Bellhaven, NC to Charleston, SC

Wednesday, October 28, 1998

032-47.160 N
079-54.660 W

The last time that you heard from us, we were docked near Bellhaven, NC. I uploaded photos of the trip onto my web site. There are quite a more photos that I haven't had a chance to edit and create web pages for. I have new pages to upload the next time that I get a connection. I had thought that I would have had a cellular connection to use, but I have a bad cable. Based upon the cell service in most of these parts, having the cable wouldn't have done much good.

AJ and I are getting along just fine. I was worried about being cooped up in a 40' boat for 3+ weeks, but we've gotten into a grove and work well together. So far I owe him two dollars beyond his pay. One buck for the world series (I just couldn't pick NY), and another one that I just lost today. We had a dollar wager for the first person to see a palm tree. Well, today we passed a brand new PINK house on a sand bar that obviously had put palm trees in. I doubt that those trees will survive long with the temperatures that occur around here. But, he saw the first one!

One Thursday we went from Bellhaven, NC to Oriental, NC. There wasn't much to say about that segment except that it was COLD! The temps at night have been in the upper 30s, and on Thursday we had 20-30 Kt winds. We made great time with just the jib up. But we froze our butts off! If you look at the web site, you'll see a photo of us bundled up as much as we could. Today I've got a turtleneck, shirt, sweater, and fleece jacket on. Oh yeah, jeans too! And you know, it's really strange, but we haven't seen more than a handful of boats headed north. I wonder why...

We made Thursday a short day as we needed to do some minor repairs to the boat. We had lost about 6 screws that bold the sail cars to the sail. That could cause excessive strain on the remainder, so that needed to be fixed. What was amazing was that we found the exact part (barrel nuts) that we needed, and have everything back in order.

We had expected Oriental to be a big city, with "big" being relative. Well, it was larger than other cities that we've been in. It had street signs... Other than a marine store and a small grocery store, there wasn't much. But it was good to have a short (8 hour) sailing day.

Most days we're up at 6:00 and on the water by 7:00. We typically try to be in by 6 PM, or sunset at the latest. That makes for long days. I've gotten very used to it. We have to do this to make the distance that we need. Right now we should make Ft. Lauderdale mid-week during the first week of November. Of course that only holds if the weather holds, and Hurricane Mitch just fired up. Stay tuned!

We've been treated to wonderful sunrises. In general the sunrises have been much more impressive than the sunsets. In the morning the birds have been very active and the sky has a much richer color than it does at night. We've gotten a great set of photos of sunrises.

The digital camera has been great. We've shot a lot more on it than on film. Every night I download the images onto the laptop and edit them and create web pages. Last night AJ went up the mast and photographed the surrounding area and the boats docked next to us. We showed the shots to the boat owners, and gave them the URL of the web pages. They're planning on going home and down-loading them onto their computer.

Yesterday was one of the more interesting/pretty days on the ICW. We left Oriental around 7:00 and were treated to a very cold sunrise. But it warmed up quickly. Oh, we ran aground! AJ picked the wrong buoy and ran into a mud shoal. We backed off of it without any problems. The computer recorded track was pretty funny. You can see us drifting off course, stopping right where the chart shows the 3' shoal, and then making a right turn back to the ICW channel. I bumped over a slight shoal while docking last night, so I guess that it was our day to get mud on the keel.

The scenery along the stretch between Oriental and the New River Inlet, which is where we stopped last night, was very interesting. It started off with tall pines and pastures and changed to more coastal like trees and vegetation as we got closer to the Atlantic. The houses along this section were amazing. Mile after mile of beautiful houses and docks. I don't know what these people do for work, but they have great houses.

It's Saturday as I write this, and we're on our way to Cape Fear, where we'll drop anchor. And as I continue this paragraph, it's now Monday morning. We stopped at Bald Head Island marina on Saturday night. That's a wonderful place. From what I can tell, the entire island is a being developed into a resort by a single developer and is doing a fantastic job. Beautiful houses, a great marina, golf course, and a great pool. Check it out if you're looking for a place to vacation in North Carolina.

On Sunday we took it easy and had a great breakfast. Around 11:00 we headed out to sea to make a run for Charleston, SC. The winds had been off-shore for days and were only blowing at 3-7 Kts. As a result, the seas were as flat as could be. We had to motor as there wasn't any wind, and we set our speed to get us to Charleston early morning. We split the shifts so that we each had 3 hours at the helm, and 2 1/2+ hours off. I had the first shift from 12:00 to 15:00 and had the last shift from 06:00 to 09:00 on Monday.

Night sailing is really beautiful. This was the first sunset that I've seen over the Atlantic for anything other than a plane. Once the sun is down, the stars come out. And do they come out! We had a crescent moon which set around midnight, and then the star-show began. The milky way was brilliant, and with the binoculars, I had a wonderful view of Orion's nebula, and any other galaxies, star clusters, and nebula. You could just scan the heavens and find object after object. We were also treated to regular meteor trails. AJ was also startled by a pod of Dolphins which came up next to the boat and started jumping right where he was sitting! I can see where that might catch you off-guard.

Around 06:00 I took over just as we were about to enter Charleston harbor. We came in as several large ships were entering and leaving. It's clearly a busy port. Today I'm going to try to explore the city for a while and I also need to change the oil and find a few things that we need for the boat. Until later, happy sailing!
Log ID: 1118