Ok....the snow is nice.....

....but oh so heavy to move. We are welcomed back to Vermont by a pretty intense nor'easter. Heavy wet snow. Definitely a great base for the ski areas. It does make me happy to have Iemanja down in warmer clims and waiting for our return in late January. In the meantime Bette an I will enjoy some great holiday cheer in Vt.

Iemanja is put to bed for now

Dock lines doubled up, sails and canvas off, frig freeze shut off battery charger on. Doors locked. We're headin home on I95 with Minnie in the center seat. Just another place to sleep for her. 

Sun

Sunny skies and warmer temps have returned to SC. Yesterday the winds dimenished and with strong sun, the temps felt warm once again. Today and tomorrow will be carbon copies so we hope to get some stuff done on the boat outside. Worked on lazy jacks layout yesterday and today Iemanja will get a good bath. Last night we went to the annual Christmas boat parade out on the ICW. About 30 boats of all sizes lit up the night. Not a lot of good pics as it was too dark but fun nevertheless. Met some nice folks from MA who are Patriot fans and....ironically then met some local folks who live here at the condos that surround the marina....they are Packer fans! So we will join them all this afternoon as the Pats and the Pack square off. Go Green.....it should be a very fun time.

Raining once again today but.....

......when we look up the coast at what is developing with the recent Noreaster, we feel pretty lucky to be here in SC. The storm is certainly impressive as early winter storms go but if one is out in it, its not so amusing. We are following the blog of a couple that is heading south from New England. Thankfully they are holding up around NY as this one goes by.  One of the many lessons that has been reinforced on this trip is that one throws out a calendar and schedule as much as possible. The weather rules and if you decide to try to overrule.....well then be prepared to be challenged.

We are dockside here at Lightkeepers Marina. Thanks for the great referral Shell and Penny. It is as you described it. We have a courtesy car at our disposal, good wifi, hot and I mean hot showers in the cleanest bathrooms so far. Heat is running today to help to keep the cabin dampness under control. This has been a constant battle with the difference in air temp inside and out. Bette is reading with Minnie at her feet. I'm going to work on our ac battery charger which seems to be not cooperating right now. We have not been at a dock for so long, I really don't know how long the problem has existed but will continue to troublehoot.

Sunny skies are in the forcast for the next 4 days..........

We wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Day 3 of 4 predicted weather

......ok....so more indoor projects.  

Where we've been

One summary Navionics picture of the trip from VT down to SC:

A couple of days of offshore sailing......

........requires this.  

Iemanja's in her home for 2 months

We arrived at Light Keeper's Marina in Little River South Carolina yesterday. 

Iemanja will live here for 2 months while we head home for the holidays and some snow play-time.

Last minute decision was to take the ICW for this leg of the trip. My favorites for the ICW from Southport to here would be the 2 inlets to the ocean at Shallotte and the Little River.   Also the shore birds skittering around in the mud flats at low tide. And the pelicans and dolphins. And all the cottages each with covered river docks and cupolas. 

Sea inlets:

Birds in the mud flats:

Cat oblivious to it all but she wanted to stay in the cockpit.

"do you think if he see's me, he'll feed me?"

The next week will be getting Jill back up to Beaufort, followed by boat preparation for the stay in SC for 2 months.

Day of Shame

Okay so we bumped the bottom twice yesterday. And the boat behind us saw it both times. The good news is that the tide was rising and in both cases we got off easily. Folks, when you decide to bump, bump on a rising tide!

Thursday's (11/20) Sail

The day started off chilly but beautiful and sunny. It even became reasonably warm during the day. The breeze was just great for going to weather from Wrightsville down to Southport. As the day progressed the seas increased as the wind was now 24 to 29kts. Frying Pan Shoal seas were about 6 ft. Ern was driving, trying to hit 10 knots coming down the wave backsides. He topped out at 9.9 kts.

(Sorry about the horizon)

What a beautiful day!

Frying Pan Shoal at Cape Fear sticks out about 12 miles from the shore, but sailing around the shoal was good quality sailing. 

Minnie checking it out:

Tucked in at Southport NC for the night.

Lox and cream cheese morning:

Enough room for 1 Boat to drop anchor amongst all the docked boats - us..

We be sail in'

Heading for Cape Fear not on a perfect day for sailing.. Sun is shining, 8-9+knots on a beat!

Jill at the helm:

Minnie onthe low sunny side I the dodger:

Blackbeard

Did you know that the pirate Blackbeard's first ship, that he captured and ran aground about a year after he stole it, was found in 1996 right outside of Beaufort North Carolina? That put the ship's relic (#2) about 2 miles from our Beaufort anchorage (#1).  Pretty cool.

