proper owner returns either.)

There was an attractive gazebo with a set of stairs leading to it and a picnic area from the water – part of the national park. We’d originally planned to dinghy over and explore it – however the gazebo had more than a few people moving about and the chill put a damper on our plans. We huddled in the cockpit and read. A seal swam about the boat but dove when we grabbed the camera. Or was it Iris’s attempt at seal noises that scared it off 😉 We saw another large sailboat approach the harbor. He’s aiming right at us!!! Just as it looked like he was going to ram us amidships, he made a sharp turn to the left and stopped beside us with a big grin on his face. He wanted to know where the closest road access was. Fred told him the gazebo was the only one we knew of. He seemed to ignore our comments that we thought he was going to hit us. And off he went to check out the gazebo steps, leaving the harbor a few minutes later. We had the harbor to ourselves for the remainder of the afternoon and night – with a clearing sky.

It seemed to be the most quiet night ever. The water was flat and when Iris awoke at around 4am – the stillness was amazing – no water noises, no boat noises, no animal or bird sounds – just the soft breathing of Fred and the cats. At dawn the water was like glass – not a ripple. Not until a little later in the morning when the seal came by for his swim. We raised anchor at 9:30. The windlass’ ‘up’ switch worked for Fred as he raised the chain from 85′ to 50′ – but Iris had trouble with it for the last 15′ or so, raising only a foot at a time. Is it fixed or not? We motored to the Bold/Devil Islands on Merchants’ Row, the anchorage Iris had selected for the evening. The islands were private but she’d hoped to explore ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ – a small island that was state owned. Well – ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ was probably smaller than a 1/2 acre – it was miniscule. As we motored by it into the anchorage Fred asked “this is what we came here to see?” Neither of us was impressed. The anchorage was more exposed and the water was deeper than we liked as well. There were two moorings in the middle, with houses on either island. Fred suggested that we pick up one of the moorings (again – not something we normally do..) while we think about whether or not we want to stay here. We had lunch and decided we’d rather go on to tomorrow’s anchorage – the one between McGlathery and Round that we knew we liked. We could anchor in around 8′ (at low) instead of 25′ at low as well. Off we went – it was a short motor to get there. Four boats were already anchored – one in at least 33′. We worked our way in front of all the boats as it was the shallow water we desired. Perhaps too shallow? In order to make sure, after we’d anchored, we put the dink in the water and used our electronic sounder around the perimeter of the boat to ensure there weren’t submerged rocks we’d hit as we rotated with the wind. All clear.

Analog service for our cell phone was minimal at best – Iris was able to check phone messages but attempts to call her mother went poorly with several disconnects. The cats patrolled our decks as evening approached and two of the boats left; a ketch and a powerboat remained. The winds turned to the north, not a good thing for this anchorage. We expected a noisy night due to the chop from the wind, lobster boats manning their pots in the morning and a lot of traffic through the nearby channel between the islands. After dinner, while watching PBS, we were glad to find out that Ernesto wasn’t going to be a major problem for Florida. The winds continued to pick up as did the noise and we braced ourselves for a restless night. Fred set both depth and anchor alarms and we expected to have to get up and check on conditions throughout the night. Fortunately, winds abated somewhat after 11:30 or so.

Iris arose at 6:50 to the sounds of Frosty having a grand mal seizure. No point in going back to bed after that. Fred slept in and we had a nice big breakfast. Our plan was to dinghy over to Wreck Island, a spot we enjoyed on our last trip and hike on it, then return for lunch and head to McGlathery for a similar hike. We had Wreck to ourselves. Yesterday we saw two Windjammers unload and load ‘tons’ of folks for a lunch stop but none arrived today. We arrived at low tide and made sure the dinghy was securely tied up above the beach to allow for incoming tide. There’s only so far we can drag it up the rocky shoreline when dealing with 10′ tides. We climbed to several high pastures to enjoy the surrounding island views. Then Iris returned to the dinghy and sat in the sun on a large rock beachside, while Fred decided to hike around the point. We’d brought our family radios along and Fred called Iris to let her know that he was continuing on to the 2nd and then 3rd points. He’d been out of sight for a long time. After awhile, when she hadn’t heard from him, Iris called (and he’d been trying her as well) and while the signal was bad, she understood that he was ‘circumnavigating’ the exterior rocks of Wreck. Close to the end of his island exploration, Fred had to head inland as the rocks became impassible. Together again, we dinghied back to the boat. By this time the chop had picked up and when we got back to Windwalker, the waves were about 2′ high. Maybe we don’t want to stay here tonight! Let’s put the outboard on the boat, have lunch and then leave!

Next on our agenda were either Pulpit Harbor or Holbrook Island Harbor – both spots we’d done before but felt we hadn’t done justice. Fred worked out routes to both and we had lunch. Leaving the anchorage was a bit of a firedrill. The water was choppy, we were sitting a few feet from a lobster pot float and the windlass ‘up’ switch was acting up for Iris. We didn’t want the prop wrapped in that float! In fact, the float did get hung up briefly, on our stern swim ladder but Fred was able to free it with the boathook. Off at last! After an hour, we really had to decide which anchorage to head to. We thought we’d try for Holbrook if the wind angle let us sail. Nope. So Pulpit Harbor it is. A seal and dolphin sighting confirmed our decision ;-).

Last time we’d been in Pulpit Harbor was 1999. It had come highly recommended but we were unimpressed. It was crowded with moorings and we anchored in fairly deep water. We didn’t go ashore. The moorings were still there but we were more experienced and worked our way in to a spot further in the harbor between two moorings. We anchored but Iris felt we’d end up on the rocks at low tide. Fred agreed and we raised anchor and moved up a few boatlengths and re-anchored. Much better! We saw a few boats arrive at dusk and pick up moorings. We thought those were their moorings (but when they left early the next morning, we decided they were just picking up private moorings). We hadn’t run our refrigerator and Iris wanted to run the generator. The harbor was quiet and we waited for sunset, Then we waited for someone else to run theirs And waited. And waited. Sorry Iris – we can’t run the generator – we’ll disrupt the perfect stillness. We’ll run it at 7 in the morning. Let’s hope the boat stays cold enough so the stuff in the freezer stays frozen.
But it was a beautiful evening with a nice sky and the only noise an occasional car going by.

