It's warm and windy today!

The forcast called for 30+ knots of wind and we got it. We don't want to think about what it is like on the Gulf Stream now, let alone tomorrow when the wind clocks around and comes from the north (bucking the stream). Supposedly it's 5-7 out there now, headed for 6-8 when the wind shifts.

If you click on the photo and sqint a bit you can see a cruise ship out there, probably a few miles off shore headed south (Freeport?). Not quite in the stream but certainly farther than most would go today! The NOAA station -> http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/buoy/SPGF1.html

had the wind gusts peaked out at 49 knots. This station is about a 5 minute walk from where the boat is. In a prior post I showed the approach to the marina and the tower on the left of the inlet is where the NOAA station is. Not the water tower, but the spindly little tower on the left of the land mass.

But what I don't understand is this. The boat has been rocking around all day, and the crew is not having an issue. Canvas is blowing off boats, and the party tents at the marina are in trouble.

And 1 foot waves while underway do the crew in? I think there's some federal money coming our way to study this. Now that we are retired and relaxing we can rejuvenate ourselves and apply our minds to this important aspect of boating.

Connectivity... Verizon.... Skype to the rescue!

Looking at the photo you might wonder if Freedom ever had it so good, but to be honest with you neither did we.

More photos in the bucket -> http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh40/danno53/Southbound/

Anyway, I had spoken with Verizon about the Bahamas and whether or not our cell phone would work. They said yes.

They lied.

They also told me I could have DSL at our condo, and lied, and then I found out our neighbor has it!! They are just about done for us...

So a dock mate here in West End reminded me about Skype. It's great. I bought a month subscription and I can call anywhere in the US as long as I have an internet connection.

If you want to call us though, down load skype and send me some mail with your skype id. I can send you the skype id I am using and you can send us yours. I believe skype voip is free as long as you don't call a land line. It was simple to set up and it worked the first time. Unbelievable stuff!! The only requirement to calling a skype user is the user has to be on line (skype started), and so do you.

Given how much a cell phone would have cost this is a fantastic and practical alternative.

Use our gmail account to send the id, please don't post it in this blog as a comment.

We've arrived safely at West End Bahamas

We pulled out of North Palm Beach Fla early today just before sunrise. Upon arriving at the inlet, we looked out and saw calm seas and went for it. The first half of the ride presented us with 1-2 foot rollers off the port side which was nothing serious since they were spaced far enough apart.

The sea was flat starting mid gulf stream on . We could not have asked for better. Well, maybe we could but we're very happy with what we were delt today.

The water is clear, the sky is also (for the mean time) so we are going to kick back for a week and soak it up for a while.

This photo is of the marina entrance after crossing the gulf. There isn't much over here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know we're not in keeping with Thanksgiving since we don't have ourselves surrounded in Fall colors etc. but we are thankful for everything. We're very fortunate to have made it this far.

I know this guy (males have a fuzzy yellow head) isn't a turkey, but "we got to represent".

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fun day out with folks from up North

If you're eating lunch and this is the view from your table, it ain't bad.


We had some great company today when Pete B. stopped by with his family. We had lunch at Hattie's on the ICW in North Palm Beach and it was great. I don't know how expensive the place was because Pete, bless him, picked up the tab!
So we came back to the boat and had a conference call with Mark D.. He was really happy to hear the corona's popping and about how warm it was down here (not).

In spite of having such a great time at lunch I managed to get the boat washed. We are wishing we went across today, but since the small craft warnings went up in the late afternoon, we are wondering how bad it was later in the afternoon. We've been out in slop on this trip already and we felt they were a bit slow on that call down by Norfolk.

The crossing that got away

It was looking good to go across tomorrow, until the front sped up. It leaves us with a 4-5 hour window to cross and that isn't going to cut it. Since we normally don't push Freedom to 15 knots anymore, there is some hesitation to run at that speed for several hours.
So we're gonna sit this one out. At some point we will look at things and if the future leaves us nothing but short windows we will opt out and head further south. Heck, we can fly home for xmas easily then, and pick up the car, and look around for a place to live down here. Hmm...
Anyway, that would not be the Bahamas and this doesn't sit well with either of us.

