While, we are now in Conway, SC, mile 377.3 on the ICW, at the Bucksport Plantation Marina (definitely not as nice as it sounds, but it is cheap) and getting ready to leave the boat for a week while we go home for the wedding. We have rented a car and will leave on Sunday bright and early to drive for over 3 1/2 hours to Raleigh, NC to fly home, so this will be the last blog before we return again at the end of November.

We have been travelling everyday as we wanted to get as far South as possible before leaving again. Travelling down the ICW has probably been the most interesting (for lack of a better word) part of this trip. For my none boating friends, the ICW is basically a dredged channel that runs down the eastern coast of the United States that gives boaters the option of staying in calmer waters, or going out into the Atlantic Ocean. This part of the ICW runs from Norfolk, Virginia (mile one) to Key West Florida (mile 1243. ) We are planning on going to Marathon, mile 1195, so we still have a way to go! It is very shallow in parts, especially where there are inlets from the Atlantic, due to shoaling. It also has a ton of bridges to go under, some that we can pass under, and some that have to be opened in order for us to pass. Everyday we must plan our trip around the opening schedules of the bridges that need to be opened. Some only open once an hour, some twice an hour, and some will not open in strong winds. There can also be current in the ICW and we never really know how fast we will be going as sometimes we will have a current with us and be doing 8 knots and sometimes it will be against us and we will only be doing 5 to 6 knots. There are also buoys that have to be spotted, keeping the greens to port and the reds to starboard and then there are the buoys that are subject to shoaling that you must read about in our Skipper Bob book and follow his advice as to how to get safely around them in the deepest water. Everyday, we spot boats that have gone aground and must call a tow service to get them off the bottom. So far we have been lucky enough not to have used their services, yet! We have been on bottom twice but have managed to get off on our own and have touched bottom a couple of times too. We have met one couple that have a deeper draft boat who seem to be grounded at least once a day. It is getting to be quite comical. The scenery has also been a lot different. The houses along the ICW are beautiful with amazing landscaping and huge docks. There are always large power boats calling you on the radio asking you if they can give you a slow pass to you port or starboard. With all of this activity, each day passes quite quickly. We have been trying to start out each day between 0630 and 0700 so that we can get to an anchorage by about 1500 as they become quite crowded if you wait too long and you don't want to be having to find another anchorage too late in the day as it gets dark not long after 5 p.m. Bruce and I have been going to bed earlier and earlier each night. We can now hardly make it to 9 p.m. (are we getting old or what!)

To keep things short and sweet (for my brother-in-law John), we left Beauford, NC and our friends on the Mary T, and went and anchored in Hammock Bay, Wrightsville Beach, then onto Little River and once again anchored, in what was probably one of our tightest anchorages since we left home, and then onto Bucksport, SC. Looking forward to a few days off at home in Mississauga. We just received a call from the Mary T and they will be here tomorrow and also from Northern Reach, At Last and Steve and Shirley and all three Canadian boats will also be here by tomorrow. Looks like our car will be busy taking people to the grocery store!!

Baltimore waterfront

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Sitting in a huge lineup of boats heading South in the ICW waiting for the bridge to open

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U.S. Aircraft carrier with helicopter escort


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The White House, this is as close as we could get!


Hurricane Noel held us up a couple of days in Deltaville as winds were stronger than the predicted 40 knots and lasted right into Saturday night. We made the best of things and borrowed a car and went to the Oyster Festival in Urbanna. If wasn't as great as we thought and it looked more like a food festival with tons of vendors selling everything from funnel cakes, turkey legs, shrimp, beef, pork, ice cream to seafood and of course, lots of oysters. I don't really know what we expected and although we did enjoy all the food stuff, I don't think we would go back a second time!

We finally left early Sunday morning and headed to Norfolk. Westie and Northern Reach took a dock right downtown Norfolk to do a bit of sightseeing and get a few boat repairs done but Bruce and I anchored in Willoughby Bay. The guidebooks said it was a good anchorage but it could get noisy as it is right in front of the huge navel base. It turned out to be a great anchorage and maybe because it was a Sunday, there were not very many planes in the air. Our friends Amy and Ken from the Mary T decided to join us in the anchorage so we had them over for dinner and made plans for our trip further south the next morning. The other 2 Canadian boats were staying in Norfolk but we didn't want to pass up any good travelling days in case we got stuck again. We really have to keep moving as we have to try to get as far south as possible before we come home for Bruce's daughter, Leanne's wedding.

The next leg of our trip required a lot more planning as we had numerous bridges to cross and one set of locks to go through, all with different operating hours and times when they would not open due to rush hour traffic. We had hoped to be at the first bridge in time for a 0830 opening but it was a lot further than we thought and we were also held up by a military aircraft carrier pulling out just as we were about to sail by. Regulations prohibited us from coming within 100 yards of the carrier. With helicopters and gun boats circling around us, we decided to give them lots of room and cross to the other side of the channel! It was really cool to see the aircraft carrier up close and as we passed the navel base to see many other warships and carriers at the docks. We really didn't have to wait long for the 3 bridges to open as we went along but the further we went, the more boats it seemed we picked up that were going the same way as us. When we finally got to the locks, we had to wait for 2 1/2 hours to get through as by this time there were lots of boats ahead of us and the lock only operated once every hour. Once you got through the lock, there was a swing bridge to go under that again only operated once an hour. There were some spots between the lock and the bridge where you could tie up to some posts on one side and stay for free or go to the other side and tie up to some trees! Of course the post side was full so we pulled up to the other side and tied the boat to 3 trees. It was now after 2 o'clock and with the time change we knew that we would only have 3 more hours of daylight. We had hoped to make it 50 miles to Coinjock, NC but by this time we had only made it to mile 12 and we had 2 more bridges to get under. We were never going to make it and as there were really no other anchorages that we knew about to go to along the way and we figured even if there were any, they would probably be full, we decided to stay tied to a tree for the night. It didn't turn out too badly as there was a great grocery store close by as well as restaurants, laundromat and propane.

