November 4, 2017 - November 10, 2017
Just to give you an idea of the scope of our travels, we traveled 173 statute miles from Baltimore to Norfolk in the Chesapeake Bay. The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) starts in Norfolk at statute mile marker one. We travel about 40-50 statute miles a day which is approximately 6 hours of motoring (not much sailing occurs on the ICW).
We have established a bit of a routine in that we get up with the sun and travel six hours changing helmsman every hour. We arrive at our destination for the day at about 2pm in time for a relaxing happy hour and a dinner cooked on the grill and are finished by sundown. The rest of the evening we spend planning our journey for the following day, reading, blogging, and relaxing. We are definitely early to bed and early to rise. One major difference between this trip and last year's is that Bob trusts me at the helm more. Last year he would hover at my shoulder while I was at the helm directing my every move. In contrast, this year he goes below to work on photos and his blog or relaxes in the cockpit while I’m piloting the boat.
Our first stop at a marina in NC was at Coinjock (MM 50) which is no more than a single extremely long bulkhead along the ICW channel where boats tie up every night bow to stern with no more than a foot between. Coinjock is a favorite with cruisers mostly because of the restaurant which serves the best seasoned prime rib dinners we’ve ever had. You can order 16 oz. or 32 oz. After filling up with diesel and taking a nice hot shower, we made our reservations for our dinner of 16 oz prime rib.
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| Dinner was delicious with sides of salad and mashed cauliflower complimenting the prime rib perfectly. |
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| Coinjock will always be one of our favorite stops. |
Since Bob has a blog about our trip found at rainydays@blogspot.com and gives a detailed description of our travels I’m going to veer a bit from that pattern and focus more on what we are learning as we travel.
This week we started at Coinjock (MM 50) and ended the week at Wrightsville Beach, NC (MM 283). After our stay at CoinJock we got a slip at Beaufort Docks for two nights, but anchored out the rest of the nights.
The advantage of anchoring out is that it is free, we can cook our dinner on the grill, it is quiet and peaceful, and you get to experience the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises. The one disadvantage is that you might not have cell service.
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| This sunset is slightly obscured by the trees, but beautiful none the less. |
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| The setting sun turned this neighboring boat at the anchorage to gold. |
We are staying on our low carb diets to keep our weight under control and keep Bob’s type two diabetes under control. I’ve been making some new and delicious items. The most popular being my fruit pies. Using almond flour for a single crust and cooking the fruit in a sauce pan has been a great success. I’m working on perfecting quiche which makes a fabulous breakfast while under way. I’ve made the traditional quiche Lorraine and also a ham and cheddar quiche. Both have been delicious. Breakfast muffins are another treat for low carb diets. I use a combination of almond and coconut flour to make muffins with blueberries or any other fruit we happen to have on hand.
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| Here’s my latest concoction, a strawberry cranberry pie (I couldn’t find rhubarb but thought the cranberries would add the same tartness). Bob gave it an A+. |
Beaufort, NC is delightful little town with a strong year round population. The street along the water is lined with restaurants and shops that cater to the year round residents and the tourists. The marina provides a courtesy car (the one we borrowed was a chevy lumina with 131,000 + miles on it) to drive out to the grocery stores for provisioning.
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| This building houses a restaurant, bar, coffee shop and the marina office. |
We found out that it is always good to be prepared. The day we left Beaufort it was cold and rainy so we donned our fowl weather gear for the first time while on the boat. It takes up a lot of space in our limited storage but is well worth it in fowl weather. We stayed warm and dry all day!
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Doesn’t Bob look “captainish” at the helm in his fowl weather pants?
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| Tell me the truth. Does Lizzy look happy about being held like a baby? |
I’ll continue learning and discovering new ideas as our trip continues and will share them in my next blog post.
Thank you for reading my blog.