Shopping via dink

We dropped the dink off the transom for the first time in what seems like 2 months and used it to go shopping. It took quite a while to get the gas back into the carb but once there it ran fine all day.
I should have brought the GPS so everyone could follow along, all in all the trip was about 10 miles. If you use google earth, start where we ended up, hang a left at the marina entrance, and then take your first left into the housing areas. Follow that around heading south and then east to Little Munion Island. Then continue south under the bridge to the first marina on the right. Then come back the same way because the water is rough on the lake. Except use the east side of the lake since the wind was out of the north east and we didn't want to get soaked. Wet was enough, soaked is not good.

We saw another manatee while in the dink but were unable to get near it. They are really quite shy from our experience anyway.

But you know you are getting south when you see a 4 foot Iguana hanging out on a tree soaking up the sun with his throat puffed out. Deb was not interested in putting the dink under it. Neither was I in reality, I merely suggested the idea to get a reaction. Note to self- lay off the Iguana deal...

If you are in Riviera Beach Fla, and need boating related items, Boaters Warehouse is where you want to go. Several maintenance items and one expensive other item, an EPIRB. It has GPS built into it so our location goes along with the emergency signal. Let's all hope we don't need to use this.

So tomorrow we'll sit tight clean things up as well as make other preparations.

North Palm Beach Fla.

Here we are in North Palm Beach. It must be 70 out, puffy white clouds here and there, and in the marina there is a light breeze. Off shore, it's quite different. f you want to know what we are up against, go to the weather underground and fill in zip code 33408. The local forcast looks great, and believe me compared to Kgn. NY it is.
But up along the top you will see the marine link, so click that. You will see a map with clickable areas including Florida. Following that you are then presented with a map that is divided into areas, two of which are subsets of the trip to West End Bahamas.
Clicking on those will give you the marine forcast for those areas. Looking at the specifics of the gult stream one might see the folly in trying to cross it before Monday. Even then the window is narrow. With a small passage like a sound we're up for it. When it comes to the Gulf Stream the pucker factor sets in and we are less likely.
So we have a feeling here we will sit. How long? Who knows...

Fort Pierce Florida

The ride down from Cocoa beach was great. We sat in shorts and Tees soaking up sun within the enclosure while sailboaters wore the winter garb again. Today we traveled 60 nm. and arrived at 2:30. At this point the wind decided to pick up to about 20 knots with gust higher still. All while we were docking. There was quite a bit of radio chatter between the dock master and myself because they were trying to squeeze us into a very tighbt slip here at the Fort Pierce City Marina. We settled with landing at the fuel dock to fill up first and then we all chatted a bit.
A solution was arrived at where we would move backwards spin the boat around and wind up in a slip bow in from where we were on the fuel dock.
Easy eh?
Try it some time without bow thrusters. The dock hands just started rolling their eyes knowingly given the situation. But we did it fine, and they all smiled when I said (Ray you out there?) "We don't need no stankin' bow thrusters". Everyone else that pulled in needed them and slapped away at the poles.

On the fun side we were followed by the dolphins today for what must have been 30 miles. I left a clip of them in action next to the boat. I dare anyone to deny these two were not having fun!

Crack o'dawn again and away we go

We pulled out of the Adventure Yacht Harbor marina (nothing really adventurous) around 6.30 AM as the sun was starting to light the sky. Out the very narrow channel to the ICW in and out of gear since the tide was out and the water was 'skinny'. No problems here so with the nav lights on we moved south.

The ICW was empty, and the water was like glass. It was great to be out there alone. I've uploaded a few photos from the day at the usual place http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh40/danno53/Southbound/

We have become accustomed to the dolphins coming right at the boat and disappearing under the bow. It's almost like they are having fun with us. We always wondered where they wound up until today.

