October 10-16

It's Monday morning and we're on our way to the start of the ICW @ Norfolk, VA. This would be the last day “outside” for a while. With few notable issues, the day was like any other. Light winds and the hum of the Westerbeke engine. The approach to Norfolk was a busy place. This bay, if you can call it that, is a large merger of several rivers and ports. Hampton Roads as it's called today, is a huge commercial port as well the home of the Norfolk Naval base. This is where the big guys park! (see pics). We anchored at channel marker R36 also known as Statue Mile Zero (St M 0) with at least 20 other boats that would start their journey into the ICW in the morning, too.

Our first few hours on Tuesday included waiting for a few bridges to open as well as jockeying for position with all the other traffic. Power boats can move much faster than sail, and they have some powerful wakes to deal with. Generally the power boats lead the cluster, followed by all the sailboats in descending order of engine size. It takes a few miles for this all to work out and in the mean time everyone wants to be first. We're all on VHF channel 13 communicating our intentions and politely passing on the port side. Well that's how it's supposed to work. Not all captains follow these simple rules. More than once we've witnessed some not so nice passing and are keeping a constant watch for it. The waterway is narrow and depths can range from 20+ feet to as low as 8 if you weave away from the rum line too far. The guides we're using have mentioned more that once the importance of staying alert for shallow water and debris (see pics of the tree stumps). This combined with the passing scenarios can be rather exciting at times. We also listened to several communications coming out of the Naval Base. Imagine hearing something like this as your riding along: “This is WARSHIP 72 preparing to embark from berth # 12 heading to channel mark R6. Standing by on 16”.

We caught up to all the larger boats by mid afternoon since they had already stopped for the day. (see pic) We were happy with our progress for our first day and found the recommended anchorage just a few more miles beyond the busy marina area. You probably won't find Buck Island, but that's where we stayed. ICW_St M 56.

From here we found the Alligator River, the Alligator/Pungo canal, Pungo River, Neuse River, Adams Creek anchoring every night when the time was right. On Friday we were in Morehead City, NC. No relation of course, but we did buy a few shirts to mark the occasion. This was our first marina stop in 11 days. We were running low on fresh water, fuel, groceries, and clean towels. The city marina fit the bill for all these needs and we enjoyed a nice warm afternoon there running errands.

Saturday brought us to ICW_St M 245 and the Mile Hammock Bay and Sunday we finished the day just south of Wrightville Beach, the Carolina Inlet ICW_St M 295. The properties along the ICW these last few days has been very interesting. This must be where all the North Carolina money is spent. (see pics). We've had some discussion about which houses may actually be hotels or condo/time shares as opposed to singe family homes. One place even had a giraffe (see pic)!

We're moving along at a good pace and should not have any trouble reaching Florida by early November. We're hoping to use a few inlets this coming week to escape the confines of the ICW and sail along via the Atlantic. We'll let you know how that works out next week!