5/7-5/11

May 7-8
Our final stretch up the Chesapeake Bay! It was nice to be back in home waters!
We left Portsmouth, headed north,  and turned in at Deltaville.  Anchored in Jackson Creek. Next day was very windy and gusty.  We stayed put and took a hike and went out to lunch. Fellow cruisers here, Bonnie and Phil on Windaway and Jill and Richard on Jill Christy, also took a lay day so we had company.

May 9
Had a long day to Solomons Island- 64 miles.  Set the hook in Mill Creek. It was cold and rainy on the Bay!

Had to find long pants and jackets and even hats!

May 10
On up to Annapolis!  When we pulled into the mooring field, we knew 6 cruising boats!  Had a group dinner at McGarveys and of course, some oyster shooters!

Sky clearing!

With our fellow cruisers in Annapolis for a celebratory dinner

May 11
This was our last day of the trip!  Motored the short distance to Rock Hall  and tied up in our slip!  A second wonderful adventure south!

Pepromenon returning to Spring Cove Marina in Rock Hall.

4/26- 5/6 North Carolina to Portsmouth, VA

April 26-27
From the Calabash River, we motored up to Southport, NC. Beautiful water and sand dunes, with lots of tough, shoaled inlets. And, of course, the dolphins, which disappear whenever the camera comes out!  We spent 2 days here and visited with Liz and Ray, who we had spent time with in Marathon, FL when they rented a house nearby. They have a beach house here in Oak Island, NC. Liz and Ray had us to dinner, allowed us to do laundry, and use their car to reprovision.  It was a wonderful time off the boat for a break!

NC inlet

Bob with Liz and Ray.  You can see the ocean and the ICW from this porch!

April 28

We put in a long day, timing our travel up the Cape Fear River to go with the strong current. Anchored in the basin at Camp LeJune and listened to the helicopters coming and going.

April 29-30

We decided return to Beaufort. Love this place! Great restaurants and walking from the city docks! We met 2 other Island Packet 31 owners. And we were invited to Happy Hour on Sovereignty, a 36 Kadey Krogen Manatee. Bob says this will be his next boat! We are always excited if we time our stay coincides with a Farmer's Market.  There was a great one Sat. morning and we stocked up on fresh produce and bread.

Island Packet sailboats with Kadey Krogen in background.

While in Beaufort, we took a 15 minute bus ride over to nearby Morehead City.  Carol's grandparents liked to stop at The Sanitary Restaurant and Fish Market on their way south.  This place opened in 1938 and was still going strong today.  Inland and offshore fish were the specialty.

The bar at the Sanitary Restaurant

Bob shucking his peck of oysters.

May 1

We crossed the Pamlico Sound and Neuse River and anchored Campbell Creek.

May 2

Onto the Pongo River, Pongo-Alligator Canal, and Alligator River 68 miles to our anchorage on the Little Alligator River.

The landscape along the canal seemed like scenery out of a horror movie

May 3
We woke up to a wicked rain and thunderstorm.  Then, at 10am, we saw a window to cross the Albemarle Sound and took it.  We were very lucky to get up this sound in SW wind. Back to the Dismal Swamp route. We ended up at Goat Island. This was one of our prettiest anchorages and we were serenaded by bullfrogs all night!

May 4
Started through the Dismal Swamp and the first lock. We tied up at the Visitor Center dock along with 9 other northbound cruising boats. We put together a cookout and enjoyed meeting our fellow travelers. One boat was doing the Great Loop, another was from our homeport, 2 were full-time live-aboards.

Free dock at Dismal Swamp State Park visitor center with boats rafted up.

Captains grilling our dinner

Our group of cruisers

May 5-6

Finished out the Dismal Swamp and docked at the ferry basin in Portsmouth, VA. Rain and north wind kept us here. Flooding at the dock was 2-3 feet deep at high tide! 

The free dock at the base of the main street in Portsmouth

We took the ferry over to Norfolk and explored the area.

Portsmouth- Norfolk ferry

At the Naval Museum is docked the Battleship USS Wisconsin- massive!  Couldn't even fit the entire boat in a picture!

4/12- 4/25 St Augustine through Georgia and South Carolina

Headed up the ICW!

April 12
Along with our buddy boat, David and Cherie on Blue Sky, we left St Augustine and traveled 62 miles up to Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island.

Cherie and David on Blue Sky.  We will travel north on the ICW to the Chesapeake together.

We planned to stay just 1 night, but Mother Nature surprised us!  We stayed 4 nights due to heavy north wind- consistently 25-35 knots.  We got to explore this quaint village and try some restaurants and hear some good music. Even toured a distillery. Kings Bay Submarine Base is close by and this Navy gun boat pulled up on the dock one day.  They were uncovering and prepping their machine guns to go out to the inlet to escort a nuclear sub in!

Fernandina also has a paper mill that makes cardboard boxes and cellulose from pine trees.

Trucks with Georgia pine trees headed to the mill.

April 16
We tried to head north, but we were pounding into waves.  So, we stopped at Sea Camp on Cumberland Island, Georgia, just 6 miles north.  This 17 mile long island is a National Park. There we went ashore and took a tour with the park ranger and learned about the island.

Park Ranger

Ruins of Carnegie estate

Live Oak Lane

Wild horses on the island

The Carnegies settled there and eventually donated the island to the park service. Now you can hike and backpack and bike.  Only way to get there is by boat- a ferry or in our case, our boat.

April 17
It was still windy, but we covered 15 miles to stage our next day crossing of St Andrews Sound.

April 18
Finally calm winds! Georgia is a winding trail on the ICW and mostly salt marshes. Made it to Back River. Georgia has the best sunrises and sunsets!