A whole gang of them came at us head on north of Titusville. As usual the duck right under the bow and disappear. We had no idea where they went and then Deb says, what's that?? There is this slapping noise on the starboard side. Sure enough, there they are, riding along in the stern wake of the boat, very close to the boat, having a great time. They were jumping out clear of the water, and slapping down sideways like a bunch of drunken sailors... It was quite a bit of fun to watch them. They and others had probably been there all along several times but since they were so close to the boat we had never seen them before.

This gang stayed with us quite a while and really livened up the afternoon!

We also saw a few manatee and of course, there was the manatee patrol (deputies) looking for boaters going too fast. We escaped investigation but boats in front of us and behind us were pulled over.

And now we find ourselves in Cocao Village where we had lunch at the Margeux Cafe. It was terrific and if you are ever down here, it is a great stop for a bite to eat.

The photos are up, and the tracks will follow when the server cooperates.

A note about the GPS data

Yesterday I was working with the old laptop (T30) and I noticed that to see the gps tracks using google earth I had to zoom in quite a bit. If you have issues like this google maps might be a better alternative.

Daytona Par Deux

Ok we're back down in Daytona only by boat this time.

Who turned off the heat darn it? I don't care if it's 9 in Ak, you folks like it that way up there. It was 38 F this morning. What a change from 65 at night for the last several days. I guess we happened to pick the best time to stop at St. Augustine. Yesterday we worked on the boat and took care of errands.
We had a slight issue with one of the enclosure panels. It looked to me like it was not sewn. So we took it to Cooper's Canvas in St. Augustine and he repaired it for free! Next it was time to change the oil so we took the boat out and ran her up to warm the oil and then pulled it all. The marina even had oil disposal facilities. Thank you Camachee Cove Marina! Even free car usage three times!!
I found a loose transmission fitting and tighted that up also.
Then it was on to lunch at The Reef where we had the best Conch Fritters we have ever had in the States. The ocean view at this place was terrific and watching the pelicans skim the crest of waves flying in formation was fun.
Some more driving around looking at the sights, and then early to bed since we woke at 5:00 am today.
And here we are at Adventure Yacht Harbor.

The safe arrival cocktail is down that hatch and it's time to walk to the ocean. Pix coming soon the gps data is loaded.

More Touring

I kept the Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses on today. St. Augustine has a fort named Castillo de San Marcos. It's a really interesting visit with displays of old cannonry and life in a fort way back when. For the day it certainly was robust. The view of the inlet back out to sea is impressive and for the day certainly strategic.
Would I want to live there? Nope. It was basically all about munitions and some meager sleeping quarters. No HDTV, or even radio. Wait. This was the 1600's. But they found ways to amuse themselves having left graffiti around. It was faded and to date some of it escapes translation.

Moving on we visited the ubiquitous Alligator Farm. Lotso big fat reptiles that snap. The high point of this was watching a cute young blond tease them with previously frozen (sorry no fresh stuff here) thawed out rats. She had good aim and could take a 1 pound rat and bounce it off a gator. In spite of landing them right next to the gator's head, sometimes it took several minutes for the deed to be done. They move that slowly.

Today I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen. Not close up, but close enough for me. It has an abdomen about the size of a thumb. The web spanned a pool of water between two trees. If you walked into this web, I'm willing to bet you would freak. This spider might be able to take out a small bat, but sparing that, it could certainly do a job on someone's underwear. Click the photo and scroll around. It's not the best photo in the world but you'll get an idea of the scope of the size of the crite.

