On our way down the ICW in the fall we had hoped to run the Dismal Swamp route, but timing didn’t work out so we ended up taking the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. We were excited to take a different route home and experience the Dismal Swamp for ourselves. We were up early to be […]
We left New Bern on Friday night and had an absolutely stunning sail down the Neuse River. Sunset was gorgeous, and we were flying along – Chris said the highest he saw was 8.3kts over ground. Unfortunately I was absolutely exhausted and didn’t fully enjoy it. Instead of stopping at the same spot we anchored […]
It was a flat calm morning with a fog so light that it was more of a mist as we hauled anchor at Mile Hammock. We were the second boat in the anchorage to leave. I found Mile Hammock and the surrounding area to be really pretty, as was the whole section of ICW through […]
We departed Southport Marina bright and early on a calm, quiet morning and had current in our favor as we headed into the Cape Fear River. We loved our time in Southport, but it felt good to cast off the lines once more. We passed a HUGE container ship on the way, but that was […]
Roll. Slam! Roll. Slam! We left Charleston with a favorable current and raised sail in the harbor. It was gustier than the forecast called for, but it was generally beautiful sailing. (Jack strongly disagreed.) We reached the harbor entrance just after the Charleston Race Week pursuit race start, and we joked that we can now […]
Our goal for the remainder of the week was to make as much distance north as possible, with the hope of ending up in Charleston. The first day back on the ICW was such a contrast to open ocean sailing, and it was strange to be back on murky brown waters and dealing with so […]
With final weather checks completed, a float plan filed and confirmation that the Iridium GO! was working, we cast off the lines around 2230. A friend we’d met the night before happened to be walking down the dock and gave us a hand with our lines and waved us off. Slipping away in the dead […]
It was incredibly bittersweet to leave Green Turtle after making it our home for over a month. We even had a dog friend who adopted us and joined us for our morning walks at Gillam Bay. We started to see the same people over and over, and we started to get to know some of […]
One of the things we’ve been most surprised at on this trip is how little sailing we’ve been able to do. There are very few spots along the ICW that can be sailed, and when we’ve headed offshore, there were many times we either needed to make time upwind or the wind was too light. […]
We left Old Bahama Bay, and our first experience reading Bahamian waters was a bit of trial by fire. We had two good sets of charts on hand – the Explorer charts on my phone and our Navionics charts which had been confirmed as accurate for the Indian Rocks Passage – but it was still […]