April 19
Woke up to dolphins and pelicans working the anchorage.  It was a glorious day, so we decided to "go outside" (sailors term for sailing in the ocean). Headed out the Sapelo Inlet.  All was good, until we hit a sandbar, we bumped hard!  Bob managed to get us off, but Blue Sky was hard aground.  Unfortunately they had to wait aboard 6 hours for high tide for a tow boat to safely pull them off. And this was in waves on the beam!  Anchored in Wapoo Creek. And a stiff drink!

April 20
Had a 25 mile run and got to Hellgate (a shallow cut) at low tide.  So, we anchored in Redbird Creek.

April 21
Ran through Hellgate at high tide- easy!  Then, on a great run with the tide, we went 71 miles to Beaufort, SC. Had dinner out in the town- shrimp of course! So many shrimp boats!

April 22
On to Church Creek.

April 23
Still winding around- made it to Awendaw Creek.

April 24
Motor sailed to Georgetown, SC and stayed at a marina to walk around town and have more shrimp!

April 25
Up the Wacamaw River.  There are cypress trees growing in the water. Scenery changing!

Going along, Carol spied a lizard on our boat deck.  It was hysterical to watch Bob chase this thing all over!  The lizard ended up in the river!   Guess the little guy stowed aboard while we were docked the night before. Passed through Myrtle Beach and stayed in Calabash Creek.

3/30- 4/11 Up the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon to St Augustine

March 30
We left Vero Beach and travelled up the Indian River to Melbourne, anchored at Palm Isle.

March 31
Continued up the Indian River and stopped in Cocoa Beach to have lunch with Holly and Jack.  Holly and Bob used to work together in the lab. They spend the winter on Merritt Island. We continued on to Titusville. It was a clear day and you could see the Cape Canaveral Space Center and an orange rocket being readied for launch. Unfortunately we did not have the perfect timing to see the launch. Had a great sail with the jib!

April 1
Another jib day! Moved onto Mosquito Lagoon. We anchored at the prettiest anchorage ( we think) on the ICW- Rockhouse Creek at Ponce Inlet.  Beautiful water at the inlets with lots of dolphins! We dinghied over to "disappearing Island" and walked on the sandbars and dunes. This is a popular place!  People camp out here on the weekends and bring their supplies by boat- tents, chairs, games, even tiki huts!

Carol walking the sandbar.  Ponce lighthouse in the background.

April 2-3
Checked into the New Smyrna Beach Marina. We were able to walk to the historic Canal Street.  And our timing was great- went to the farmers market, then the beer pub crawl. Next day we dug out our bikes and rode over to the beach.  It was a drive-on beach, packed with cars.

New Smyrna Beach

Entrance for cars

 We rode our bikes 15 miles that day, mostly by the water's edge! Very firm sand.

April 4
A short day to Daytona.  So we decided to go ashore.  It was very disappointing, rather rundown and lots of shady characters.

April 5-6
Spent the night at Marineland Marina. We walked on the natural rocky beach. Coming off the dock the next morning Bob noticed we had no propulsion! Quickly dropped the anchor! Got our first tow from TowBoat US back to the dock. The throttle cable had snapped!  We were lucky it happened where it did! Bob took a taxi to town, came back with a new one, and installed it!

April 6-11
Ahhh, back to St Augustine!  The mooring field is in the downtown historic district.

Mooring field with Bridge of Lions in background

Waterfront view from our boat

The Fort- canon firing

 We can walk everywhere!  Went toured the San Sebastian Winery, took the informative trolley ride, walked the fort, and ate a lot!

Bob's burger at Harrys Grill

Saw a great 9 member band at The Vault, in The Treasury Building.

Toured El Galeon- a replica of a 1700's Spanish merchant ship

We did our annual teak maintenance with a topcoat.
Our friends from Rock Hall, David and Cherie came in.  We will buddy boat north with them.
Also ran into friends from our homeport and had a delicious lasagna dinner aboard Blue Heaven.

Where can you to to dinner barefoot? Here we are with Al and Arlene on Blue Heaven, David and Cherie on Blue Sky and Ron and Maryann on Cavu.

3/17-3/29 Stuart and Vero Beach

March 17-22
We returned to Stuart, which is home to many sailfish tournaments.

We really like Sunset Bay Marina and we picked up a mooring ball. Always the cheaper option! And you still get to use the amenities.
This is a lovely facility with shady porches, gas grills, a fancy lounge with a big screen TV, and a new fire pit. Sam, the manager, takes the boaters around town several times a week to run errands and grocery shop.
They invited all the guests for a traditional St Patricks Day dinner.

Sunset Bay Marina Office and Clubhouse

The new gas fire pit.  A favorite spot for chilly evenings.

Sam, the manager and bus driver

We rode our bikes 4 miles to the Total Wine store for provisions north. Bob was thrilled to find a nice selection of craft beers in cans.

We met up with 2 couples we knew from Boot Key Harbor, Terry and Barbara from NC on Wind Whisperer. They joined us for a Kadey Krogen Open House and Fish Fry. We even brought our checkbook along. Unfortunately the 44 foot one we liked was $850,000, so we didn't have sufficient funds!

Also met up again with Irene and Jay from Vermont on Escapaid.

Went to the free Sunday afternoon concert on the riverfront again- Lily Lavon.  Excellent again!

March 23-29 On to Vero Beach

It was a day's travel north to Vero Beach. The marina there also has a mooring field. And a free city wide bus system with a stop at the marina.

It was a hot and humid week, so we walked or took our dinghy to the beach several times for a refreshing swim in the ocean.

selfie on the beach

And we had Happy Hour with Phil and Bonnie from Annapolis (also met them in Marathon) on Windaway. Also went back to the Driftwood Inn and had lunch at Waldos.

Happy Hour goes on despite the rain! Phil and Bonnie headed back to Windaway.