From Trip South Fall 2011
I guess I've been slacking on the blog lately, leaving out the details of our oh so exciting life right now! The days we spent in the waterway between Norfolk & Beaufort were actually really nice. We had great weather with persistent northeast winds which made crossing all of the sounds really pleasant- following seas and the jib out a lot of the time. Going this way saves you from having to go around Cape Hatteras and there was a storm/gale offshore the whole time we were making miles in the waterway. Aside from the occasional tug & barge, it is all cruising boats in a long line accompanied by a lot of radio chatter. We stopped in Belhaven and rafted up to Frank- a great friend who we met on our first cruise to the Bahamas in 1997. Since his slip didn't have deep enough water for our keel, he came out a little ways and rafted to us so we could hang out. It was a perfectly calm evening and it was nice to be aboard his spacious trawler. We hope to meet up again in Florida since he's heading to the Bahamas for the winter.

The next morning we got him up very early so we could get going on to Beaufort. We've started seeing pelicans, dolphin and more seabirds. Some of the spoil islands from dredging have deer & goats on them. We've also seen a fair number of hunting dogs.

In Beaufort we walked our favorite streets & trails, got some great buffalo wings (we were craving them) one night with Tim & Nathan on Slick who we're still traveling with, and we did some errands to reprovision. We also fixed a few things on the boat. The heater needed a new part, a fuel filter needed changing, I had to haul Jon up the mast to remove a fitting that was chafing and we installed a new wire for our SSB hoping it will improve our signal- so far it seems much better.

Friday, we were to head off to Charleston but the weather changed and so we did another day in the waterway to keep moving and that also gets us around another huge shoal called Frying Pan Shoal. This one extends some 10 miles and you have to go out and around it if you're going to Charleston, which we have to do since the weather window is too short to keep going. We anchored at camp Lejeune which is a marine training camp, where years ago on the first cruise, they were doing a serious night training firing things and setting off flares and our cat was so scared she almost jumped ship! The anchorage was filled with boats since there isn't any other place to stop at that point in the waterway.
Then today, we continued on 50 miles further to near Cape Fear where we hope to head out tomorrow for an overnight to Charleston. This stretch we did today along Myrtle Beach area is so gorgeous- the dunes are so white, the water bright green, soft grasses and loads of seabirds. The sun is most welcome since the air temp is in the 50's- much lower at night. We got in early enough to Carolina Beach to walk on the beach, get some boiled peanuts, and then we headed over for sundowner hour to a boat we met today underway, Osprey.

So, that's the update.