A lot of scurrying around as we finish loading up Windwalker with supplies, our refrigerated/frozen goods and the kitties. Previous days have been spent making provisioning trips, final projects and stowing gear on the boat. We’d stripped off most of our cruising gear to allow room for projects and it’s been 3 years since we’ve cruised. So we’re a little rusty! We stored our car and took a cab back to the boat around 4pm. Since we can only leave our slip at close to high tide, we had to wait until around 6pm to start the engine and ‘cut the lines’!

Off we go – not too far – it’s around 7:30 before we get out from the last bridge and can anchor off of Old Port Cove Marina on the Singer Island side of northern section of Lake Worth. Iris makes dinner. Quiet evening – only a couple of boats on moorings and no one near us. While we may leave tomorrow – Iris tries to make the case for waiting a day to acclimate both ourselves and kitties. Frosty is pretty berserk and her only aim is to get on deck. Dusty is anxious to be above as well.

For future reference, since we’re sure it’ll be an issue on this trip – Frosty, our around 14 yr old cat, was a timid, affectionate soul until March when she started having seizures. Since then, she’s been on a twice daily dose of Phenobarbital. We have had a couple of weeks of daily seizures until a week ago and have been trying to adjust her dose. We think we’re there for awhile at least. But we’re concerned about how her potential sea-sickness will affect her ability to keep the meds down. And she has changed from the timid kitty to some creature out of The Exorcist. Violent rages, unprovoked attacks on previously dominant 16 yr old Dusty, attacks on Iris – the only one she ever trusted, have become the norm. But she’s healthy, pretty happy, and plays and enjoys life most of the time.

We’ve decided to stay put, prepare for sea, and relax a little today. While the night was hot, it wasn’t intolerable. Safety gear was assembled, ditch bag put together, more items were stowed – we were feeling productive. Frosty was in a foul mood, but remained below. Iris tried logging on via cell-phone, but we couldn’t get a good connection. Around 3pm a fairly strong thunderstorm with winds over 25 knots came through our area. We started to drag, but decided to wait until the lightening had abated before going on deck to reset the anchor. After the storm, we raised anchor, moved and reset. We enjoyed a nice dinner in the cockpit, filed our float plan with family and played a bit with the SSB weather frequencies. We plan to be at the Lake Worth sea buoy by 10am tomorrow, headed north to Beaufort, NC. Passage should take us about 3 days with arrival sometime on Wed. morning.

We had a pretty bad night. Frosty kept trying to jump up into the aft cabin with us, unsuccessfully. She growled and attacked Dusty all night. And we wanted to have a good night’s sleep before heading out – not to be. As we were raising anchor, the coast guard is reporting a “body in the inlet”. That’s not a great omen. Fortunately, this was later amended to a “person in the water” who was then recovered. We raised anchor at 8:45 am – with lots of mud which went into the chain locker since we failed to put out our anchor wash hose. We were underway by 9 and out the sea buoy at 10:02 – right on time!

Winds are very light and from behind us, the seas are flat, and we’re having to motor at low rpm. The gulf stream is giving us a lift and we’re making around 10 knots. Mid-afternoon, we’re engulfed in a cloud of tiny, crunchy bugs which are landing on the boat and promptly dying. Weird. Shortly afterwards, the wind picks up and we’re able to run so we turn off the engine. Around 7pm, an hour before Iris’s first watch, she says she doesn’t want wing and wing (main and jib on opposing side) after dark because it’s too hard to maintain. Winds are getting flukey and there are clearly thunderstorms in the area. We take in the genny after turning on the engine and keep the main up. At 7:30 the storm hit and things got pretty wild. We’d reefed the main to a tiny triangle a few minutes earlier. Winds gusted into the high 30s and the seas got rough. At around 8, we were hailed by a motor vessel overtaking us, Curtsey, asking if we were ok. Fred replied affirmatively and thanked them for asking. They said that the storm was quite extensive (12 mi or more wide) and that we’d be in it for at least another hour or more. At 8:30, Iris took the watch while Fred went below to try and get some rest in the ‘washing machine’. While the rain stopped, the seas and winds stayed up until shortly after 10pm. Fred took his watch at 11pm , put out the sails again and turned off the engine.

Iris took her watch at 2pm and turned on the engine shortly thereafter, motorsailing. Nothing threatening out there, stars started to appear and she could see the Milky Way for the first time since our last trip to the Keys. At around 4:45am, the Raymarine GPS (which had been flakey of late), lost it’s fix. Fred took his watch at 5am while Iris dug the Garmin hand-held ETREX out of the ditch bag – so we could continue to take hourly fixes and track our speed. We also tried to get the NVN offshore forecasts, but they were either garbled or unreadable. What we did hear was something about a stalled front with low that was supposed to dissipate before we got to Beaufort. But we also heard seas building from 5-8 feet. Around 7am, we decided to divert to Charleston because we were uncomfortable without getting a better forecast and due to the failure of the GPS. The GPS came back on at 10am. We continued to debate whether or not to continue on. Our arrival in Charleston would be way too early – midnight to 2am or so. Then we redid our route to go in the next inlet, Winyah Bay – which would be early/mid-morning. Through the afternoon we second-guessed our decision but decided to stay with our Winyah Bay plan. Iris took the first watch at 8pm – thunderstorms around but nothing threatening. Saw a big sea turtle! And had a fairly close pass with 2 ships inbound to Charleston. About 5 minutes before Fred’s 11pm watch was to begin, Iris noted that lightening starting to get closer and the radar image became consumed by rain. Fred took over and the fun began shortly thereafter. Very, very close and frequent lightening strikes. Iris hugged Dusty who seemed terrified and wouldn’t stop meowing. The rain poured so heavily that Fred got soaked and put on his foulies. One bolt was so close that Fred wasn’t sure if we’d gotten hit; he could smell the ozone. It was blinding below in the dark cabin as well. But fortunately, we were ok.

Iris’s 2-5am watch was uneventful, but she slowed the boat down too much by bringing in the genny. Fred came up at 5, rolled out the sails and made up the time she’d lost ;-). We entered the inlet at around 9:20am, heading up the intracoastal. Both of us felt pretty good and the cats were doing well too. As soon as we were in cellphone range of Georgetown, SC, we called family to close our float plan and let them know that all was well.

