Sunday, May 8

Waccamaw River, SC to Mile Hammock Bay, NC

We hauled anchor at 6:30 ready to make tracks north. For an hour we made good time, and then we slowed down drastically. There are so many new homes on the ICW with docks and boats and huge "No Wake" signs that we could only go at half speed or less for the next four hours. It wasn't until about 3 in the afternoon that we could move quickly, and we were forever dodging lots of small family speedboats out for their Sunday fun. I have never seen so many boats! Peter jokes that all these people build houses on the waterway to have that wonderful water view and a boat, and then complain about all the boats driving past THEIR house.

We are now so far behind schedule that we are working on alternative plans. If we can get to Annapolis Wednesday or Thursday I'll leave the boat and Peter, and he'll come up a few days later. And I guess we won't get the boat to NJ until after Memorial Day.

Peter and I spoke with his mother today, and she does not sound well. I don't think we have the luxury of dallying.

We dropped anchor in the only tenable anchorage for 20 miles, at Mile Hammock Bay, NC, and we got here at 7:20. Almost 13 hours of motoring today. And we will have to do the same the next two days if we want to have any hope at all of reaching Annapolis by Wednesday or Thursday.

Pah!

Monday, May 9

Mile Hammock Bay, NC to somewhere on the Alligator River, NC

If yesterday seemed like a long, hard slog, today was even more so! We started to haul anchor at 6 am, but didn't get under way until 6:20 because the mud on the anchor chain and rode was so bad that we had to wash it down before it went into the chain locker. The washdown pump was useless - there was practically no water pressure at all - it came in little spurts which did nothing. So back to the old bucket over the bow - that's a slow way to clean all that chain and rope. But it was done, and off we went.

The day went quickly, we moved very fast. There were very few "no wake" zones on this stretch of the ICW so we could move at close to top speed most of the day. I think this is the only stretch of the ICW where we will find that. It helped that it wasn't very windy and we didn't have long waits for bridges to open for us. There are very few houses on this stretch of the ICW, it seems quite desolate in places. We dropped anchor at 7:10 pm and we're both tired.

High on my list of things to buy is a fly swatter. Watching the bugs fly around in here and not be able to kill them is frustrating. And itchy.

And a garlic press.

And a proper cheese grater.

We're getting rid of the coffee maker and blender. Probably get rid of the toaster, too. They require that we run the generator, and I'm not very enthusiastic about that.