"Hit the road, I mean the water Jack! "

Departure....St Augustine that is.......time to head north and at the same time we are trying to remember all the beautiful warm water we saw in the Bahamas.  This brown tea colored water in the ICW is not great to compare.  But, away we go, out the inlet that is well marked and along with Flight Plan we turn left and  we took up a heading of 45 degrees.

Flight Plan heading north

Sailing was a little slow as the wind took its time to fill in but eventually we were moving across the sea with no engine noise and our sorry looking old sails were moving Nati nicely.  New sails are on the  agenda this summer.  Dad, if you want to buy us a new head sail ....??!!!

We had a non-paying passenger for a little while.  Here we are, 60nm offshore and look who shows up very tired....

We think it liked the bounce of the screen

The first night gave us fine sailing.....double reefed head sail with a single reef in the main and we were moving good.  Our only casualty occurred when a wave hit us broadside, we heard a noise but could not figure it out.  In the morning we found our life buoy on the deck.  The stainless mount had broken it's bracket.  The morning brought isolated t-storms and small squalls that we could see on the radar and we changed course a few times to miss them.

All in all we had a good trip up to Wrightsville Beach where we and Flight Plan pulled into for the night.  Our plan was to continue to Beaufort but by continuing it would have had us at the harbor entrance at midnight and we had no interest in going into the inlet in the dark.  Instead we dropped the hook and had a great tuna dinner via Vinny & Flight Plan.  He caught a mahi and a black fin tuna on the way north.  We caught another Bonita (little Tunney) that is not great eating.

Our Bonita

Vinny's tuna steak....UMMMM!

The next morning we said our goodbyes to Flight Plan (they are hauling out nearby) and went back out into the ocean heading for Beaufort.  The wind gods were not nice so we had to motor the whole way but at least we covered the distance with no bridges, shoals or motor boats waking us in the ICW.  We caught the current going up Adams Creek so we were able to go all the way to Back Creek for a very peaceful night at anchor.




The next morning we decided the weather was good to make a run to Ocracoke Island and Lake Silver.    We have never been there and heard nice things about it so..............off we go.  The winds cooperated and we blasted out the Neuse River into the Pamlico Sound and we got a taste of how bumpy the Sound can be.  We nosed Nati in Lake Silver by 4pm and now we are sitting in a pretty little harbor for a few days rest.

Heading into Ocracoke Island

Night one in Lake Silver

For a summary:

•  Since we have been  back in the states we have traveled 586nm in ten days.
• The trip to Wrightsville Beach was 346 nm and we had two nights and 3 days offshore.
• We only used 5 gallons of diesel during that leg (69 miles to the gallon!)
• The second leg of the trip was 83nm long.
• The third leg was 49nm and now we are saying.......TIME FOR A BREAK!  Stand by for our story of Nati's visit to Ocracoke Island.