We wanted to make as much progress northward as possible, wanted to try out a new anchorage – yet we were tired by over two days at sea. First stop, at around 2pm, was Thoroughfare Creek on the Waccamah River, rated all ‘4’s except for shopping in Skipper Bob’s ICW Anchorages guide. The terrain was gorgeous – a beautiful mix of hardwoods and swamp and Spanish moss. First clues that things may not work out were the two small power boats screaming out of the creek. Then the ‘no wake’ signs posted as we went deeper. At the suggested anchoring location, a small boat was pulled ashore and a child was swimming. Then two other boats powered by us and landed there as well as all jumped out to swim. We circled trying to find shallow enough waters and as we were about to drop anchor a large excursion ferry came around the bend at a fast clip. Maybe things had changed since the guide was written. It was 2pm, we could try one more place before settling for our past anchorage on the Waccamaw. Almost as highly rated was the Bull Creek anchorage. One guide even said if one never anchors anywhere else, this is the place to go! Equally beautiful – with lots of bird and animal noises. We headed to the first bend – not sure we were in the ‘right’ place but found shallow water, and dropped anchor with a trip line (anchor float) in case we snagged a tree stump, at around 4pm. The wind was against current and the boat was sitting parallel to the forest. We figured even if we end up stern to shore, there was soft mud and no real obstacles to hurt us.

Finally, engine off and the first total quiet since departure. We had dinner and enjoyed our surroundings. We also listed the items that had broken enroute – we seemed to have a leak in the engine raw-water pump, our VHF cockpit extension cable had almost worn through, and our fixed-mount GPS – a bit flakey before we left, kept losing its fix at inopportune times. Iris decided to ‘pill’ Frosty before dessert. First bad sign – it took 4 tries and Iris wasn’t sure the cat ever swallowed the meds. Then, while having dessert, Fred said “is that an alligator?” The first was a log. But then the second spot he pointed to surely had eyes pointed in our direction. He grabbed the camera while Iris got the binoculars and the eyes headed in our direction – either enamored of the float or of the choice morsel named Dusty following Fred onto the deck. While up on deck, we noticed that the float was headed towards our stern. Fred scooped it up with the boathook to move it forward. As he was doing this a boat rushing by on the intracoastal came to a sudden stop at the opening of the creek and turned to face us, 1/4 mile in. After stopping for what seemed like hours, but was probably 2-3 minutes, they came full bore towards us and passed us as they continued up the creek. Iris went below and Fred dropped the float. Seconds later, a 2nd boat followed them. Their wakes moved Windwalker around and now the float was gone. What if it’s wrapped around our keel or prop? What if our anchor drags or we’re attacked in the middle of the night (a la Deliverence)? Our vivid imaginations took over as we took showers, ran the air-conditioning briefly to dry out the boat, and prepared for bed in a very steamy boat surrounded by alligator infested zero visibility tannin-brown waters. A good night’s sleep was out of the question!

Frosty attacked Dusty throughout the night – so besides wild-life sounds surrounding us, we heard a lot of growling and hissing. Fred slept in the aft cabin, while Iris slept on one of the settees in the saloon – running fans to get some air motion. Sleep was a misnomer – each of us tried to work out scenarios on how to recover from a snagged trip line. Typically, a prop wrap from a snag would be an easy problem – jump in the water with a mask and snorkle (or Scuba if extensively wrapped) and remove the line. Here though, the water was like dark tea with no visibility, the current was fast, and there were those alligators! Upon review later in the day, our approaches were the same: First we’d put the dinghy in the water and try and snag the line with a boathook. If that failed, we’d take a second anchor out and set it manually and then try to slowing raise the first, without power until we could reach the snagged line. If attempts to unsnag failed, our only recourse would be to call one of the nearby marinas and see if we could get a diver (no way either of us was going in there!) or get a tow and be hauled out to clear the snag. But neither of us discussed this during the night – we just rested and struggled with our own nightmares.

At 6am we both got up – we had to deal with the issue or get going before breakfast. Fred went up on deck and yelled down “We’re lucky!” Windwalker was in her original anchoring position as was the float. We rushed to get ready, raised the anchor and trip line and were headed on our way by 6:45. Breakfast and cat meds were accomplished enroute.

More decisions – how far do we think we can get today? Southport, NC would be great – but bridge opening schedules might not oblige – the current sure wasn’t favorable either. And Fred wanted to change the engine oil. After delays at both bridges, one of which was being repaired, we decided to go into Cricket Cove Marina early (around 2pm), take on fuel, do chores quickly and then unwind. The first part (getting there at 2) worked out. But after changing the oil, Fred decided to change out the engine raw water pump. Meanwhile, Iris was on deck washing the boat and removing the fish scales and other stains caused by the remains of 4 large flying fish which had landed on the boat while in the gulf stream. Finally, we were ready to take ‘real’ showers at 5:30 and get to dinner at the marina restaurant at 6:30. If trying for Southport, we surely would not have been there yet, nor would we have gotten to the chores until 8! Frosty remained amazingly nasty and cruel throughout the day; Dusty was terrorized. Sleeping in a frigid, air-conditioned boat was fantastic.

Up at 6:30 for a 7:30 target departure. We’ve got to make around 65+ miles today and need to get going. Rush, rush. Then just as we were ready to cast off our lines, Fred decided to make a last check on the engine. Good thing, because oil was leaking out of the pump he’d replaced yesterday. A quick glance at the Volvo manual showed that he’d left out an o-ring. Messy job done quickly and we were on our way at 8:25. We had to wait 45 minutes for the first NC bridge – one we’ve mentioned in our previous ICW trips. One of the last pontoon bridges of its type in the country. It only opens hourly and the wait was expected. After the bridge, we raised the main (and later genoa) and were able to motor sail past Southport and into the broad area of Cape Fear River. Along with the GPS, our autopilot was acting up and Fred tried adjusting a second control unit. The boat, under full sail, attempted to make a 360. Fortunately, Fred was able to turn off the autopilot and regain control before our unplanned gybe hurt anything. We weren’t going to use that 2nd control unit anytime soon!

On we went towards Wrightsville Beach, anchoring in around 15+knots wind and 2 knots of current. It felt like a good anchor set – better be because we’re pretty close to a fixed bridge should we start to drag. Only 4 other boats were anchored nearby.