The maritime museum in Beaufort has some of the artifacts and tells the story of that shipwrecked ship named Queen Anne's Revenge(QAR).

Pirate swords:

The cannons were both big and small.

The QAR replica in amazing detail:

They cut off his head after capturing Blackbeard in the battle of Ocracoke Inlet and hung it from his captors ship's bowsprit for all to see.  That was 1718.

And let us not forget the women pirates of the day!

Another 500 plus shipwrecks off the Virginia/North Carolina Outer Banks:

Wow! 

Wrightsville Beach.....

.......second home of Jim Cantore....my weatherman hero. We arrive after overnight windy,cold sail at 0930 and now will catch up on sleep. Imagine is right next to us. 

So we moved to the Beaufort Town Docks

Today's forecast is for strong thunderstorms and shifting winds during the middle of the night tonight to the NW. This would put us on a lee shore at an hour that I didn't want to deal with it. So we've moved over to the town docks and feel much more comfortable. Nice temps today are short lived as a cold front is going to force its way in tonight. This is good and bad.......bad is temps today are in the 70s and tomorrow will ne in the high 40s. Yikes... But the good news is the winds will shift to the NW tonight and this will make for a very nice ride down the coast tomorrow night onece the seas settle a bit. We hope to roll out of here late afternoon, early evening in order to arrive down at Wrightsville Beach with sunrise on Wednesday. 

We've also picked up our crewmate Jill who will sail with us for the final leg down to Little River SC....Iemanjas December home. So for now....we'll enjoy being dock potatoes and turn on the heater in the morning......

Choices

We made a choice, it was our decision to leave Ocracoke when we did. Could we have waited one more day or even waited even part of the day till the wind and waves settled before leaving? Well, yes. We could have looked for a closer anchorage than Cedar Creek and started out the day's travel later. 

Could we have turned around when we saw how rough out it was in Pamlico Sound? Saved the boat, the cat, and ourselves from the battle? Well, yes, we could have.

Could we have said that getting to our planned destination was not important in the big picture, found a closer anchorage and just sailed when the day turned sunny and breezy instead of cold, gray, and way too windy? Well, yes.

But we get things in our heads that are tough to let go of, we'll learn to do that eventually, and until that time, we make our choices and go with them.

Cape Lookout Nat'l Seashore

This area is really very nice. We're in Beaufort NC. Cute town, an amazing nat'l seashore nearby, Cape Lookout Lighthouse,  wild horses on the local islands, lot's of cool historical stuff...now if we could just find a better weather safe place to put the boat. And we pick up new crew, Jill B, for the next week's travels.

The trip from Octacoke started bleak but the winds abated, the chop settled down and the sun came out. It turned into a beautiful day. 

Pamlico Sound looking sunny.

We had consumed way beyond our expected time exiting Ocracoke, so we motor sailed to the Neuse River, and a little offshoot called Cedar Creek to spend the night. Calm and quiet with 3 other boats in the bay.

Minnie checking out the Cedar Creek anchorage from under the dodger.

Ocracoke in upper right, down to Cedar Creek at #19, then on to Beaufort NC at the red tent (lower left).

Beaufort at the red tent (#23) and Cape Lookout lower right corner of chart.

Moving onto Little River

Like they say at the grocery store, "You can get in but you can't get out", well so it goes with Ocracoke for us today. We made it, but the first hour or more were a slog. We didn't want to wait another day for the wind and waves to settle so off we charged back into Pamlico Sound. Moving at a whole 3 knots/hr, we hobby horsed our way up the Silver Lake channel. We knew full well that once we could turn west that we'd be fine. 

The most gracious thing happened in the channel. We had checked AIS to see if any ferries were coming in. Coast was clear. But we took sooo long to move ahead, that one came along. Ernie gave him a call, let him know we'd do our best to stay out of his way. And he told us to come ahead, he'd wait! That 's huge in this circumstance. Unbelievable.

We loved the island and the shores. We'll be back.

Arrival in Beaufort NC.

Got in this afternoon to beaufort. Been out of touch since we left Ocracoke.  The coverage with ATT was very sparse. Hooked up with Dick and Andrea and will make our next passage to Wrightsville with them. Likely to head out on Tuesday night in the next weather window. This late in the season, the windows for safe travel don't open up too often do you have to keep a close eye on things. In the meantime, we'll do some exploring of town and the nearby islands tomorrow. 

As I write, Iemanja is getting a nice fresh water shower from Mother Nature. 

A morning for reflection....

