A lot of water has gone under ZT?? s keels since we last visited. I was on the mid watch sailing out of Charleston on a very hot night. We arrived at Sea Path Marina in Wrightsville Beach, NC about 1500 very tired but happy to have covered about 130 nautical miles. We lost one crew member, our ex-nuke submariner Skip Orser. He was brought down by grand kid disease�..a malady which all grand parents are subject to.
In any case we had a great dinner at the South Beach Caf� followed by real old fashioned ice cream custard next door.

Up before the sun the next day for a long motorsail up the ICW to Moorhead City. Coastal North Carolina is full of beautiful homes and bucolic scenery. We were followed by thunderstorms all day and finally just about an hour out of Moorhead city we were caught and got a thorough soaking.

Moorhead City was a fascinating stop. If you ever get there be sure to eat at the ?Sanitary Seafood� restaurant. They are famous for their hush puppies which are indeed pretty darn good. Of particular interest was the fired tomatoes stuffed with shrimp, crab, and boursin cheese!

Another early day to motor up to Bellhaven, way up in the backwaters of the marshes behind Cape Hatterras. The girls and Billy borrowed the curtsey van for a quick run into the store to replenish diet coke, while I replaced another impeller on the port water pump. Our dinner that night was in an anti-bellum mansion belonging to the marina. It was quite a night however, as there was a monthly meeting of the Bellhaven Dinner Club that was using up all the inn?? s service folks, and our dining room waitress was on her first night. The manager told us that our only chance of eating was to order the fried chicken, which we did, and were glad we did. The chef brought us a basket of his famous oyster hush puppies to keep us from starving. We were lucky, one couple with a two year old had preceded us into the dinning room didn?? t get their meals until we were about to leave. It seems their order was lost in all the confusion. Any way, we were happy to get fed. Watched another episode of Hornblower, and crashed.

Again up before the sun, on the water by 0630. Up the ICW to the Pamlico Sound we ran into a Saturday morning sailboat race out of Oriental, NC. Naturally, we joined in and left the mono slugs in our wake as we made our way to the Albemarle Sound and finally up the Virginia Cut to Coinjock, pronounced cognac. The Coinjock Marina has the best restaurant on the ICW, bar non. It is hard to get to by land, but judging from all the ships plaques and T shirts on the walls everyone on the water plans to stop there going up and down the waterway..

Finally, our last day was fairly short from Coinjock to Norfolk. We pulled into the Waterside Marina about 1500, cleaned a weeks worth of salt and grunge off the boat and had a great end of cruise dinner at Fish 456 on Granby St. in Norfolk?? s redeveloped downtown.

The Phillips left us here to return home to Florida to get ready for their annual trek to Annapolis for the Fall football season. We will catch up with them in October.

On Wednesday we discovered a new problem with the port engine which is going to keep us here for a while, but making the best of it we have had a fun time in Norfolk visiting with Steve and Nancy Collins. Steve was my RIO while flying the F4 in VF154 in Ranger. He is now retired and working for the government and his kids are in college!

We visited the USS Wisconsin BB 64, the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, and the Macarthur Foundation museum as well. Tomorrow we will pay a visit to historic Portsmouth, so we have not been wasting time.

Over the weekend we drove to Annapolis to visit the Eastport Yacht Club and attend a family day party at our great friends, Betsi and Kevin Delaney. The are sponsoring Chris and Janet Hale?? s son Jack who is a handsome plebe at the US Naval Academy. It was a great family gathering with the entire Hale clan in attendance as well as another USAirways friend whose son is a classmate of Jack.

On Sunday we drove back to Norfolk via the Eastern Shore of the Delmarva Peninsula, a much prettier and less hectic trip than going up through Virginia on I 95. We stopped at the Miles River Yacht Club in St. Michael?? s, another potential host club for our turn around the Chessy which will start with our return to Norfolk next month.

This evening we attended a wedding right here at the Waterside Marina. A couple got hitched on their boat with all of us friendly dock mates as witnesses. We drank champagne and had a piece of wedding cake before dinner. You really meet the nicest folks on the water.

Well, that about brings us up to date. Tomorrow we finish up the maintenance and will head to Austin on Wednesday or Thursday for a two week rest and some family time. It has been so cool here that we have had the air conditioning off quite a bit. Hopefully we will bring the cool weather with us back to Texas. We are all looking forward to Fall weather and football.

By the way, I have upgraded my blog and now you will see links over to the right to interesting websites that I have found and a gallery of pictures of our adventures. Also, I believe if you click on the RSS link you can have my blogs sent to you automatically when they are posted. Please enjoy.