Beaufort NC to Chesapeake VA

We had a good visit in Beaufort NC with our friends Mike and Marilyn who live nearby.  While at lunch we saw the wild horses that live on the local islands just across the channel.  

We departed Beaufort NC, after a day of rest and awaiting wind.  We had to depart the dock at 8 at slack water as there is quite a current in this channel when the tide is running, and we had to get around the stern of a 160’ sailboat docked in front of us.  Interestingly, this boat has a draft of 25’, but the channel shows depths of under 20’ in places, so it appears to be stuck here for a while awaiting a King tide.  

The forecast was for N15 to 20 but easing mid day so we did the first 15 miles up Adams Creek to the Neuse River at idle speed as we didn’t want to get there too early.  And is was moderately choppy even  in Adams Creek initially.  Our friends tell us that the Corps of Engineers (who maintain the ICW) call the Neuse River and Pamlico Sound the “Pamlico Ocean” as from where one enters the Neuse, there is 70 miles of fetch up to the Outer Banks to pick up wave action in Northerly winds.  

We got to the Neuse around 1030 and the wind had receded and the moderate chop had reduced but there were still swells running up the river from the 2 days of wind.  We continued to run at reduced speed to make the ride more comfortable as we had about 2.5 hours to go to get to the protected water of the Bay River.  We did have a contingency plan of stopping short of there at a nice marina, but the waves seemed to be easing as we went on so we continued on to Bellhaven, across upper Pamlico Sound, which was quite good by the time we crossed. We were in by 415 for the 60 mile run. 

The forecast for the next day was good, but the balance of the week would be windy, of course, and we had the biggest open body of water, Albemarle Sound, to get across.  We departed Bellhaven in light SE winds and headed NE, planning to get across Albemarle and on to Coinjock.  

This leg of the trip involves the MOST boring section of the entire ICW, the Alligator - Pungo rivers canal, which is a 25 mile long ditch with one slight turn mid way.  But at least it’s calm.  The 2 hour run up Alligator river was good with the wind behind us.  Crossing Albemarle was a bit rough as the wind had come around to the East and on our beam for the 2 hours to get across.  We arrived at Coinjock about 430 for the 77 mile run.  

We thought about getting up early the next day and getting through Currituck Sound before the wind came up, but as we looked at the NOAA forecast later, and the Windy app projections, we concluded that would not be a good idea.  So we spent the day at Coinjock starting to work on boat cleanup.  Greg gave the boat a good wash but unfortunately it is prime pollen season here, and as the boat dried more pollen accumulated, and it is quite sticky.  

The forecast for the next day was lighter and West winds, so it would be on our beam going up Currituck sound, which is a quite narrow and shallow channel in a wide open expanse so the waves get short and steep.  The 2 hours thru there yielded lots of spray but not too bad a ride.  The final 2 hours into Chesapeake is in a canal, so very calm, but a couple of bridges to time.  

We arrived at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, our home port, by 11, after 32 miles and docked in windy conditions.  The next 3 days would yield very light winds and great travelling conditions, now that we are stopped, of course.  We had covered 170 miles over the 3 travel days of the week, and arrived in good time to start clean out and decommissioning.

There was lots of clean up and and decommissioning work to do as after 3 boating seasons, logging over 8000 miles and 5 times up or down the ICW, we have decided to sell the boat and move on to our next adventure.  

The experience has been great, and we have generally done all the things and seen all the things we wanted to see, with the exception of getting to the Bahamas.  

We came into this with a 3 to 5 year plan, and have concluded that we have done what we wanted to do.  For insurance purposes, we have to be north of latitude 35 for hurricane season and we are finding the ICW trip a bit of a grind now though.  Since departing Marathon nearly a month ago for the trek north, we have logged 1060 nautical miles. The wind we have had to deal with this season has not helped, but there is little new for us to see and do in our stops.  

There have been too many highlights to be able to list them all, but the continual dolphin encounters have been fantastic.  They really seem to love the speed of this boat and they entertained us for literally hundreds of  hours. 

Key West got the single largest devotion of our time, at close to 10 weeks over the 3 seasons, and we really enjoyed that time.  Big places like Charleston and St. Augustine we loved and spent a lot of time there.  Smaller places such as Georgetown, Hilton Head, and Vero Beach are special places to us. 

This has been a great boat for this adventure.  Very comfortable for 2 with room for guests and set up well for extended cruising.  It doesn’t make any sense to bring her back to Vancouver though as loading on a ship and delivering is the only, not inexpensive, option.  

Thanks to the many great dockhands who made docking a largely painless experience, particularly in the windy conditions we experienced so often this season. 

Thanks for your interest in reading these blog posts.  At first we thought we would be doing the blog for the benefit of family and friends, but we soon realized that we would significantly benefit as well from having a good written record of our trip. So some may have been more detailed than necessary, but we have a good memento.  

We have now been home for 4 days post de-commissioning and clean-up, and the boat is safely stored away in the shed at AYB.  The boat is not in this pic, just where we had to fit her into. 

Look forward to seeing you all sometime soon.