Back in NC…is it usually this cold in October?

First up: Happy Birthday to Kris Buttenberg!

No letter came, so we went. We left Annapolis on a windy Monday morning and planned to sail through the night and the next day to NC where we would start anchoring at night again. We spent all of that time in Annapolis and never really checked out the Chesapeake, which holds a lifetime of anchorages and coastal towns…maybe next year. The forecast had promised NW winds 20-25 knots with gusts up to 30 knots and we were excited about finally having good sailing weather (also known as a small craft warning) and we ended up having an excellent broad reach down the Chesapeake in consistent 25 knot winds with gusts up to near 40 knots. The only problem with this is it got us to the Hampton Roads/Norfolk metropolitan area a couple of hours earlier than expected, and since it is still dark at 5 am, I had a hard time picking out our markers with all of the lights on land. Luckily our brand spanking new GPS chart plotter made easy work of all of it. We hit the first of many south-of-Norfolk bridges at 7:15 am which meant it didn’t open until after rush hour at 8:30 am and this started our 5 hours of waiting on the Virginia ICW bridges. The first bridge tender also let us know that the Coast Guard didn’t allow sails up on the Virginia portion of the ICW, so it was motoring from then on. We were in a big pack of 11 power boats and 5 sailboats that waited at each bridge and entered the Great Lock together; I believe we were riding along with the “snow birds” who are making their way from the north to Florida now that hurricane season will soon be over. We found a lovely anchorage off the Broad Creek on the North River, just north of the Albemarle Sound. This creek is wide and deep (enough) and completely undeveloped…how nice! Our coordinates are N36 12.166 W75 57.715; if any of you have been google-ing our coordinates, these should bring you to a different type of anchorage than you’ve seen with us since we left NC. Of course with the seclusion comes no wireless internet access, but our phone has a great signal.

Have I mentioned how cold it is? Its amazing how 50 degrees while sailing can feel just like skiing at 30 degrees; and the 30 degrees while sailing overnight felt downright artic. I know we’ve told people we like our weather on the cold side, but this would be far more comfortable with our cockpit enclosed; which we are looking into. Now I understand why so many of the cruisers were getting eager to get south quickly. While we were in Annapolis we were researching our heating options, since it is not possible to run our air conditioning/heating at anchor for long. The first idea was to install a diesel heating system which would cost about $3000 - $4000…it would keep us cozy warm, but that’s pretty high just for heat. Then we thought about a diesel generator; it cost even more, but it could run anything on the boat at any time. Then we thought about buying just a portable gasoline generator (Honda 2000); its only $1000 and it could run just about anything. Then we came to our final answer; the solar panels can handle all of our energy needs except for heat and air, so we just bought a portable propane heater for less than one hundred at the hardware store. An added bonus: it looks like a freaky little fireplace. Reinhart has already burned some of the hair off his legs.

We left our unspoiled hideaway (and nicely warmed cabin) on a cold Wednesday morning to continue our trip south. I spoke with my brother, Kevin, during the trip and he said he we love to meet us in Southport, NC this coming weekend, so that is our new plan; we should be there before noon on Friday. We did decide to anchor one more night on the way down and pulled into a lovely spot just south of Belhaven, NC on Pungo Creek (N35 30.861 W76 38.609). The shoreline is dotted with lovely homes and none of them have wireless AND we don’t have a phone signal; too bad, we really wanted to call my parents, and Kevin, and Emily, and Kris, and Arne & Bev. We can always think of a multitude of folks to call when there’s no signal!

We weighed anchor earlier than necessary on Thursday morning; we are heading down the ICW and out the Beaufort inlet, but I don’t want to start entering the Masonboro inlet (near Wilmington, NC) until sunrise on Friday, so we’ll have to slow ourselves down a bit. To make the schedule better, we are stopping by Oriental to kill a little time, have lunch, eat some ice cream at The Bean, and publish this blog. Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up with you in Southport.