After dinner, Iris called our friends Bob and K on fellow Valiant 40 RIMA from TX – to see if our paths would cross. We’d last seen them as they came into Lake Worth a couple of weeks ago. They had just gotten to New Bern, NC, where they’d stay a few days. That wasn’t really on our route, and our next chance to see them would be in the fall, in the Chesapeake. Oh well. Before dark, a severe thunderstorm crossed over us – but the anchor held well and the rains just rinsed off the boat. Sometime during the thunderstorm, Frosty must have had a seizure – we found drool, and she was particularly affectionate and hungry – characteristic signs. Not sure she’d taken her meds – it took 2 tries in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. We talked about alternatives for the next day and agreed on one thing – we weren’t going anywhere in the morning. If weather permitted, we might leave tomorrow night for Beaufort offshore. Alternatively, we could stay another day and do the ICW up to Beaufort – but we hate the particular stretch with its numerous bridges and no great stopping spots. If we tried to leave early tomorrow for the 70+miles offshore to Beaufort – our stopping spots after arrival would be limited and we’d be trying to find a place to anchor after dark if delayed at all. The offshore overnight plan was coming together but still hadn’t gelled. We also needed to buy a new GPS – don’t want to do Maine in the fog without the chartplotter. Iris found an unsecured wireless connection and was able to log on and get weather.

Iris awoke to sounds of a grand mal seizure by Frosty, She found the cat atop the food/water bowls literally trying to climb the bulkhead. Iris grabbed her, placed her on the settee and hugged her until the seizure stopped. Given Frosty’s hunger, it was easy to give her the phenobarbital plus valium. It still was nice to go back to bed and not have to move.

During and after breakfast our plan came together. We called the New Bern West Marine to see if they had a new GPS. Iris had them place it on hold for a Sunday pickup. Affirmative. Iris then called the New Bern Sheraton Marina (where Rima was), to see if they had an opening and to check on rates – sounds good so she made a reservation for Sat. and Sun. nights. We then called Bob and K to let them know we decided to take a short detour to visit with them. Fred plotted our waypoints – it would be a long day. We’d leave the Masonboro Inlet around 7pm, get to Beaufort inlet at twilight or dawn, and then make our way up the Neuse River to New Bern by early afternoon. Doing this inside would otherwise take 3 days. We felt good, and took the remainder of the day to relax, slowly do passage prep, and sleep when we could.

Dinner at around 5:30pm; Frosty medicated and anchor up at 6:30pm. And out the inlet at 7:02pm. We were amazed at the lack of boat traffic. Except for 2 small catamarans racing out the inlet, there were no fishing vessels – recreational or commercial, to be seen. We had 3-4, and then more like 5+ foot following seas along with 15-18 knots of wind behind us. We were able to sail and took less formal watches. Both of us stayed in the cockpit and took turns at the helm. We saw occasional fireworks on shore, along with the natural kind (thunderstorms) further inland. We were making very good time and thought we might have to slow ourselves down on the approach. The boat motion was a little rough however, and the cats were having a hard time finding comfortable positions.

At 4am the excitement began. The GPS lost it’s fix and didn’t come back. We knew where we were, as we manually log and use the chartplotter log of hourly/half-hourly fixes. But we had planned to cut into the channel and needed some precision for that. Iris handed Fred the hand-held Etrex so that we could figure out our speed over ground. Fred headed for the sea buoy. We needed to run the entire inlet channel – which we began before twilight. Our entrance was uneventful and Fred got out the wires and hooked up the hand-held GPS to the chartplotter for fixes as we headed up the ICW, using the buffer amplifier he had built a few weeks ago just for such a need.

Around 10am, Frosty had a mild seizure based on her behavior. She had her pheno at 6am so perhaps it was the stress of the passage? These cluster seizures aren’t good. We got to New Bern around 1:30pm and asked the marina for directions. The dockmaster on the radio was giving us one set of instructions, while a dock-hand was waving us to another slip and Bob and K was at the end of the dock waving too. We pulled into the slip the man waved us to – tied up with his and Bob and K’s assistance and then found out that this was indeed the wrong slip. Backed out and were moved to within a boat of Rima. Bob and K visited with us briefly as we made plans for later in the afternoon. After a quick straighening up, Fred stayed aboard to do a thorough boat wash and to connect power etc. Iris (together with Bob and K), took the Sheraton courtesy van to West Marine – Bob and K continued on to Walmart while Iris returned with her booty. As Fred opened the GPS box, he discovered that it had been returned (the prior purchaser’s receipt was in the box) and had possibly been installed. Iris called West Marine, but the manager didn’t know the history of the return. Fred did a quick trial to see if it worked using alligator clips – but we wouldn’t know if we had an issue until he did the install himself. Meanwhile, Iris logged on using the marina’s broadband connection, which unfortunately, only has a usable signal from the cockpit. At around 5:30 Frosty had another grand mal seizure while we were below. Valium then and pheno right before we left for dinner.

We headed out at 6:30 with Bob and K to find a place to eat. While we selected a spot that had a reasonably priced, interesting menu – the food was not up to par, nor was the service. Not one of our better selections. But we had a nice walk and caught up with our collective sea-stories. We made tentative plans for tomorrow – and have an invite to Rima for dinner along with Brian and Linda – another Valiant couple who live in the area.

An alarm (probably GPS lost fix) came on sometime in the middle of the night. Turning off a breaker solved the intrusion into a good night’s sleep. At 6:20, Frosty jumped onto the bed wanting food. Earlier Iris had heard sounds which sounded more like Frosty playing ball than Frosty seizing. But perhaps it was the latter as she was famished and friendly. In any case, Iris was up – and full of energy. By 8:30 she’d taken care of kitties, bought a newspaper, done a load of laundry, connected the cable tv and cleaned up adhesive residue from where we duct-taped openings for passage. By then Fred was up as well and we went to breakfast at the Sheraton. Post breakfast – we watched some of our Sunday morning news shows, read the Raleigh paper and started on projects: Fred installing the GPS while Iris worked on Windwalker website. We may explore New Bern with some of the local walking tour information with Bob and K. We’re thinking about staying here an extra day – it’s pleasant having access to the hotel facilities and after all – we have to get back into the serendipitous cruising behavior. While we’d like to get to the Newport, RI area by mid August – we have no other commitments besides a dr. apptmt in NYC on 9/18………….

By evening, we’d decided to spend another day – sightseeing and having Bob and K over to dinner tomorrow night.

