Bahamas Bound

2006 - 2007

We are now in the company of local sail boats and transients heading south. This is more like it!

If interested, you can follow the current leg of our journey on this page as you did with the Loop Trip. We plan to post and update at least weekly... if the god of internet communications sees fit to permit regular connections. Every couple of weeks we'll move the older portions of the log to secondary pages, keeping this page somewhat shorter.

Updated on 01/28/2011

11/5/06 - A dawn start put is in New York by 1pm. Ecky and Chuck found the boat traffic and skyline impressive - especially when we steamed past Lady Liberty. Traffic was light compared to our first visit as Sunday reduced the ferry activity. By 3pm we were off Sandy Hook, NJ, committed to standing watches and motoring all night under a full moon. 11/6/06 - We reached Cape May at 4:30am, having passed Atlantic City, ablaze in lights, around midnight. The moonlight revealed a dredge in the channel so we anchored offshore to await daylight before entering. At Cape May we quickly fueled and headed out and up the Delaware so the crew could experience the Chesapeake. We motor sailed against the tide until 5pm, finding a cove off the shipping lane to anchor in. Periodically during the night the boat would roll as a half dozen ships rolled by in the dark. 11/7/06 - Up before dawn again and head upstream propelled by the tide. We entered the C&D canal enroute to the Chesapeake. The weather is warming, high 30's at night and low 50's during the day. Sure feels warmer after the weather we had up to this point. As we entered the Chesapeake we encountered overcast skies and light fog. By the dusk we were entering Annapolis in light rain. Naval Academy boats streamed past, headed out for night maneuvers while a fleet of Academy sailboats raced at the head of the bay. 11/8/06 - Its getting close to time for my crew to head home. We checked our probable destinations for the next week and discovered Annapolis was by far the best airport to fly out of. Flight arrangements were made - Ecky and Chuck depart the 9th... Wow! Ruth helped research the airlines and announced she was going to fly in the 9th and join me for a while. When things change they change fast. Just when the going gets good - the good get going. We talked over our experiences on the trip. Each telling what they found interesting, different than expected and exciting. I sure have been blessed with a couple of great companions! The crew will be exploring Annapolis today while I do some needed maintenance (I've spent a couple of weeks in town before). It rained all night and is misting this morning - typical weather for this trip. The good news is that the temperature is in the low 50's... is this the tropics? I received word today from Miles that Lats & Atts published "Partially Looped", the second in my three part series "Half Looped" - Kewl! (Sorry, I had to sneak that word in once for fellow Latties.) 11/9/06 - 3:30am, time for Ecky and Chuck to board a cab for the Baltimore/Washington Airport. A balmy wind caresses us as we say our goodbyes under a bright star lit sky. By noon they'll be back in Wisconsin and Ruth will be here. Hmmm, she's never going to believe the stories about the rain and cold. Well, time to clean the boat and provision for the next leg of the trip. Ruth arrived about 1pm. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the low 70's - t-shirt weather. We moved the boat into Back Creek and anchored just off Port Annapolis Marine for the night. 11/10/06 - Two beautiful days in a row. Ruth must be a charm. I headed in to Madden Masts & Rigging in short sleeves to get a pair of life lines shortened. I also found some electrical connectors I'd been searching for the past 2 weeks. Now I have all the parts I need to finish the solar and wind systems. Whoopie! We motored south on the Chessie for 8 hours, about 64 miles, feeling our way into Cornfield Harbor (a dent at the mouth of the Potomac River) in the dark, anchoring for the night. What a day. Light breezes, sunshine and mid-70's! We saw our first 2 pelicans today. Buddy has been in the cockpit the past two days wondering why it took Ruth so long to get here so he could go outside. Sure was great having my first mate back aboard! 11/11/06 - Pre-dawn brought a couple of surprises. First we'd anchored in the middle of a field of crab traps and secondly we were next to a large pound net (impoundment). Man, we could have tangle in either in the dark last night. By the time the sun broke over the horizon we were trucking down the bay. Temperatures rose to the mid 70's under sunny skies (sorry Chuck and Ecky) and Buddy enjoyed his third consecutive day on deck. We encountered several flocks of pelicans as we pushed toward Norfolk. 12 hours later we were feeling our way through traffic in the dark as we entered Norfolk. Man I hate that! Ruth's Lasik paid off in aces and spades as we tried to find marks and determine the directions of ships and towboats. We finally tucked into Waterside Marina for the night. What a night - it was balmy Key West weather. We tied next to a Swan 46 and talked back and forth with its crew as we enjoyed a cocktail in the cockpit. Next step - the ICW south. 11/12/06 - We woke at dawn to find that Ruthie's magic had worn off - some of it at least. The temperature was in the high 50's but the skies were grey. We motored through Norfolk, wondering at the destroyers, aircraft carriers, missile ships and transports as we threaded our way south - our tax bucks at work. We missed the hourly opening for one bridge by 5 minutes because we waited at an earlier bridge for some powerboats (they sped up and made the last one). So we dropped anchor in the channel and I made a ham and cheese omelet for Ruth and I... had a nice leisurely breakfast. The rain started when we entered our sole lock for the day. We locked up one inch - that's right, 1" - in heavy rain. It basically rained the rest of the day. We surfed down North Landing River under power and headsail, hitting over 9 knots in blinding rain. By 3:30pm we'd covered 50 miles and elected to stop for fuel, a slip and wifi for the night. It was raining so hard we had to build a dam around the fuel fill fitting to keep water from running into the tank while we fueled. Good news - the price of diesel is down to about $2/gallon. We're settled for the night - it's dark out and we are in our cozy 68 degree cabin. We each won a game of Scrabble and Ruth has pork chops and rice cooking on the stove. Buddy is already begging... ummmm, it doesn't get much better than this. 11/13/06 - Dawn oozed through a sullen sky... again Ruthie's magic failed - though I have to admit I like temps in the 60's. I pushed off at 7am while Ruth caught a few more Z's. By mid morn we were sailing under genoa at 7.5 knots down the North Landing River (really a sound). From there we entered the Alligator River and later the Alligator Pungo River Canal. We were in NC with the wind blowing 15-20 knots. Boat speeds topped 9 knots as we motor sailed south in light mist. Along the Canal Ruth spotted a big black bear high in a dead tree - out on limb as it were. That was a sight neither of us had seen before (sorry - the camera was buried in the cabin). At  4:15, dusk, we anchored out of the channel in the Pungo River. We took advantage of twilight to mount the wind generator (no Chuck L, it doesn't make wind, it makes electricity from wind). Wow, a 77 mile day! Not a hard one at that. Now we are enjoying wine and a warm supper, listening to Suzanne on the stereo. Another boat has anchored near us, probably figuring on safety in numbers. 11/14/06 - I was up before dawn, hoisting anchor at 7 am - the other boat had already left. A beautiful sunrise heralded a great day. Buddy joined us on deck as we motored south, then west. We had expected to spend the night at Oriental, NC but passed there at noon so we pushed on to Morehead City (I wish). Along the way we saw more pelicans and our first pod of dolphin. Dusk caught us with no anchorage and we ended up motoring in the dark until we found an inlet (got to mark this area of the chart to warn ourselves. We ran 107 miles today. Whew! 11/15/06 - After being serenaded by heavy artillery last night we motored through the Camp Legeune firing range (glad they got their shooting out of the way last night). Saw a few heavy hovercraft and some APC's. Early in the day we heard a hail for Another Adventure on the VHF... turned out that Bruce and Holly Marie were entering Morehead City after several rough nights offshore (he'd left the boat in NY for a couple of weeks and was again ferrying her south). He figured we would be about here so he radioed. It was great catching up with his trip. We also saw Donna Mae again - another Erie Canal fleet mate. Under beautiful sunny skies we ran to Wrightsville, NC where we dropped the hook for the night - a mere 54 miles. We saw a lot of dolphins, pelicans and seabirds. Buddy was intrigued by a loon's call - sure had his full attention. Ruth tested the depth along the edge of the channel and found it lacking... a couple of bumps and we we back where we belonged. We now have both solar and wind generation hooked up. It will be interesting to see the impact on battery charges. 11/16/06 - We're still in Wrightsville, NC. We'd decided last night to take a down day today as the weather forecast sounded a little skuzzy. Turned out to be a good decision as thunderstorms rolled in last night with sustained 20 knot winds and gusts in the high 30's. Our anchor held as did most in the harbor... one small sailboat blew up into a marsh. The winds stayed with us all day along with rains and tornado warnings. We spent the day reading and monitoring our anchor. We're in the middle of a flock of snowbirds - sailboats and trawlers heading south. 11/17/06 - Up at dawn, coffee's brewing, sun's rising in clear skies, 45 with a promise of 60 and Buddy is talking up a streak - not a bad way to start the day. The temperatures made it to the mid-60's as we motored along the ICW just inside the NC coast. The amount of condo development down here is staggering. If the land is above the tide level it becomes a condo site. After 62 miles we stopped for the night at Cricket Cove Yacht Club (a marina) where we found a $5 cab to a Food Lion supermarket. $250 later we had restocked the pantry. 11/18/06 - Saturday, sunny with mid-50's. We passed Barefoot Landing early morning and elected not to stop (we'd provisioned there and saw tigers on our loop trip). We traveled for a while with Enticer, a beautifully maintained Trumpy - sister ship to the old presidential yacht and El Presidente, a yacht we'd encountered on the Loop. We are in South Carolina now, anchored just past Georgetown in a spot we used coming north on the Loop - 65 miles today. Putting that in perspective its about an hour's drive. Our solar and wind generators are working well, but then, so is the alternator as we are motoring and sometimes motor sailing. Ruth started a daily note to Bobby, Demi, Walker and Lofton telling them where we are.

Chuck checks the channel as he passes a historic Hudson light Ecky cruising down the Hudson Chuck captures a memory of... Lady Liberty Ruth and sun joined AA in Annapolis Buddy got outside for the 1st time in 5 weeks - yah, he's in there somewhere. Dredge working the channel near Surf City, NC. So far the shallowest water we've seen in the ICW channel was 9.5 feet. Much better than our last trip. Trawling in the channel - this was the smallest trawler we'd seen.

Visit earlier portions of the Bahamas Bound trip log...