10/14/12: We reached our milestone of Myrtle Beach, S.C. this evening. We are at Mile 346 on the ICW. We were going to stay in Southport, but arrived early after an early morning start and favorable weather & current. We are at Coquina Yacht Club which is very nice & so much better than we expected.They have some noisy shrimp here but not like Morehead City! We had an exciting dolphin show today with one jumping up high out of the water. I can never get great shots of them as they are so quick. Time to rest and take care of some business. We will resume this blog in about a month when we get underway again. We will continue to upload pics to previous blog posts.

10/13/12: Left Camp LeJeune intact and headed to Wrightsville Beach. We needed to wait for 2 bridges which was uneventful. We went thru some very shallow areas and did 2 soft groundings which we were able to rock off pretty easy. On one the bow pitched downward which was a little unnerving. We were able to anchor in Wrightsville Beach right near the Masonboro Inlet. The current & wind are opposing and we are twirling around on our anchor.....our favorite! It's humming out there..had to cook with the slats in to keep stove lit. This will be a restless night & early start in the morning. Mile #285. It looks very beachy here. Even though it's in the 60's this evening we can tell we are in the South now. We will not complain about being chilly since we were told it was 27 degrees in CT today. Now that's cold!

10/12/12: Kellee & Chris helped us shove off the dock with hugs & lines. . :-). We left Mile #205 in Morehead City. We had some shallow areas on our way, but thankfully no groundings. We had a boat northbound warn us they had one. We saw dolphins again, still not getting old! We were perfect for bridge opening and anchored in Mile Hammock Bay around 4pm. Mile 244.5 .This bay is used by Camp LeJeune for military maneuvers. Several boats here now. Sometimes the military has had boaters leave or made them part of their ops! Hopefully we'll have none of that tonight. Very pretty anchorage though. Shoreline is restricted. Time to make homemade beef stew since the evenings are a little chilly now.

10/11/12: Left Oriental along with Navigator after a hearty pancake, bacon, homefries & orange cranberry scone breakfast! We are both headed to Beaufort/ Morehead City area. We encountered a couple of pods of dolphins! Love it! Tom worries I'm going to fall in the drink I get so excited every time! We were able to get a dock with Navigator at Dockside Marina. We will head out in the AM; reluctantly leaving Kellee & Chris as they head in a different direction. We hope to make our next milestone of Myrtle Beach in about a week. We all went to Sammy's for dinner that was awesome. Lots of places to explore....too little time. Just may need to come back!

10/10/12: Enjoyed another day & free dock in Oriental . Mile #181. Tom, Kellee & Chris went for groceries & Kathy did laundry & cleaning. We rewarded ourselves with a yummy pork tenderloin dinner and of course magic cookie bars! We have had several coop. dinners which We will miss so much when they step off the coast and head to the islands! We have both had many locals visit to talk & check out the Yankee boats. Very nice coffee shop & art gallery just across the street we had to check out also.

10/9/12: We headed for Oriental this morning after Tom washed the decks of some incredible piles of large bird poo! We heard something make some noises during the night but we were too snug to check it out. We're thinking a blue heron decided we were a nice stop over on it's journey! Front is suppose to give way to sunny skies later, we'll see......... Hope to see Kellee & Chris in Oriental. They are headed in from Ocracoke. More later:-) We arrived in Oriental around noon. It's chilly but the forecast is for a warming trend. We had dinner at a local place M&M's and we were happy with the great food. There is a harbor web cam that is documenting our stay so we need to behave :-) Kellee & Chris arrived just after dark & we squeezed them in on the same dock as we're on. We can't believe it's been about a month since we last saw them. They look awesome! They promptly went to M&M's for body refueling:-) Kathy went for a long walk and the town is very quaint with a couple of colorful local hangouts.

10/8/12: We stayed another night in Bear Creek since the weather remained unsettled. We caught up on reading and organizing. We made cornbread & brownies in the oven which kept us toasty....because it's a fareezin'! Kathy knitted while Tom planned out the next leg of our journey. We were able to catch up with a few friends also. Need to keep going south it's still too chilly here.