Iris got up early and saw that the washer/dryer were free right before 7am. But before she could return with the laundry, someone else had gotten there first. We had a ‘date’ to meet Bob and K at 9am so that we could tour the Tryon Palace. Iris managed to get to the washing machine and dryer right at the end of each cycle and laundry was done around 9:10. Meanwhile, Bob was trying to arrange for delivery of a new cellphone – his had gone overboard on Windwalker while Iris was demonstrating our side-mounted swim ladder on Saturday. We all have fears of dropping something valuable (besides ourselves 😉 overboard! So we got going at 9:30. The Tryon Palace and several other 18th century homes comprise a Williamsburg-like collection of attractions. The Palace, originally the North Carolina Colonial Governor’s home, burned down in the 1800s, but was entirely rebuilt according to original plans and furnished with period appropriate furniture and fixtures. The city of New Bern played an active role in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. After an enjoyable tour, we traipsed over to Chelsea Cafe, a restaurant which had caught Bob’s eye a few days earlier. Lunch was fantastic! Afterwards, refreshed, we continued on our tour which included the New Bern Academy – a museum which was originally the site of the first public school in North Carolina. The museum included rooms on period architecture, military history, and educational history. Late in the afternoon we headed to the Galley Store – a newly-opened convenience store not too far from the marina. The store is trying to cater to cruisers – with additional fruits/vegetables, staples and frozen meats. Our needs were minor, but had we stayed longer, we would have purchased more.

We enjoyed Bob and K’s company aboard for dinner. Afterwards, we made plans for an 8:30 am departure. Next stop, we hoped, would be the vicinity of Belhaven, NC.

A bad beginning. We were ready to go at 6:30am but the engine wasn’t. Fred did a fuel transfer from one tank to the other yesterday. Related? We don’t know. He changed fuel filters, used all the techniques that in conjunction seemed to have worked lately and 2 hours later we were on our way. We were too late to make Daytona Beach – our target destination. And 4 years ago on this same stretch of ICW we had both engine difficulties and our alternator burn out the next day – so we had sour memories of St. Augustine or stopping at Palm Coast. But our first alternative was to get through the Bridge of Lions Bridge and then anchor in the southern anchorage. We made the bridge opening at 11 am (otherwise it would have been 1pm) and stopped for fuel at St. Augustine Municipal Marina. Worried about the engine, and seeing that the anchorage was very crowded, Fred also got us a slip for the night. We asked about further nights – Thursday would be ok, however 3 clubs were due in for the weekend.

After lunch, we walked to West Marine, (still in search of filters), stopping at Oyster Creek Marina to see if Caribbean Soul (Nick and Deanna who we’d met in Annapolis) was still there. Nope. But we were successful at West Marine and also stopped at a Winn Dixie for a few items and carried our stuff back to the boat. By now it was after 3, one of the museums we wanted to see would close at 4, and the last trolley tour was at 3:45. Let’s just walk. We explored many shops and streets that we hadn’t seen 4 years ago. Fred was quite taken with Faraway Places – an eclectic furnishings store. We both picked Columbia Restaurant (Cuban/Spanish cuisine) for dinner and enjoyed our meals. Back to Windwalker for wi-fi and cable. We’d hoped to get home in a few outside hops but the weather forecast was for very strong winds and even higher seas for the next several days. What to do?

Up at 4am for a Frosty seizure, then again at 5:10 to get ready to go. We left the marina at about 7:15 with help with the current and wind by a kind dockhand. We were almost run aground by a large motor yacht who had passed us. Fred was following him when the yacht made a hard left turn. Our depth sounder was beeping and the equally large boat behind us swerved to the left as well. All of us were out of the channel. That woke us up! The forecast was for gale force winds and seas of 12-15 feet outside with very rough conditions inside. No great anchorages near Daytona for gale conditions so we opted for a marina. Iris called Halifax Harbor Marina – the largest in the area. Sorry – can only take you one night, clubs coming in. That wasn’t going to work for us so Iris tried Daytona Marina and Boat Works and they could accomodate us for two nights and possibly more. We motored along, passing Bonnie Lass. Fred spoke with them saying he tried to contact them during the passage night. They said they had VHF difficulties.

We got to the marina channel at around 3. The marina staff directed us deep into the powerboat filled slips. A guy directed us to back in to a tiny space with unknown draft. Iris was ready to leave and made sure everyone knew it ;-). Fred attempted to get us into the slip and did, however it really was for about a 30′ boat, we did touch the ground and there was no way to tie us up securely for even mild conditions let alone the forecast conditions. We said this was unacceptable and the dockmaster went to see if we could tie up near the fuel-dock. We got tied side-to at what was a fairly exposed site, but seemed ok for northerly winds. We were right next to the outside deck of a beautiful Chart House restaurant. Several people had observed our docking drama and remarked to us later that they couldn’t understand why the staff was trying to put a sailboat in such an inappropriate place. Cable didn’t work – but Fred and one of the staff found a splitter and attached it. Nope that didn’t work. Iris followed the cable and found it wasn’t connected to anything. The dockmaster found the correct place and viola – we had cable. Wifi – not working properly. We saw a trawler we’d been behind in Port Royal during that storm, “Christmas”. They yelled as they passed us – “you’re pretty fast for a sailboat!” (Of course we’d done an overnight passage). We had an expensive but excellent dinner at the Chart House and returned to Windwalker to prepare psychologically for the blow.

Where’s the wind? Iris awoke Fred around 8:30 – and within a few minutes the wind started to kick up. We had a big breakfast. Then still worried about the engine, Fred tried starting it. It didn’t turn over, and then it wouldn’t fire. Fred finally got it started then changed the oil and filter and restarted it. This time it sounded good. The wind was getting stronger and stronger. Mid-afternoon, when we felt the boat was as secure as we could get it, we went for a walk, exploring West Marine at Halifax Harbor Marina, and then continuing on to Old Daytona Beach. The winds were extremely strong, there were wavelets on the ICW and it was difficult to walk. The Beach Road was closed in preparation for an Art Festival tomorrow. We saw the artists struggling with their shelters. Wow – this is going to be rough for an art exhibit. But – maybe we should stay an extra day and see it! We decided to spend another night, since the forecast wasn’t improving and we needed some diversion. Dinner aboard, with an evening ending with Battlestar Gallactica 😉

We’d seen a nice place to go for breakfast near the art festival. However we had chores we wanted to do as well and it was about 1/2 mi away – so Iris made a big breakfast instead. Fred started the engine, although it sounded bad. The winds were moving more to the east (not good for where we were tied up) and forecast to move even more southerly which would pin us to the dock. We were concerned. Mid-morning, we walked over to the Halifax Art Festival and saw a nice display of all kinds of media, and listened to a soft acoustic guitar group called Acousticon. After a couple of hours, we walked back and headed a little in the opposite direction – finding an old historic neighborhood as well as a 7/11 just up the street from the marina. Ice cream! Back at the boat we tried reading in the cockpit – but the 25 knot winds were blowing directly into the cockpit and it was cold! Dinner, showers, tv. We hope to get off early if we can get the engine started and can get off the dock. The forecast was still bleak.