So as we sit here in Silver Lake on Ocracoke, I can't help but reflect on what we've accompolished with Iemanja. The wind outside is howling from the north at 20 gusting to 30 yet we sit here safe and sound and comfortable aboard our boat. She's watertight......except for some morning condensation that occurs from the outside temp being cooler than inside. All systems from electrical to plumbing to electronics to wifi to heat...(this is a big one today believe me) to our cockpit enclosure and on and on.....they all seem to be working as we had hoped they would. Now I'm sure that we will have glitches with each...thats inevitable in this kind of environment.  But all in all, Bette and I planned and executed this whole thing and it seems to be working. It took quite a long time as most of you know to make this happen.

Oh.....lest we forget the Rocna anchor with double rolling hitch snubbers. This baby really digs in and gives us a great feeling of security. We'll continue to be deligent about our anchoring technique so that it continues to keep us safe. Thanks Doug P for turning us on to the Rocna.....

So for today.....1 month out....we're warm and dry, remaining humble and waiting for a weather window to continue southbound....

Ocracoke

We liked what we saw yesterday in Ocracoke NC and decided to stay a bit longer. 

The 1823 lighthouse is 2nd oldest working light in the US:

The Dahon bicycle's have earned their place on-board.

 

Oyster restoration project with bags of oysters at Springers Pt Preserve:

A very long beach that had 4wheel drive access in limited sections; plenty of room for everyone:

A little cemetery:

What do you do with a stump? You get a raccoon out of it:

30 knot gusty winds projected for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

The importance of channel markers

Just thinking about all the channel markers coming down the Champlain Canal, then the Hudson, out around Sandy Hook, and then in the ICW.

But the icing on the cake are the channel markers getting into and out of Manteo, Roanoke Island, NC!

Talk about a slew of nuns and cans to get down to Pamlico Sound. 

Picture yourself transitting at 7.5 to 8 knots under motor and the water depth is 7ft  or a bit less (we draw over 6). It's a bit spooky at first and thankfully, you get used to it. 

Some of the intersections get confusing like the one heading East on the Navionics chart above. We took that one slowly lest we miss the channel. We've been lucky so far and rely on Active Captain for insight on shoaling or other hazards. 

Would we do Manteo again? Yes.

A fine day on Ocracoke Isl

We lazed in this morning.....the first time in many a day. Looked at routes, had lox and cc on toast....yum. Fog lifted about noon revealing a beautiful blue sky and 70 deg temps. Trash run into the National Park service dinghy dock, loaded up the bikes and tooled around the town. Tomorrow we'll head out along the beach out to the end. Hoping for another nice day. Talked with Dick and Andrea on Imagine tonight and it loks like we'll hook up over the weekend. 

Long Shoal River to Ocracoke NC

It was one of those mornings where it's so foggy and rainy that you ask yourself if staying in bed is a good idea. Then you realize that fog and rain can be cool too. Perfect to heighten your senses and check out the radar and AIS for real. So off we go.

The night before, we dropped a hook at

Long Shoal River. It was wide open landscape and the bay empty but for us. Monday night winds were from the NE so we tucked as close to the north eastern shore as the depth would allow.

Sunset at Long Shoal:

Tuesday was fogged in with visibility varying all day from 1/2 mile to a bit further.

 

We played with the gain and rain controls on the radar and kept a horn nearby in case we needed to blast it.

Cool to watch the rain storms on radar as they came in waves over us. Plus the occasional nun or can or boat. It all made for a different kind of day on water.

Across Pamlico Sound we went out with a bit of headsail to keep the rolling down. 

Ocracoke Light, Silver Lake, Ocracoke, NC

We'll explore town and ocean -side beaches tomorrow. 

The channel into Silver Lake had been dredged 2014. Access was good, plenty of water depth. 

35.6,709.N

75.59.082.W

Monday Monday can't trust that day

Heh heh. Glad Ernie double checked the bridge height before we went anywhere near it out to the north and west of Manteo. Only 45 ft fixed height. Nope, not that way, detour back.. No problem.

Manteo was beautiful at night.The waterfront was all nicely redone with boardwalk and cute storefronts and transient dinghy access aka a dock.

Sunset at Manteo:

But around the corner, a developer went bonkers and "little boxes, little boxes, and they all look just the same"

I should be more careful, we may someday live in something similar...

You never know.

Bridge over to the outer banks:

Notice how we have a bit of breeze this morning. Contrast that with Abermarle Sound yesterday:

The Sound has a lot of 5 ft or less water depths and the water was quite brown (to us newbies that was surprising). 

The Sound to Manteo, Roanoke Island,NC.

Current location: