Turf to Surf

 Left the anchorage early on Monday morning, Nov 13th.  Dolphins today, I’m suppose to be driving in these pictures but I’m mostly hanging out the side door to watch the show and letting the auto pilot do most of the work.  We think the above is a clam or oyster bed….wish we knew. Not a lot of good spots to anchor in this area, we stayed here last year….very open space with a lot of commercial traffic.  It was a very rocky night…. Up early for a very long travel day on the ICW, we are heading to the Waccamaw River to anchor for 4 nights. Beautiful day but the sun is getting low on the horizon before we turn off the ICW into the river to anchor. We passed 2 boats anchored on the first riverbend.  Decided to go a little further up around the next corner and found and open spot all to ourselves.  Tranquil and peaceful, that is until duck hunting season opened on our 3rd morning there.  A boat tucked into the bend just off our stern and started shooting fr...

  Crack of dawn, literally.  We go to bed so early when at anchor that we are usually up with the sun every morning.   Beautiful morning, nice and calm. Fishing boat with his net out. Sunset Sunrise  This is the Town Creek Marina in Beaufort, NC.  We stayed 2 nights……Richard did an oil charge on the engine and the generator, washed the boat, borrowed the curtesy car to stock up, filled up the water tanks and caught up on laundry.  Beautiful marina, very well maintained. Learned something new…..roll your ropes;  if you leave them in a straight line on the dock, the sea otters will use them as toilet paper……💩 Jellyfish beside the boat….pretty pink color. Friday we move onto Mile Hammock Bay Anchorage….very nice cruising day. It was a long cruise…..we arrived to a very busy anchorage by mid afternoon.  We managed to squeeze in and set the anchorage after 3 attempts….that is always frustrating. By the time the sun went down, Richard counted 19 boats…...

  We spent 4 nights on the free wall in Chesapeake while the wind howled and the temperature plunged.  We provision and Richard worked on a few fixes. Then headed to the Dismal Swamp travelling in a long line of boats heading south…. Very pretty narrow channel with a lock at each end.  We stayed on free walls by the locks. Elizabeth city has a dock and dine policy….we stayed one night and took advantage of the free wall and dinner out. The next day we crossed Albemarle Sound…..it can get pretty rough but we had perfect conditions to cross it and the Aligator River that follows. Followed by the canal connecting the Aligator and Pungo Rivers. To finally anchor for the night in a secluded bend of the Pungo River…..staying here for 2 nights.  Temperatures have warmed up nicely. Our track for the week, from Virginia to North Carolina….