Iris got up at 5:10 but neither of us slept well – we were both worried about the engine starting and the more southerly direction of the winds pinning us against the dock. Waves were crashing against the hull overnight – peaking at around 3am. Fred started the engine after turning it over some by hand to improve starting compression. Iris got the payment receipts from the dockmaster and told him that we might need some help with the lines. He came over and helped fend us off the dock as Fred manuevered against the wind. But we were off successfully at 7! All the other cruisers must have made the same decision to move today. Lots of boats (power and sail) were underway – including at least 4 powerboats from the same marina. Near Sebastian Inlet there were apparently some shallows. The water did get a bit thin, but we didn’t have any problems although we saw a sailboat ahead of us run aground. It wasn’t clear if he strayed from the channel, however. While it was windy, the chop wasn’t too bad on the ICW and the wind was mostly behind us. Since it was Sunday, all of the bridges we had to go under were unrestricted – so we pushed to clear all of them so as to not have any issues in the morning. We anchored immediately after the last bridge at around 3:15pm. About 20 minutes later another sailboat (Winsome) anchored a bit closer to shore. Other than that, we remained alone. There was enough chop to make it a little uncomfortable, but much better than we would have fared had we remained in the marina. We would have kicked ourselves if we hadn’t kept moving!

Iris called Vero Beach Marina to see if they took reservations for moorings. They did and she made one for tomorrow night. It would be another long day, but without bridges to delay us. We started listening to a book on CD after dinner.

Two dolphins poked their heads out of the water next to the boat and smiled at Fred as we raised anchor. We were on our way by 6:30, under power with just a bit of main out. Today was much more unpleasant than yesterday. The winds were stronger and more on the beam – which normally would make for good sailing – but the ICW channel is narrow enough here and with enough twists and turns that sailing would just increase our risk of running aground. So we endured the stiff breeze and the whitecaps. We were passed by several power boats but saw no cruising boats the entire day. This may be because they were stuck with the bridge restrictions. Dolphins continued to be everywhere, bringing a bright note to an otherwise very rainy day. The day was uneventful except for our approach to a high-rise bridge where a barge blocked most of the center span. As we approached a tug pushed another barge into the remaining room in the center and stopped. Now what? A power boat behind us asked what the guy was up to. The tug hailed us and told us to go to the span to our right. We let the power boat go ahead of us and made our way through the other span.

We picked up our mooring at 4:15. Almost immediately, a guy from the catamaran next to us (didn’t get his name or the boat’s name, unfortunately) dinghied over. He recognized Windwalker as a Valiant and said that he was from Lake Texoma (where they are made). While he and his wife were currently based in Destin, FL (west coast), they were going to have their boat shipped back to Texas after seasoning in the Bahamas – returning once again to Lake Texoma. He gave us the scoop on what was around and offered to dinghy us over to check in. But we wanted to explore and thanked him but declined. Between rain showers, we put the dinghy in the water, got our shower gear together and went in search of the dinghy dock. The moorings here are a bargain compared to other places in FL – total for the mooring plus 2 showers was $13.91! Looked like a great laundry room as well. No wonder so many cruisers hang out there for weeks at a time – often waiting for crossing weather to the Bahamas on a mooring. The mooring field was much smaller than we’d expected, however.

The only walkable restaurant was also dinghyable (is that a word?). The marina staff said it was easier to walk and so off we went in search of the place. A few wrong turns, but we found the Riverside Cafe under the bridge and had a pleasant dinner. Since we hadn’t planned on staying out so late, we didn’t have our dinghy running lights or a flashlight and made our way back to the boat in the dark. We had to decide whether or not we’d stay another day. If not, we wanted to get the dink back up on board for an early start. After deliberation – we just wanted to get ‘home’, so we put the dinghy and outboard back on board by the light of the nearby sports field. Our cellphone signal was great, and wi-fi for a fee was available, but we didn’t log on.

6:30 and on our way – following two sailboats ahead of us. We were motoring again, entertained by dolphins everywhere. We heard a bridge contractor say that the Indiantown Bridge (thus the ICW) would be closed …2:30. Did he say until 2:30? At 2:30? In order to blow up the old bridge. Then we heard other conversations about loading dynamite. Fred tried to reach the bridge contractor on channel 9 but we were too far away. We’d find out when we got there. As we negotiated the Ft. Pierce high-rise bridge the current was amazing and Fred used flying cross-wind techniques to get us under the span as Iris cringed because it looked like he was aiming for a pier instead. She of little faith… We approached the Indiantown Bridge and finally understood what was going on. They were loading dynamite and had the main span closed – diverting boats to a slightly lower span (except for a couple of sailboats who needed the center). We had to fit between two old supports from the old bridge (they claimed 45 feet but it looked more like 30 feet wide) and then go under the span. At 1:30 they were going to close the ICW with the explosion to be at 2:30 and the ICW re-open sometime thereafter. It was only 11am so we were free and clear. We continued on and anchored at Peck Lake, a spot we’d always wanted to stop at as a potential weekend destination, at around 12:30. Other than two derelict boats at anchor, and another off in the distance, we were alone. Unfortunately it was a gloomy day and we weren’t motivated to dinghy ashore and explore the beach or walk the short distance to the ocean. After some chores, and getting our dock lines together for tomorrow, we listened to the radio and the book on CD and ‘vegged out’ on our last day of the trip. A trawler entered the anchorage at dusk, took 3 tries to set their anchor but got a good set. We ran the generator a bit after dark.

A cat fight awoke Iris at 2:30. That, and anxieties about weather and mechanical problems of the last couple of weeks bummed us out and made for a sleepless remainder of the night. We planned on continuing to get up early because we can only get into our slip between 2 hours before or after the high tide and high was at 11. We still were about 2.5 or 3 hours from there depending on the 4 bridge schedules ahead of us. We had a nice sit-down breakfast – our last of this segment of the trip. Fred went to start the engine at 6:30 and it didn’t start. Worse, it looked like we had water in the engine – similar to the anti-siphon issue we had back in Salt Pond, Virgin Islands 6 years ago. It was hard to rotate and Fred could clearly hear water moving into the muffler. We were both beside ourselves – we’re so close. Are we going to have to get towed home? But Fred got it purged and some modicum of compression going and the engine started and we were on our way at 7:30 – well within our margin of tide opportunity. We’ve had a bad impression of a couple of the northern Palm Beach County bridge-tenders and this time was no exception. The 707 bridge operator opened for power boats right away, but when we showed up, made us wait. At least current wasn’t driving us into the bridge. About half an hour later we made our turn into our dock with the winds making it difficult to turn Windwalker around. But Fred had everything under control as we approached our pilings. Iris had trouble lassooing her piling, but got a line around it. Fred got his piling and we were stopped. A bit more machinations and help by Jacquie, the homeowner, on shore and we were secure. She kindly gave us a ride to get our car and we returned to start unloading perishables, etc.

