One of the best things about this lifestyle is getting to meet so many other people with similar interests. Another member of the Catalina Owners Association reached out and offered to meet up and help us provision or get anything we needed. We were already well stocked, just having done a provisioning run in Belhaven, but we met him and his wife for coffee and spent a couple hours trading sea stories and talking about our boats. It’s amazing how total strangers end up feeling like old friends.
The trip to Beaufort was another easy, low-stress day. With only 20 miles to go, we were able to take it easy, get a late start, have a lazy sail over to Adams Creek and still be in with plenty of time to relax after we dropped the hook. It’s crazy to me that we’re over 200 statute miles into the ICW, and it’s even crazier that every stop still manages to feel completely different from the last.
Since this is our first time doing this trip, we keep up an ongoing “temperature check” on what we think of this lifestyle. In Norfolk, Chris asked how I was feeling about being on the move every weekend, and at that point I was loving it. This week, I had started to feel like I wished we weren’t always moving, especially since we’ve had some challenging conditions. But having this nice, easy weekend made up for it, and I no longer feel that need to stay put.
We decided to anchor in Town Creek since we heard there was a lot of current in Taylor Creek. The only real spot to anchor was near the bridge and a shoal, but we found good holding and it was a good spot to watch boats come and go. After dark, we heard splashing and went to check it out, and there was a pod of dolphins feeding all around us. It was too dark to see them clearly, but we could see their silhouettes and hear them surfacing to breathe, and once again I was reminded just what an incredible thing it is that we’re doing.
