From The trip North

Well we did make it out of Florida; we're in Virginia now as of tonight, at a free dock- woohoo! We've only got 12 miles left of the ICW and then we'll be in Norfolk. When we usually pass this area in the Fall headed South, these docks are packed with other cruising boats. Now the docks are almost empty and we've got plenty of room to tie up.

We had a good passage from Cape Canaveral to Beaufort inlet except that we had to motor the whole way, dodging a few thunderstorms. After every storm, we'd get a North wind and the Gulf Stream gets so rough so fast in North winds. It really stresses us out. But we did make fantastic time in the current so it wasn't all bad. The weather wasn't right to keep going as we'd planned so we pulled into the Beaufort, NC inlet so that we could keep moving in the waterway. We spotted our friends on Pendragon anchored near the inlet but since it was 630am, there didn't seem to be anyone up yet so we kept pushing onward to the sleepy little NC town of Belhaven. We took a nice walk the next morning since that is about all you can do there and then continued onward. Last night we anchored in the Little Alligator River after an afternoon of powerful thunderstorms. By the time we anchored, everything was calm and quiet and we sat out on deck with our sundowner and watched the sunset in perfect peace and quiet. It was so beautiful. Like Jon says, cruising is full of 1's and 10's. One minute you're scared for your life in heavy seas or a lightening storm and it's a 1; the next minute you're relaxing with great cruising friends or are anchored watching a gorgeous sunset and it's a 10. There aren't many 5's.

Today we continued on to Great Bridge, VA. Took a nice walk, chatted with another cruiser on the dock and went out to dinner. Now we're pretty sure we're going to be stuck waiting for weather to make the last passage to Boston. Heavy North winds are predicted the next few days. Not great timing for my work start date next Monday! But what can you do when you move at 6 mph?! We'll try our best.

We've really enjoyed the intracoastal waterway these past few days. The birds and scenery are wonderful. It's fun to see our tax dollars at work too- the way its all so well laid out and maintained and the way the bridges lift for us to pass- its great! We keep saying that we could easily spend a season just doing our favorite parts of the waterway, working our way South at a leisurely pace instead of rushing through fighting the cold as we usually do in October. The problem with us is that we have too many places we want to go! I think we should do far away ports now though, while we can and save this stuff for later, but we'll see.

We're going through a little bit of diving withdrawals, especially in this brown waterway water. No great underwater pictures to post either. Well, hopefully it won't be long before we can get out our dive gear again. In the meantime, we've got the waterway smile!