Rather than feeling accomplishment and elated at the end of phase 1 of this trip, we felt tired and dejected. The engine problems and weather issues of the last couple of weeks both played a part. But hot showers and a little rest improved our perspective and moods. We’d covered a lot of miles and packed a lot into these almost 4 months!

Projects before heading to the Bahamas in late winter include work on the engine, head, watermaker, brightwork, dodger, upholstery and probably a survey and hunt for an insurer that covers the Bahamas. Insurance issues redux….
**************This will be the last entry until we resume the log in phase 2 of the trip *********************

We’d been bringing stuff to Windwalker for what seemed like days. Refrigerated food is always the last to come aboard. So after scurrying around town completing last minute chores, we left our home around 3:30pm with the last of our cold stuff and quickly stowed everything aboard. Ran the fridge and freezer (always separately), using a laser thermometer to check the plate temperatures since the gauges were reading high.

We’re transitioning to the boat – no going back! All packed and ready to go. But let’s go out to eat first. So we headed to Outback, had a nice dinner, visited with some dock neighbors and went to bed early. Tomorrow we leave the dock – that’s the plan and we’re sticking to it!

Up at around 7am after a sleepless night. We had a quick breakfast, decided which lines to leave at the slip and which to take, unplugged the power and left our slip in time to make the 9:30am PGA Blvd Bridge opening. What’s this we hear? A sailboat called Tamure is calling the Donald Ross Bridge. Sure sounds like Kitty of the Valiant 40 Tamure. Scott and Kitty, 2 time circumnavigators had shared some adventures with us in the past and often come to the West Palm Beach area. We confirmed by radio that it was ‘our’ Tamure just after going through the Parker Bridge (and they the PGA Blvd Bridge). We said we’d touch base by phone later.

We were headed to the northern part of Lake Worth, the Old Port Cove anchorage, to do some last checks on both the dinghy outboard and for Fred to do a more thorough bottom-of-the-hull scrubbing. The dinghy outboard worked smoothly after an overhaul by Fred a couple of weeks earlier. We had lunch and decided to go for a short ocean trial to check out the wind/wave conditions and see if they matched the forecast. Raising anchor, the chain jammed on the windlass. Iris went below to the v-berth to free the ‘chain castle’ that had formed in the chain locker, and completed stowing the anchor. (For the remainder of our trip, Fred would bring in the chain to about 30′ remaining in the water, while Iris flaked the chain below, and then she would come up to the bow and finish. For future trips, we need to re-flake all of the chain differently, or better yet – remove the nylon rode from our other anchor and stow it elsewhere – freeing up the entire chain locker).

Conditions out the inlet looked viable. We came back in and anchored at our usual spot south of the inlet. We re-checked the weather and decided that it’s a ‘go’ for tomorrow morning. Iris made reservations at Old Bahama Bay marina for the following evening. We called Tamure to see if they were available for dinner, but they were further down in WPB and were not heading to the Bahamas – we’ll see them again when next they’re in our area! Iris called her mother, sent out a float plan note. A last check of email; an e-book we’d been waiting for was ready for check out! Yeah! Book 5 in the Game of Thrones series! Iris downloaded to both of our tablets. It was the final sign that it was time to go! 😉

We had a nice dinner in the cockpit. It was cool, we had a full-moon, we’d prepped for ‘passage’ with jacklines installed, safety equipment readied(harness/life jackets) and ditch-bag loaded. We plan for a day-time crossing so will get up at 4:30am.

The alarm was set for 4:30 but Iris got up at 4. The anchorage had been very calm, but the boom groaned all night keeping her awake. We raised anchor – oops – another chain castle to clear. We finished messing with the anchor at 5:15am and were out the inlet at 5:30 – on our way!

We had ENE winds and seas of 2-4′ with an occasional 5 – just as forecasted. We motor-sailed and it was probably one of our best gulf-stream crossings wave-wise. Enroute we saw the Bahamas Celebration plus about 5 freighters, 2 tug&tows, all identifiable via the AIS on our VHF radio. It was great to be able to see the CPA (closest point of approach), TCPA (time to closest point of approach), bearing, heading etc. It made it easy to identify whether or not the traffic was a factor and how to avoid it, if necessary.

When we saw some birds mid-way through the stream it was time to do some fishing. Iris got a hit pretty soon afterwards and reeled a 4-5lb. fish that looked tuna-like but wasn’t familiar to us. It had a large eye, but didn’t look like a jack. We should have taken a picture of it, but instead just released it right away. We wanted dolphin but it was not to be. The seas got choppier soon after and Iris gave up on her fishing effort.

We docked at Old Bahama Bay at around 3:30 with help from the attendant (slip c18). Fred went to deal with Customs/Immigration and to check us into the marina while Iris closed the float plan via email (using free wifi) and texted via gsm roaming on her phone. The marina required that we pay for water, so we hosed off the salt-encrusted boat. Then we took showers to hose off the salt-encrusted crew 😉 We had dinner at the marina restaurant (so-so) and then took a walk about the marina grounds, stopping to chat with a couple on a large trawler who had just made a crossing as well. Two of the sailboats near us were clearly west-bound. Our plans were to head east via the Indian Cay channel in the morning.

Iris got up at 2am to adjust one of the fenders when she heard rubbing noises of the boat against the dock. We got up at 6 and left by 7:15 (according to Fred) or 8:15 (according to Iris). The sailboat in the slip next to us, Zube, was also going to go via Indian Cay Channel. He was going to leave about 30 minutes later to make more of the tide assistance needed for this shallow route.

