Oct.18 We are on the road again! After a nice farewell dinner with our friends, Peter and Joan Ross in Mystic, we decided to do an overnight passage down Long Island Sound to Oyster Bay long Island where we could wait out some wind that was coming through. Just after we anchored, the wind started to howl and we were very thankful to have made the passage early.

Oct. 21-27 Now that the weather was passed us, it was time to move over to the dock at Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich. Over the next week, we were able to visit with both moms, my son Chris and his new fiancee, Corey, drive back to Mystic to sign important papers and do other errands there, etc. We even had Lillian Vernon and her husband on board for dinner. They are neighbors and friends of my mother.

Oct. 28 We love being on the dock at the club but twice a day, we are ground there thus we had to wait for the tide to rise before we could extricate ourselves! On down the sound to NYC and out past Sandy Hook we flew on an outgoing tide. We made good time down to Atlantic City where we anchored at around 1:30 am. It is definitely surreal being anchored under the big neon signs for Harrah’s and Trump casinos. The anchorage is in a river and the current can be more than 2 kts.

Oct. 29 A big winter storm was forecast and it didn’t let us down. Our faithful anchor, Cecile, held through all the current and winds of up to 42 kts. It poured most of the day but we were snug inside puttering around, playing cards and watching movies.

Oct. 30 John woke up at 5 am and I heard him rustling so we talked and decided to leave earlier as the wind was down and we had a long way to go. As I was raising the anchor and releasing the pressure on the snubber line, the big snubber hook caught on the only crab pot in the whole area! john had to help me get it off and then we proceeded slowly out to sea. The wind was still a bit strong for most of the day and we rocked and rolled. I listened for things creaking, rattling, and crashing all around the boat. Finally, I got most everything padded, tied, or wedged. My new mantra for moments like this is “This too shall pass”. The further south we went, the further away from the wind.

Oct. 31 By Monday morning, we were off the southern entrance to the Chesapeake and the wind was fine. It stayed that way all the way around Cape Hatteras and till about 3 hours after that. Then the shit hit the fan (pardon the vernacular) and another storm we were hoping to avoid reared its ugly head. We had 10 hrs of 20-35kts of wind with gusts to 40 kts at times. Luckily, the seas weren’t too big but they were coming from our bow and then our forward quarter. I stayed on watch for a while but then John did the rest of the night while I hid in a nest I made of pillows and blankets on the floor next to our bed. At times, it rained as heavily as John had ever seen it, he said. I heard more crashing and creaking and was able to catch 4 florescent light bulbs before they came loose from their perch on top of our dryer! They had been there for a year without a problem. Towards the end of our trip, we had to go around Lookout Shoals and turn north for about one and a half hours to go to our anchorage in the Cape Lookout bay. This bay is right off Beaufort, NC and is almost entirely surrounded by land and thus quite protected. We were able to head just off the wind enough to make pretty good headway but the waves came over the bow and gave us a good saltwater shower. finally, we made the last turn into our haven and anchored at 7am.

Nov.1 It was about 2pm before we woke up but it was good to get some quiet still sleep. The rest of the day, we used to check in with our mothers, do email, play cards, have dinner with a movie. Back to bed for more sleep!

Nov. 2-3 Plans have a way of changing when you are cruising. The first plan was to move over to Beaufort and anchor by the coast guard station. We would use the dinghy to go over to town and go shopping and have lunch. Well, the weather was so nice, we decided to skip that adventure and start on another- an overnight down to Charleston, SC. Along the way, one has to pass Camp LeJeune and the warships were out in full force doing. Some were doing live fire exercises and we had to change course a bit to stay a safe distance away. Boy are those ships big! Later in the afternoon, the spotted dolphins came twice to play in our bow wave. I could watch them for hours. This whole passage was uneventful- my favorite kind! As we arrived in Charleston harbor, several big groups of bottle nose dolphins played in our bow waves this time and stayed with us till we anchored in the Ashley river. After dinner, it was to bed early as both of us were tired.

Nov. 4 The wind was still howling right down the river and the current was strong too. We were holding but moving all around which was very disconcerting to say the least. I was sitting in the saloon doing some paper work when I looked out the window and spotted a friend of ours looking at the boat. We were anchored off his house but we thought he was going to be away. We called to him and he suggested we could go to his yacht club and tie up at the dock as we had done in years past. While he called them, we started to bring the dinghy up. It had rained heavily the night before and the chop from all the boats going by had almost swamped our big dinghy. The crane wasn’t able to pull it more than 4 ft off the water before it shut off. ( we learned this was a safety precaution) John and I turned the dinghy a bit so we could get to the plug and release tons of water from her. Afterwards, the reset crane lifted her up to our top deck and we were off around the corner to the yacht club dock at last. Upon arrival, I checked my email again and found out our friend Sam from the sailboat “Semezana” was actually just arriving with his daughter in Charleston! We called his cell and they came and picked us up for dinner. They took us to a great spot and we all got a chance to catch up. “Semezana” was one of the boats we played with all winter in Staniel Cay. After dinner, his daughter said we could have her car for the next day to do errands.

Nov. 5 The wind was still howling but we were safely tied to the inside of the face dock. We took Sarah’s car and did many errands for most of the day. That night we returned it and all went out to a good Italian restaurant.
Nov. 6 The sun was out and the wind down and we were able to make a painless passage down the coast to St. Helena’s sound and up the Coosaw river where we anchored for the night. It was so nice to anchor near the marshland and have a quiet sunset. Did I mention no wind?

Nov. 7 We got up early to get the high tide and went all of 5 miles around the corner to our friends Allan and Cathy Rae’s house and tied up to their dock. They are in a cove just off the ICW so there is a constant parade of differnt kinds of boats going by all day. They are our hosts for the next few days.