Norfolk, VA
To see as much of the world as we can,
Using the smallest carbon footprint we can,
Spending the least amount of money we can,
Making as many friends we can.
Watching the weather. Carefully.
Chris Parker says "An extended travel window may open behind the second offshore low pressure system Sun7-Mon8 as a HI shifts offshore".
We're sitting still until then. We expect stinky weather Friday and Saturday. "Showers return to coastal areas Thu4 with scattered squalls persisting offshore; Widespread …
Coffee Shop WiFi!
Yay.
Posh lunch joint with fancy wait-staff!
More yay.
Lovely walk around town.
Even more yay.
We're killing time waiting for the weather to turn nasty. Anchor remains fixed near 35°6.1884′N 77°1.9218′W.
New Bern. The tangle of bridges and marks here is pretty crazy. We have many bars of AT&T connectivity, so we think we can synch our various photo albums, Kindles, and cloud storage.
We'll be waiting here, we think, for almost a week. The weather outlook is great for …
Today, amongst other things, we endured a lot of wind. A real lot. Plus rain. The forecast is gusting to over 30 all day and into the late night hours. We may have seen gusts to 40. We're rocking and rolling all over the place. The anchor is holding, and …
Belhaven was pleasant. Very small, and also very alive.
The trip down the AIWW from Belhaven toward Oriental is perhaps the prettiest section of this journey. Did I take pictures? No. It's difficult to capture in a single image.
The Pungo river starts out wide; one could consider sailing down …
Belhaven Marina. It's very small, and a very narrow fairways. Great amenities.
Narrow.
Did I mention that the fairway's narrow?
Bigger boats have to watch the wind and tides to make a clean getaway. We're hoping for light air tomorrow so we can get out. It's …
We've gone, it seems, almost nowhere. We're anchored a few miles past SM 135 on the AIWW. Norfolk is SM 0. We've taken 7 days to go 135 miles. Not quite 20 miles per day.
Beaufort is near SM 205. We're about ⅔ of the way there. It may actually …
Another Jammie Play Day while waiting for weather.
We did essentially nothing. The hook stayed buried at 35° 40.4927′N, 076° 03.4876′W.
The weather wasn't awful during the day. It did rain. But the wind remained relatively light.
I worked on some software. And read. A lot …
Manteo is a lovely vacation place, with a delightful town, and a terrible anchorage for a big boat. Shallow Bag Bay is well-named. It's shallow.
This has a strong contrast with the Deep Point at the south end of the Alligator River.
While I could find 7′ of water coming …
There are tricky anchorages and there are ill-advised anchorages. A bad anchorage transcends mere trickiness. And, there are dumb-ass approaches to ill-advised anchorages, which is where we are today.
Looking back at the start of this journey in "2021 South-Bound, Phases I and II", this was not on our plan …
Jammie Play Day!
The weather promised showers later in the day. We have no reason to press on into the rain. Liquid Therapy will be at Manteo on Roanoke Island, tomorrow, the 23rd. We can wait here and join them tomorrow.
We played quietly all day …
We had anticipated hellacious (gusting over 20kt) wind today. But, this morning, the weather forecast was for moderate wind today, and the hellacious stuff was pushed back to Thursday night and into Friday.
This means we can cross the Albemarle and try to find an anchorage behind Durant Island. This …
It's a long day from Great Bridge to North River. Three lift bridges, lots of other boats.
Here's the 08:00 bridge opening. From there, we have ½ hr to the Centerville Turnpike bridge. Then an hour to the North Landing bridge.
Then it's about 4h 18m to Coinjock …
We went as far as Great Bridge, between lock and bridge. We're tied to the shore at 36° 43.284′N, 076°14.511′W.
We had some drama, but we sorted it out well enough.
Looking back at the plan, we were supposed to blow …
Laundry Day.
CA wanted to try the Tidewater Marina in Portsmouth. For a small fee, we can tie up our Dinghy, use the showers and laundry. I have the WiFi password, and CA can walk a mile and a half to the Food Lion. Maybe take the bus back.
In …
Dolphins! And painful weather. But. First. Dolphins!
Running around the deck to look at them made it difficult for us to get the anchor up.
The weather did not cooperate, either.
CA broke out the camera and banged away at trying to capture some images. It's …
We declared today to be a Jammie Play Day.
This means we did more-or-less nothing all day. Indeed, I wore my pajamas all day.
The anchor stayed down in Bryant Bay at 37° 19.5000′N 076° 26.6830′W.
For CA, this means reading and …
We've never been to Mobjack Bay. It's time to correct that. There are four rivers that flow into the bay, and each has a number of well-regarded anchorages. I rolled the four-sided die and picked the Severn River.
The engine went on a 09:00, the anchor was up at …
Sometimes things work out.
Today's weather is NW winds 10-15 kt. We're headed south. This would be great sailing.
Except. We've got to cover 47.5 nautical miles. Unless we can sail at a steady 6 kt, we're looking at arriving after dark. Not a pleasant prospect. While the Piankatank …
Nothing ever works out perfectly. For the most part, we have to settle for good enough. We finally left Herrington Harbour. We topped off the water. Picked up the fenders and docklines, and chugged out into the Bay on the morning of October 13th.
Winds were nearly flat (less than …