One of our new ‘aids’ to navigation was an android tablet app called Marine Navigator, coupled with downloaded versions of all of the charts in the must-have Steve Dodge’s “The Cruising Guide to Abaco Bahamas 2013”. We’d downloaded both a couple of nights before leaving since we were concerned that our ‘vintage’ 1999 Raymarine chart-plotter was becoming flaky. (The tablet/app/chart combination became an integral part of our routine for the rest of the trip whenever entering/departing harbours or anchorages and when our chartplotter decided to reboot arbitrarily.) Just as we were heading to the Indian Cay channel, we powered on the tablet and its gps and turned on the app – it made going through the channel simple and we never saw less than 7′ of water.

The seas on the banks were very uncomfortable with the wind ‘on our nose’. Our clean boat was once again salt-laden. We anchored around 1:30pm. Two other (probably west-bound) boat were already in the anchorage. We could see Zube continued on towards Great Sale Cay. After lunch – the afternoon was ours! We read. Iris swam on the anchor, which was set very well. There was a continuous 1 knot of current and we experienced the wind against current situation in which the wind comes across the beam and makes for much more wind in the cockpit, as well as unusual behavior with respect to the anchor. After dinner, we ran the water-maker. The salinity reading was 438ppm when we started to put it in our tanks and around 384ppm after 30 minutes. Higher than Iris likes, but she’d get used to higher yet 😉

The night was a quiet one, except for our howling mast. The mast slot (for in-mast furling) acts like a flute when the wind angle and speed is ‘just-right’. So our boat sang all night – including making chord-like noises. We got underway at 7:15am while the other two boats headed west-ward. It was another very choppy day with unfavorable winds, forcing us to motor once again. Based on the wind direction, we checked out an anchorage on the NW side of Great Sale Cay, but it was apparent that the waves were whipping around the northern point of the island. We opted instead to go to our tried and true anchorage inside, in great holding in sand at 1:10pm. Lunch, a lazy afternoon reading in the cockpit, a quick swim on the anchor and joy baths – all with the anchorage to ourselves. Alas, it wasn’t to be for long as a Canadian pilot-house sailboat came in and anchored. More boats arrived later in the evening. Still – it was calm, there was no current and the afternoon was beautiful.

Iris broke a plastic peg for the shower handle. Minor issue. This was followed by a more major issue later in the evening. When it was time for our generator run, Fred determined that our generator starter battery was dead. He used jumper cables to jump-start the generator from the house-bank of batteries. He’d noticed that the battery was down a day or so prior to leaving but thought it was just from lack of use. Unfortunately, not the case. Fred was starting to get concerned that the voltage on the house bank wasn’t looking to healthy either.
Watermaker salinity 435ppm at 5 minutes/354ppm after 30 minutes.

Iris got up at 4am to the singing of the mast, but was able to fall asleep and awoke again at 6. The other boats in the anchorage had already left or were underway, all west-bound. We left Great Sale at 7:30 and after our first way point, were ready to finally do some sailing in more favorable conditions. Iris was unable to unfurl the main; the switch would only turn the sail in one (the wrong) direction. She took the helm while Fred manually rotated the furler to get out the main. We motor-sailed and then sailed until around 10:45. Iris was eager to make contact with her mother and as we approached Foxtown, Little Abaco, we were in sight of two cell-towers. She sent out two text messages and also left a phone message for her mother. This was again gsm roaming on Sprint on her Motorola Xprt. (more details on phone coverage to come)

Waves picked up as we headed east. This was our choppiest day yet – with SE winds 15-20 knots. Our new instruments give us true wind speed/direction as well as apparent wind speed/direction – another welcome addition to our onboard data. We decided to head for Allans-Pensacola. We’ve had mixed experiences there with holding in the past. We pulled out our Dodge charts/tablet combo and used it to assist in picking a good spot. Our anchor got a good set on first try at around 3pm. We were the only boat there but anticipated that would change. We have cell-phone coverage (and can see Foxtown about 10 mi away). Perhaps we’ll stay a couple of days. Another boat came in late in the afternoon – No Hurry out of NC. They dinghied by later and we discussed the weather and plans briefly. It looked like significant rain to the west. We stayed aboard and read in the cockpit, instead of putting the dinghy in the water. Dinner in the cockpit, serenaded by the mast. Iris asked Fred to insert the slot-cover that usually stops the racket, but it didn’t work. Only solution – less wind! Fred jump-started the generator once again to get our evening run going.

Watermaker saility 412ppm at 5 minutes/361ppm at 25 minutes.

It was a windy night with winds from the SE. Iris got up at 5, thinking that it was later and went back to bed. Over breakfast, we discussed what to do next. If we stayed, we’d have to run (read ‘jump-start’) the generator for refrigeration. What if we put the dinghy/outboard down and did a quick shore trip and then head out? Fred was concerned that we were could be experiencing failure in our main battery bank too and so he was reluctant to keep jump-starting the generator That required that we get to somewhere where we could purchase a generator battery. Decision made – let’s just leave and come back here on our return trip. We departed the anchorage at 8:45 headed ‘south’ – with the usual wind mostly on the nose and scattered showers. But the main-sail furler was working and we raised the main as well. We heard Zube and another sailboat hail marinas at Green Turtle Cay. We could no longer get VHF weather from the US and were too far from Marsh Harbour to get weather and Whale Cay passage information from the daily 8:15am channel 68 net. Nor did we hear anyone discussing what the sometimes impassable Whale Cay passage looked like.

While we’d hoped to stop in Green Turtle (White Sound) on our way, our battery situation now made it more important to get to Marsh Harbour. We decided to head for the Whale Cay passage and try it. The worst that could happen is that we turn around if it was impassable. The ocean swells were 4-6′ but otherwise, the passage was ok. Just as we got through the Loggerhead Channel, it started to pour. Iris had worked hard on water-proofing the bimini – but it failed in short-order giving us a very wet ride. We ran the refrigeration prior to entering the harbour, so that we wouldn’t require the generator in the evening. As we entered the Marsh Harbour anchorage, we saw what looked like a Valiant 42 called Caneel from Ft. Worth, TX. It was a very pretty boat and as we were to find out several days later, was a Valiant 50! We anchored at around 4:45pm. Holding in Marsh Harbour is always excellent and this time was no exception.

We put the dinghy/outboard in the water and had dinner below. It was a very quiet evening with no wind. Iris – the internet junkie, quickly signed up for a week of Bahamas Wimax coverage (Bahamas Wimax) and we surfed the net to check email and weather and news. Our connection was iffy and although we had several hot-spot choices, we had to continously re-connect. But it was a major improvement since we’d last been here in 2003!