We had planned to leave our tree the next morning but another front passed through earlier than expected and it was windy and rainy. We decided to spend another day with the trees and leave for Coinjock on Wednesday. Hopefully after this we will get a few more good days as we really have to get moving. Tonight due to the Canadian cold front, the temperatures are suppose to fall into the 30's and we are not looking forward to that.

While we finally left Great Bridge in time for the 0800 opening and headed to Coinjock, NC, thus leaving Virginia behind. We decided to stay in the Coinjock Marina as there really wasn't a suitable anchorage around. We have been travelling with the Mary T as the other Canadian boats are about a day behind us. From Coinjock we went to the Alligator River where we anchored for the night as we had to go through the Alligator River- Pungo Canal and didn't want to start going though as it would be dark before we finished. The nights have been really cold and the daytime temperatures have only been in the low 50's. From the Alligator River, we went to Belhaven and anchored again in front of the town. We have been starting our days really early in order to take advantage of the daylight hours as it is dark by shortly after 5 o'clock, but light by 0630 so we left Belhaven before 0700 and as they were forecasting yet another cold front moving through with strong winds, we didn't know how far we would make it. We had hoped to make Beaufort, NC but the winds by the mid afternoon were up to 30 knots and even though we were having a great sail, it was going to be too late in the day to make it into Beaufort so we stopped in Oriental, NC and decided once again to get a dock instead of anchoring. Oriental is supposedly the sailing capitol of America, but after taking a walk through town, we really aren't sure why! It is only 20 miles to Beaufort, so will try to make it tomorrow and spend the day there. We are expecting warmer weather in the next few days and hope to make some headway again over the next few days. We are both looking forward to getting home for a week or so for the wedding and once again seeing family and friends.

I am sure most of you are wondering where the heck we are as it has been ages since I had a chance to post a new blog! We didn't have any Internet in Baltimore so when I checked the e-mail today, we had 131 new messages to read!

Bruce and I went home for a few days, me to Sault Ste. Marie to see my mom, who is doing much better and in now in a convalescent home and receiving physiotherapy for her hip and getting 3 square meals a day, and Bruce to Mississauga for a couple of days. He returned to Baltimore a few days ahead of me to do some work on the boat and I went back on the 22nd of October just in time to help him celebrate his birthday. Only Jim and Karen were left at the dock so we all went out for great Indian food! We had hoped to leave on the 24th but as I have said a million times, everything is subject to change. This time the forecast was for 3 or 4 days of solid rain and we decided that we would rather spend it on a dock than on an anchor. Bruce's sister Bettyanne and her husband Ray were also planning to visit us on their way to Florida for the month so we thought it better for them also to be on a dock. It turned out to be a good decision as the weather was horrible! The last day of their visit did turn out to be in fact sunny by the late morning and this was the day we went into Washington for the entire day of sightseeing. We also managed a visit to the aquarium, dinner again at the great Indian restaurant in Baltimore and just had a great visit with them.

We finally left Baltimore on the 27th of October and went to Annapolis where we met up with Steve and Shirley and Mark and Carol. We also got a chance to see our friends that we met in Nova Scotia, Amy and Ken from the Mary T. We only stayed in Annapolis one night as the forecast was good and we wanted to keep moving while the weather was good. It had turned cold, but sunny and we needed to keep heading South as this was a reminder that winter was not far enough behind us. We went 50 miles or so to the Solomon Islands and anchored in the river. Heading into the anchorage we were treated to a mini airshow with military fighters and helicopters landing and taking off at a nearby airport. All 5 of the Canadian boats made it to the Solomon's but only 3 left for Jackson's Creek early the next day. Steve and Shirley and Mark and Carol needed a few days on a dock to get some work done. We are now in Jackson's Creek at the beautiful Jackson's Creek Yacht Club where the first night is free. We had planned to leave again this morning for Norfolk but changed our minds after listening to the forecast for the area for the next couple of days as they are calling for gale force winds as high as 40 knots and waves up to 8 feet. We will probably be stuck here for a couple of days and are now planning on leaving on Saturday. We had hoped to be stuck in Norfolk as it is a much larger city to explore but it is very beautiful and peaceful here. We finally got out the bikes for the first time today and rode around the town of Deltaville. Tomorrow we are hoping to get a car and go to the oyster festival in another nearby town. Hope it works out. Tonight we are all getting together for a potluck dinner in the clubhouse here. It has a kitchen and barbecue area and it seems that we have the whole place to ourselves. We can sleep well knowing that we are tied to a dock if the forecast is right. Hopefully we can get moving again soon. The nights have warmed up a bit and daytime temperatures are in the mid to high 60's.