Updated the photobucket. http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh40/danno53/Southbound/

Down to Daytona

By car. We're still waiting on some mail to show up and the new oil we have has too much ash in it for these older engines. So Monday we go back to the store and swap it for something else or we don't change it yet.
Down A1A we drove looking at houses and condos. Some areas on the barrier don't have enough infrastructure to be comfortable IMHO. That and all it's going to take is one good storm and these places are gone the same way Galvaston Tx..
There is still quite a bit of Hurricane evidence around. Hotels in Daytona are closed and have strewn furniture bent metal and other indications of wind damage. Others are gone and buldozed out.
However the area is still quite healthy and vibrant. One thing we have noticed is that there are no mexicans filling low end jobs around us. At least we have not seen them yet. They must have to hide better down here. Even cooks, cleaners and dish washers are all non Hispanic. I wonder if there is some difference in local policy down here. As soon as we started going south we started seeing all sorts of folks doing boat washing and other work at that level.

It's up!

Today we toured more of St. Augustine and had a great lunch once again. Just walking around can be quite a bit of fun when you consider how much time we have been "Couped Up" on Freedom traveling.
We have to admit, we were surprised how may children were on tour in a tourist trap. Like, would you really want your kids to learn how to by taffy and praleens or would you want them to learn something more constructive (like how to play a video game (ha! sorry)).
The fort was completely swamped by tours so we gave up on that and decided to take another pass at it tomorrow hoping for a lull.

So at 7:54 PM it was dark. Then at 7:55 the sun started to come up again. Ok, we knew it was coming, but that's what it looked like. All the way up here instead of down at the Cape, it looked like the sun was coming up from the wrong angle. Then out of this light a trail of flame becomes obvious and you know the bird is on the way up.
God Bless 'em! Go Baby GO!
It starts to arc across the sky, and we hear a subdued rumble. And then it starts to accelerate. I mean, it starts to accelerate! The distance this thing starts to cover is astounding. And in a blink, it's through the clouds and out of sight.
We hear people all around cheering, and for once, we all feel like one pushing the envelope of humanity.
I wish we were closer.

Saint Augustine

Today we rented a car from Enterprise using my AARP card. Feeling somewhat antique.

Anyway, we toured the lighthouse where I walked up to the top. It was particularly refreshing to see that a sense of Freedom still exists in the USA. If anyone has been to a national monument lately, they have experienced long lines induced by "puff tests" where they blow air around you looking for explosives. You know what I am talking about if you have been to the Statue of Liberty.

It was great to get to the top of a landmark and look out at the surrounding area.

We also visited the Lightener Museum where we were able to take in the collection the man pulled together. It was an impressive collection from around the world worth seeing.

And then there was lunch at the Conch House. They have these tables up on poles that offer a good view. Sort of unstable but fun and the food was very good. If you click on the photo you will see that they carved faces on all of the poles supporting the deck. This was an unexpected treat that reminded me of gargoiles that were carved in stone at some cathedrals. Ok, it's a stretch but all of the faces are different here as well, and they were fun to look at.

St. Augustine is certainly worth a look if you are in the area, and we have yet to hit all of the old stuff in town.

I've uploaded some additional photos to the bucket.

Yo Rich. Remember this?

The ol' Scottish Inn.. What went on there?

Anyway, here we are in Saint Augustine. It's like 80 degrees and well, the AC is on. The trip down the ICW today was pleasant but a rude awakening. Looking at all the houses lining the ICW one quickly realises exactly how little one is really worth. These places are unfreakin' believable.
I've got to start my own business.
The ride down also treated us to some airplanes flying formation aerobatics, and a helicopter dropping off supplies to crews working on the high tension lines across the ICW. I'll upload photos of those things to the site I have posted earlier.
We are at the Camachee marina and they have not one, but two courtesy cars that the boaters can use for two hours at a time. All you have to do is put gas in it. This place must be expensive you say?
Nope.
It's cheaper for us to stay here than it is to stay for a week at the Rondout Yacht Basin (the home port).
So we are going to rent a car, wait for mail to show up and then move on. We figure we have about 4-5 days of travel left in Florida before making the hop.

Uploaded photos to -> http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh40/danno53/Southbound/

And uploaded latest GPS data. I have to admit that stuff is really accurate. If you look at the data you can see exactly which slip we are in.