10/7/12: We headed down the Pungo river and pulled into River Forest Marina in Bell Haven for fuel, water & ice. WHAT A SCARY PLACE!!!! There were a couple thousand birds on the jetties & docks. If you didn't notice all the bird crap everywhere the bird sound you would. I had to videotape it it was so incredible. Tom had quite the ordeal getting the fuel & ice.....nightmare! To makethe matters worse we've had poor cell service for 24hrs. After leaving that Sunday morning wake up call...I tell you what we sceedaddled down the Pungo river crossing over the Palmico River down the Hobucken portion of the ICW . We past by the CGS and about a dozen shrimp boats tied up to a shrimp processing plant. After we entered the Bay River we turned into Bear Creek and anchored in a protected area to wait out forecasted thunderstorms & stay the night. We are at mile 161 on the ICW about halfway thru North Carolina.We are definitely getting a geography lesson on this trip with all of the rivers, bays, canals &the creeks we never heard of! Next stop Oriental , which is another milestone in our journey.

10/6/12: We left South Lake and motored over to the fuel dock at the bridge & fueled up & got ice and going under the bridge by 9am:-) After the Alligator River bridge we past mile marker 85. At the end of the Alligator River we entered the Alligator-Pungo River Canal. We saw several boats from the north headed south. We anchored for the night at the head of the Pungo River. Very pretty area. Mile 127.

10/5/12: We left Elizabeth City ,NC early and headed to Albemarle Sound. We had a great sail across the sound to the mouth of the Alligator River. We found a great anchorage in South Lake. We were the only boat anchored in a very protected area that reminded us of Alaska.

10/4/12: We realized we left Florida 4 months ago today starting this sailing adventure. The time has flown by & we're not done yet! We won't go past South Carolina until the hurricane season is over. Today was a busy day, we went shopping, did laundry and checked out the local museum which was free & very impressive. We plan an early start tomorrow to sail down the Albemarle Sound.

10/3/12: We left early with about 4 other boats down the rest of the Dismal Swamp Canal arriving in Elizabeth City around noon. We promptly went to Quality Seafood that many boater's told us about and had very good seafood dinners. We were invited to a wine & cheese welcoming party on the waterfront by the " Rose Buddies". It is a group that was started by 2 guys who welcome visiting mariner's. They gave each of us ladies a rose. We also got a fly swatter & drink cozie:-) . We spent time chatting with many sailor's on the nice free dock. There is a group of us that seem to keep following each other & we are all headed to different places in Florida, which is pretty neat.

10/2/12: Spent most of the day staying off the boat & out of the rain. We utilized the Welcome Center's library (which has been awesome) to read, knit & blog. I was able to upload alot of additional pics to past blogs. Slowly getting them uploaded.

10/1/12: We are staying another night at the Visitor's Center due to weather. We went to the Dismal Swamp Museum , watched a video & walked the boardwalk thru the swamp and talked with a Ranger for awhile. They had a video on alot of the history of the canal which was very interesting. Utilizing the library services at the welcome center which is very nice. Very boater friendly here. Planning next stop to Elizabeth City when the weather clears.

9/30/12: We left Hampton Roads early morning and headed to Norfolk and beyond. We were treated again to a couple of curious dolphin shows. We entered the Inter Coastal canal at mile 0 and continued to the cut off for the Dismal Swamp at Mile. We entered the swamp at about lunchtime and arrived at the lock about and hour before it opened. So we anchored and needed to move after the lock master said "Captain if you stay where you are I'll be spinnin' you around when I open the gate!" We had a great experience going into the lock. The lockmaster who is also the bridge tender was very personable. "Robert" was very informative about the procedure and the history of the swamp. We had a very enjoyable first "lock" experience. Robert treated us to a conch shell show & gave us pizza for lunch. I videotaped alot of the experience & parts of the Dismal swamp. We arrived at the North Carolina visitor's center at approximately 6:30pm and rafted up with another boat.The trip has been so pretty with lots of wild life and greenery. It smells like eucalyptus. The water is an orange color with several species of snakes (we won't be swimming) and other critters. We saw a beaver, turtle and herons so far. The dragonflies are numerous also.