Heading North

There are many cool places to sail and enjoy on a boat in Florida. Unfortunately, we are captives of our boat insurance company. They dictate where we need to be during Hurricane Season and Florida is not on the list of "safe havens". North of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina is where we must go.

We left Ft. Pierce on July 18th and headed out into the big blue Atlantic Ocean.

An ocean passage offers opportunity to catch a nap or two.

And to do some fishing.

Sailing north from Florida is fun because you can pick up the Gulf Stream about 15 miles off shore. The Gulf Stream is like a fast running river in the middle of the ocean. It runs south to north and at its axis it will run at 3.5-4 knots. Without much wind and only one engine running, we were moving at 11-11.5 knots. For non-boaters, that is lickety split fast. We made great progress north. After two days and two nights at sea we had to head towards land and seek shelter from an approaching cold front. The weather forecast called for lightning, rain, thunder and winds. We hate this kind of weather and being out in the middle of the ocean during a storm is not fun. Our mast is 64 feet tall and looks like a "lightning rod". We headed west and entered North Carolina at Cape Fear. We found a marina by 9 AM, took a much needed shower and jumped into bed for a nap. By 2pm we were engulfed in the storm. It passed quickly, no lightning strikes found our mast and the cool air that followed was much appreciated.

We continued our travels north via the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW). We love the countryside in the Carolinas and the ICW offers unsurpassed scenery.

These Ospreys give us the evil eye as we come close to their nest perched on one of the waterway markers.

There are beautiful homes along the waterways.

The ICW is often a narrow channel surrounded by lush growth....and a few bugs.

The people here are very friendly. It is not uncommon for the locals to offer you a ride to the store. This marina gave us the keys to their car and told us not to worry about gas since the car already had a full tank. "leave the keys under the driver side floor mat when you are done" were the only instructions they gave. We did not want to insult them so we took them up on their offer and headed toward the local seafood restaurant and grocery store.

We really enjoy the seafood here. The clams were delicious in this local restaurant. So were the scallops, the shrimp and the flounder.

We were a bit confused about what is considered a vegetable in this part of the country?

Since there are no hurricanes on the horizon we decided to visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This is the oldest lighthouse in North Carolina found at Ocracoke. The harbor here is small and very protected. There are gorgeous beaches, great hiking and biking trails and the seafood is superb. From here we continue north about 150 miles to the Chesapeake. We will be calling Deltaville, VA home for a few months. We look forward to our return trip to SD on August 18. We miss our family and friends and look forward to catching up on local news.