Down To Florida!

Ok, a major accomplishment. We made it to Florida. It took 5 weeks to get here but we got this much done. Over 1100 nautcal miles under the belts. Today's route took us out Jekyll Sound then out St Andrew Sound and back in. It was quite rough out there but since it was a quartering sea the boat handled it quite well. Some things flew around inside again, but all in all the passage was ok. In this photo we are on the down hill side of the ride coming back into Cumberland River having been around the outermost bouy. There is a boat off our stern, and they were lucky since their boat was obviously stabilized.
We were fortunate since the small craft advisory was going up at 10 AM and we were back inside at 9:30. Not much room to spare.

Destination Golden Isle (St. Simons Ga.)

Today we really moved south. Almost 80 nm. today. We traversed a few spots where the water was very shallow and had no issues. Traffic was very light and tides worked with us. If you look at where we left from today the tide was going out, and we rode it down. When we crossed the first inlet the tide was coming in, and we rode that up. All along the way we had ups and downs in speed as we crossed over the inlets because as we approached an inlet the tide would be coming in, and pushing us back. When we crossed the inlet the flow was with us (go with the flow they say) and we picked up speed.
More dolpin diving under the bow and some bald eagles. There was one island that had wild goats and cows on it.
At the end of the day I opened 'er up to blow things out again and the port engine refused to hit max rpm. Having looked at the fuel filters I found algae on that filter only and oh boy we have a spare filter. So that will get swapped out and hopefully this is the end of it for now.

Tomorrow Florida? We hope so.

We have a few hundred (I think) miles in Fla. before we make the hop so I'm thinking it will be at least two weeks before we get to the Bahamas. We are going to stop for a week in Fla. to make sure we have adequate spare filters (see above and this is wise sage advice from others we have met) and change the oil. The lads (engines) deserve it. All this idling around "on the inside" has to have contaminated the oil with fuel since the engines are not being pushed enough. Older Detroit diesels are known for this.

Isle of Hope GA.

The Isle Of Hope is a good stop, loaded with biting no-seeums, expensive dockage, and fuel is pricey.Other than that, it's fine.
We saw plenty of Dolphin today since we crossed so many deeper water inlets. They home in on the bow of the boat and dive under it. I'd love to know what they are up to down there but having seen Jo Jo the dolpin down in Turcs and Caicos we have an idea. He swam under the props upside down. We saw him do this under the dingy while we were snorkling in clear water.

But another state is behind us and we are hoping for Florida in a couple of more days.

Beaufort SC (or learning the definition of Southern Hospitality)

Today we had a great day on the water moving another 60 miles. At the end of the day the satelite dish need another couple of degrees of elevation to hit the bird. About the only peeve with the day was a moron with a Sport Fishing boat (Sportie) that had to be 60 feet long. He was flaming everyone and threatening damage to boats if they did not move out of his way. We survived this and wound up at a terrific marina named Port Royal Landing Marina.

They also have floating concrete docks like others but today was their end of season bash. They rolled out a couple of kegs, red and white wine, a ton of great Southern Barbeque along with fixings, said a blessing, and we all chowed down. But not only this, they lent us a car so we could go shopping!

We were able to share dinner with a delivery captain and a pilot for the tankers etc. on the C&D canal. Both had many great stories and shared experience with us that made us feel good about the way we have been managing traffic on the ICW. They also agreed that the Sporties are the ones that make life difficult on the ICW.

We all wonder why the big boy in his big boat didn't put on his big pants and play in the big water with his big boat since it was flat as a pancake out on the ocean, and the distance was much shorter.

Updated the Southbound.kmz file with today's track.

Charleston Sc.

Can you see the end of this dock? Click the photo for more detail if you can't. This was early in the afternoon. Later on the dock filled up with megayachts. In fact they call this the Megadock. Not only is this the Megadock, it's the fuel dock. They fueled us where we are, and they can fuel boats all the way out to the end. This is a floating concrete dock that trancends all we have seen to date. The sailboat mast over our bow lights up at night and is nothing less than spectacular.

