Day 6: On the "Inside"
27 October 2011 | Intracostal Waterway - VA into NC
Cool sunrise with a slight SW breeze - waiting for the sun to warm things up a bit

Nautical Miles Travelled: 15
Total Miles Traveled: 395
We didn't want anyone to think we'd fallen off of the face of the Earth (yet)...we just got sidetracked between Day 2 and Day 6 with windy, wavy overnight sailing, tankers, dredgers, Navy ships and a liesurely start down the the ICW - we'll try to fill in those gabs later today/tonight, but for now, here's the lastest on our adventure down the East Coast:
So we jumped into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) yesterday around 2 PM, leaving from Norflok, VA. Our plan was to get as far into the ICW as possible before night fell. We opted to take the faster, more popular route "The Virginia Cut" which follows the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal for 50 miles. The ICW is a weird place...you're pretty much driving through a swamp that's been dredged so large ships can traverse "inside". Strangely enough, it is a beautiful place all the same. The key to navigating the canal/swamp is to time your travel with the numerous bridges and locks. We've already been through 12 bridges and 1 lock and have many many more to get through, actually as I write this we're heading towards bridge no 13 - the Pungo Ferry Bridge, which is a 65' fixed bridge. While that sounds like smooth sailing, we barely cleared an earlier 65' bridge I think due to higher than normal tides...it is a very scary thing to see your antennae 6" from the bottom of a steel bridge.
Anwyay, life on the ICW is slow, but we've already met some nice fellow travelers even a few catamarans! Paul a naval officer and his family headed out with us on their 38' Lagoon at 5:45 AM today in order to sneak through one of the bridges that closes for rush hour from 6-8 AM. We saw another FP Lavezzi 40, a sport fisher from Quincy, MA and a 85' house boat from Newport, RI...Guess we're not the only ones avioding the first snowfall in NE!
The sun rose about an hour ago and now we're just waiting for it to warm up the day (yesterday I was in shorts and a tank top!); there is cooler weather predicted due to some heavy weather east of Hatteras, don't worry though, we're on the "inside".
We'll try to post some of the gaps between our first stop in Long Island and Norfolk soon. (BTW - we just cleared bridge no. 13 @ 64')