11/06/2008 Morehead City, NC to Charleston, SC

10/29/2008 We left with another sunrise. This time there was frost on the coach house roof. Air temperature was 36 degrees and I am sure the wind chill was below 30. I did expect a little bit of cold, but we have had cold almost everyday since my dad has arrived. He is holding up well but a lack of sleep for both of us is catching up.

We did stay in the anchorage during Wednesday waiting for the winds to change. While we were waiting I ran into the local town and picked up oil and filters for the engines and we changed out the oil. We also worked on the vents for the fuel tanks. They all seem to be working as best as possible. When I was in Annapolis I did drill some holes in the fuel filler tubes in the tank and that did seem to work better when filling the tanks from a pump. I have decided to leave well enough alone at this time.

The day wait paid off well. The winds did clock around from the west to the north as predicted and that allowed us to sail almost the whole day with 10+ knots of wind on the beam. We saw very few boats on the ICW today. We were passed by a power cruiser and a sailboat that was motoring. That was about it, except for the fishermen in their hunting gear trying to enjoy themselves in the cold. I guess a cold day of fishing is better than work any day.

The sights for the day were plenty of porpoises, a draw bridge and swing bridge that we needed to wait for and traveling through the gunnery range of Camp Lejune, the Marine boot camp. I saw all kinds of porpoises today in pods of 2-4 or more. Early this morning we had a couple of them jumping out of the water in their graceful arcs. That is something new for me to see in the wild.

There are not many anchorages along this area of the ICW. We are anchored in an exposed side creek for the night. Tomorrow we will take off early again and we expect to make it into Wrightsville, NC.

10/31 What a difference a day makes. As the day went on the temperatures worked their way into the high sixties. All is better in the world. We had a light air day with us motor-sailing, mostly motoring. We made our way through Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and onto Southport. We had swift currents that always seemed to be against us, but we plowed on. We saw many porpoises today and the water was clear enough that we could see them swimming under the boat along the bow.

We stayed in the Bald Head Island Marina and Bald Head Island. This located right at Cape Fear. I would call this a well designed, gated community. There is no gate though as the only way onto the island is via the ferry or personal watercraft. After the many cold days and nights, we needed to stop at a place to tie up, walk about and get hot showers. We also did all of the laundry.

11/1 November is here. We left at our normal time of 0700. We decided to take the sort cut to Charleston, SC via the Atlantic Ocean. We should arrive late Sunday morning. We can do this in a little over a day versus three days on the ICW.

NOAA was calling for light airs in the 5 MPH range when we left. As soon as we made it out of the harbor, we set the main and jib sails. After we cleared the channel and the drag of the current from the incoming tide, I set the spinnaker also. We sailed double-slotted (spinnaker and jib, along with the main for a good two hours and then the wind started to shift more behind and I rolled up the jib.

The boat loves this water. She has been galloping along with no problems all day. The water is so beautiful also. It is the clearest and bluest water I have seen on this trip saw far. We ended up sailing with the spinnaker until around 4:00 in the afternoon as the wind kept shifting more off the rear of the boat and I went to using the jib and main wing-on-wing. We did this until the wind died around midnight. We then went to motor mode for the next four hours until the wind picked up again and we sailed into Charleston Harbor at 7:00AM.

It was fantastic night with clear weather. I was using the Milky Way as a runway and the moon as a beacon to sail towards. The moon was directly on my nose and causing a bright shimmer on the ocean. Mt dad had a great time with the all night sailing and it was much easier for me having a second person to sail with. We did a tow hour shift which allowed enough toe for me to get some sleep.

As we came into the harbor we sailed past Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter was where the first shots of our American Civil War started back in 1861. After we made it into the harbor, we headed off of the channel and found a place to anchor and hit the sack for a few hours. We hung out for most of the day there as I looked into the different marinas in the area. There is a shortage of docks and the prices showed it.

We decided to anchor just down river of the City Marina with it’s Megadock and beautiful “mega” yachts. After we dropped the anchor I looked over and saw a little sailing cruiser and it had the name of Varuna on it. The next morning I was talking with the captain and asked him what his boat was. It is a Contessa 26. If you are a fan of mine of Tania Abei you will recognize that as the boat she used to sail around the world that she documented in her novel Maiden Voyage. This boat, it's captain and the stories that came about are probably the biggest inspiration I had to attempt a trip like this. He is the second owner of the boat after Tania sold it and he was heading to the Bahamas.

11/3 We spent the day getting the feel for the area as we expected to spend a couple of days here. I was told this is a nice place to visit as we are traveling down the coast. We were also waiting to see if my mother could make it in to finish this part of the trip with us. She is to fly in on stand-by tickets and it is touch and go.

I introduced my dad to cruisers transportation, walking and public transportation. The last time I traveled with him was to San Diego a few years ago and he had a real hard time walking. He has bad knees from working and he also smoked for most of his life. I was pleasantly surprised as he was able to keep up with me as we walked. We found a bus stop and from there we were able to piece together the bus transportation in Charleston.

We made it over to the visitors center and found information about tours and activities in town. As I mentioned earlier, this was where the Civil War started. It was also the Silicon Valley of its time when it came to wealth. The money made here was in rice and cotton from pre-Revolutionary days. We decided to take a duel trip on Tuesday that included a guided bus tour of the city and a boat trip out to Fort Sumter. After we cleared that up it was grocery shopping time and back to the boat for the evening.

11/4 We needed to get moving early today to make it on the tours. As we made it on the bus this morning we had one of the friendly bus drivers we had yesterday. She said she wished she new we would be back, as we could have brought here a cup of coffee from the marina as she loves the taste. As we went along we got into a political/economical discussion and she share with us how hard it is to keep afloat. I do feel for her and others as I am so blessed to be able to do this trip. Today is the big day for the election.

We made it to our tour and had a great time. The tour guide showed us around town including the many homes of the era, how the town was expanded, the street layout, etc. He was very informative and made it a great time. After the hey-day for this town, it went into a deep depression that lasted for many years. It started after the Civil War and went into the 1900s. There was a couple of hurricanes in the early 1880s, then a massive earthquake in 1886. Then the next time for recovery was coming in the 1920s, they had to deal with the stock market crash. It is a vibrate city now a days and appears to have a growing downtown area again. He then dropped us at the City Aquarium and we caught the ferry to Fort Sumter. We had a positive attitude to the weather when we left the boat in shorts. Not too good of an idea today on the water. The wind was blowing pretty good and the air was chilly. Since today was election day and the weather wasn’t too good, there was a small group of people on the trip. We were able to have a park ranger give us a nice tour of the Fort and explain what happened during the sieges on the fort during the Civil War and what was done to it for WW II. The second picture shows some cannons and a fort wall. Two thirds of the wall height had been blown off during the sieges of the Civil War. It was well worth the trip and the $30.00 cost for both tours.

After lunch we made caught another bus and made our trip to West Marine. The most shopped at store other than groceries and it is like I can’t pass a town if they have a West Marine. I needed to pick up my last set of charts to get me to Key West. After that we headed back to the boat and settled it. We still weren’t sure if my mother was going to make it as she was stuck in Chicago waiting for a connection.

We spent the evening watching the election results. For us it was exciting to watch the results as it was a blow out, so not much stress over the results like we have had in the last two elections and we were both rooting for Obama. I really hope he can bring a positive attitude to the majority of our country and work with our congress and businesses to make it a better place to live for people like the bus driver we had this morning.

I received a call from my mother at 10:30 that she was in a shuttle bus and would be at the docks in 15 minutes. She made it and off I went to pick her up. It turned out to be a perfect day.