It's pretty obvious that the city of Charleston Sc. had it's act together when they decided to upgrade the waterfront. This is a no holds barred upscale, gotta have a golf cart to get around marina.

The photo however, does not do the proximity of the other (expensive) boats justice. We have about four feet off each end. It was a tight squeeze and the dock hands gave me a few thumbs up. When I shut her down, I yelled out "we don't need no stanking bow thrusters!" and we all had a great laugh.

We're glad we stopped here to adjust for the next day's travel and the associated tide. We wound up only doing 11 miles today but it was worth it to spend the afternoon in Charleston. It's a great little city with many pleasant streets to walk around in and places to dine. We had lunch at Hyman's and it was fantastic. I don't think we've had better seafood elsewhere. And their aquarium is also worth a look. The 10$ fee to get in was well worth it.

We could use another day here.

Uploaded latest Garmin data to Southbound.kmz and added more photos to the bucket. They have been sorted newest first. Hopefully this pans out well.

http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh40/danno53/Southbound/

Belle Isle To Isle Of Palms Sc

A great day to be boating down here. We actually had a few of the enclosure panes opened up to let cool air in. For the most part the terrain was unprotected swamp like and flat. However there was quite a bit of interesting wildlife that included swarms of dove like birds roosting, a pair of nesting bald eagles, several varieties of herons and etc..

Since the water was calm on the outside we had few of the 'sporties' to deal with. All in all a very calm day on the water.

One thing we have learned about the folks down here in the Carolinas is that they will go to any length to ensure they have their own private dock. Some of the walkways out to the docks have to be an 1/8 mile long... A length of several hundred yards seems to be normal. I am willing to bet they have paid more for those than some of us have paid for our houses.

As well, there are example after example of extravagent houses that are partially finished along the ICW. These are all probaby examples of the buy out from the sub-prime debacle. It's sickening to see people start these and then get a government bail out..

Updated Southbound kmz file.

BarefootLanding To Belle Isle Gardens Sc.

The day's travel went smoothly. No issues, and in spite of cloudy skies we were comfortable. This was the first time we saw some real live spanish moss, and along with that, there was this sign where they clean fish.

That was a bit of a surprise since I did not expect they had those reptiles in this area. I guess we'll have to watch what we step on now.

Myrtle Beach from Southport

Ok! Another state crossed. We're in Sc. now and it feels good to knock off another state. The ride down was short today only 31 miles. It was a dreary rainy day but we stayed dry until it was time to fuel up and dock at the end of the trip.
Along the way we saw a flock of migrating swallows. I don't think I've ever seen this many birds flying together. It was a massive ball of life swirling away in confused flight that somehow managed to have direction. Very odd but it looked like they were having fun at it.
So here we are at the Coquina Yacht Club, and we decide to take a walk. We leave the compount and are walking through a parking lot when out of the blue a van pulls and honking the horn. It's Ed from F dock! LMAO. He recognized us while driving by.
We made arrangements and stopped by a bit later on, having a great evening catching up with some buddies from RYB. It's a small world.

PS When you look at some of the tracks using google earth or google maps, you may see some ragged course lines. If they are near a bridge, it's normal since we may have had to wait for the bridge to open. While waiting we drift around a bit. This last leg has a good example of that.
Yesterday we were all doing that at another bridge. There were about 10 of us and one of the motoryachts lost it. The captain decided to back up for reasons unknown to us and all of the boats behind us. There was no wind, everyone was calm and relaxed. I wound up having to scoot around him and hold the position he gave up. Believe me there were a few sail boats behind us that were getting paranoid. They don't have twins they can use to their maneuvering advantage.

Some People have too much money.....

Traveling down the ICW today we saw this. It put a capper on the day. Anyway we are down to Southport Nc., looking for Myrtle Beach tomorrow.

Fun with Tugs

Remember to contact a tug in tight channels. But temper the urge to contact the captain depending on the traffic and other conditions....

So here we are on Adam's Creek heading towards Beaufort NC (not SC sorry we don't go that fast ). We meander down at 8 knots and eventually we catch up with a pusher with a barge named Pamlico headed for Calico Creek. The channel is narrow and lined with houses and business so I'm in no hurry to pass and hang back a bit. Eventually it happens. Here comes a 43 Ocean followed by a large Hatt sporty. No doubt they were going to pass and the Ocean did that. He squeezed in behind the tug right in front of us. So he peeks on the stbd side of the tug, gives up and moves over to the port. He's hanging around right off the tugs transom trying to find the cajones to pass.

So I sensed the waffling and hailed the tug; "Pamlico south bound this is Freedom. We are second in line behind you has anyone arranged passage yet? ""NO!" And anyone could tell by the tone he was p1ssed about it because it was a narrow channel and he had all sorts of small craft zipping around. We were the least of his concerns given all the slow sailboats and center consoles."Ok Pamlico, it looks like it finally opens up here, do you mind if we pass?""Sure come on around on the stbd side"Ok at this point a$$hole without calling the tug is on the port side of the tug's stern and we open 'er up. It's good to open up a diesel once in a while since we were basically idling all day. So we hit 18 knots and blew by on the stbd.. Ocean who was well to port was looking at us like WTF? How does a boat like that plane out and blow by me??? We thanked the tug, and settled in ahead and waited for the sparks. Both sporties came by. The Ocean rocked our world because he was insulted. The hatt went by and slowed but still rocked our world. We laughed our arses off since neither had contacted the tug to arrange passage and wound up on the wrong side of the channel because he gave us the stbd side...

Down to Swansboro Nc. (Dudley's Marina

A little rough around the edges but the fuel is cheaper and the people here are great. The trip here was smooth, another great day of fantastic weather. Once we were close to Beaufort Nc. we started to see dolphins. Then we came around Beaufort inlet and continued on the icw. Many miles in we were still seeing dolphin pods. All the way to Bogue inlet.

Think about that...
Do you recall any stories about people chasing dolpins in NJ because they were lost?

I'm beginning to think that the folks in Jersey have their heads in a dark spot and that the dolphins were fine. We've been where those dolpin were and the ones down here were much further inland than those Jersey dolphin were.

Tomorrow looks like a long day. We're going to try for Southport.

Down to Oriental Nc.

Yesterday we left Dowry Creek having a reasonable night's sleep until 4:30 AM. It was a very cold night so we left the heat on. Around that time one of the CO detectors went off and well, that was that. I figured it was a one hit wonder and so did Deb so we got the other detector and moved it to the same location. That spot just happened to be about a foot from my head. We fell back asleep and withing 15 minutes they both started sounding.

It was at this point we found ourselves awake looking for who would have a gasoline powered generator running in the marina. I went outside and walked a bit of the dock but heard nothing. Perhaps somone had a coal stove going somewhere also. We never found out.

The frost on the fordeck was thick and in bear feet I went out there and retrieved all the lines and off we went around sunrise. After about a 1/2 hour of this I decided shoes and socks were a requirement.

The weather was spectacular being clear calm and warm thanks to the enclosure. The sun heats up the flybridge wonderfully. We sit up there in T shirts while all the sailboats and express cruisers we pass are in full fuzzy edged hood winter attire.

Down the Pungo to Pamlico river. Look east and all you see is water and it was all flat as a pancake. From here we went along Goose Creek and associated canals south to Bay River. This is where we met our friends in the photo.

Looking out east again is Pamlico Sound, and again the water was abolutely flat! This made the rest of the day along the Neuse River to Oriental pleasant.

Cell phone access is poor in this area, and all we have is wifi (go figure) but I cannot access the server to load the latest GPS data.