Long run, dreary rainy day — but brightened up by DOLPHINS!! They were playing off of our wake, two and three at a time, jumping up, gliding along, keeping up with the boat effortlessly. They would turn on their slides and look up at us as we tried to take photos.  Amazing.

A few things I saw along the way.  Had a bird following overhead for quite a while, thought it could be an eagle.  Saw a sailboat heeled over with no sails up, couldn’t figure out why, then saw that he had hung a huge bag of water to one side, so that he heeled over enough to fit under the bridge.  Kept hearing in my mind: “Smoooke on the water, fire in the sky…”  And, the water itself can be mesmerizing.

Our last few stops have been in North Carolina.  I was really taken with Belhaven — could almost see myself living there. Stayed at the River Forest Marina, which despite poor reviews in recent years was a very worthwhile stop.  Terrific help from dockhand Eddie, and the owner was a very lovely man who couldn’t do enough for us.  The usual cruiser stops are from Coinjock directly to Belhaven, a rather long run.  Many folks leave from Coinjock at the same time, and all arrive in Belhaven within a couple of hours of each other. They did a great job of getting everyone in and settled.  Oriental was a bit off the beaten path, a nice overnight. Stayed at Whittaker Marina, a very nice facility that seemed more like a yacht club. New docks, nice clubhouse, terrific shower and changing rooms, loaner car, “honor system” laundry — leave your dollar in the box when done. Last night and tonight we are in Beaufort, NC.  They have the best fuel prices, and we found that they also have transient docks. Very convenient to downtown Beaufort. And decent wifi, so I have been able to catch up on posts all day. We will be heading out again tomorrow.

We are starting to get into a bit of a routine now that we have been at this for about a month or so.  When we get into a marina that has a loaner car, we do sometimes use it.  The level of trust and helpfulness is really a very nice bonus to all of this. Basically you say that you would like to use the loaner car, and they hand you the keys. No paperwork, no issues, they just ask that you have it back in an hour or so.  In other cases, someone will come down the dock and ask if anyone else needs to go into town.  We have used loaner cars and golf carts to get around near the marinas, re-supply, etc.  We sometimes use our own folding bikes, and whenever we can, we bring Skipper along.  Other nice thing: many restaurants and stores are dog friendly, to the point where they put out water bowls out front for the dogs, and keep treats behind the counter.  Can’t ask for more than that.

Those nice slow rides keep the fuel costs down.  We have done ok, Artie is doing the math but we are burning about what we anticipated, but paying a bit less than we budgeted.  Coinjock was about $2.15 a gallon for diesel, we later paid $1.99 at Beaufort, NC.

You may ask, as everyone does, what is Coinjock?  It is essentially the only place you can stay after entering the Virginia Cut.  There are two marinas there, across from each other.  One, the Coinjock marina, is known for its prime rib dinners.  It is “the thing to do”.  So, here it is — one fed both of us, and the dog, for two meals.

Before we left, a friend gave us a little notebook; the cover reads “Bad Decisions Make Good Stories”.  Ok, so it was the Virginia Cut — but not a bad decision.  We pulled up at a free town dock just after the lock, and there was a forty five foot space left between two sailboats.  Yes, we went for it.  Gotta love twin engines and a bow thruster.  Artie parked that boat like he was parallel parking in Manhattan at the last open meter on alternate side parking day.  Even the sailboaters were impressed.  Dinner that night was from — wait for it — food trucks which flock to the little park.  Locals were there, other boaters, it was really a very nice night.  Spontaneous is sometimes best!

After the Norfolk / Portsmouth area, you have to make a choice — which way to proceed south.  In our case, it was late afternoon and we expected to stay in Portsmouth and then take the Dismal Swamp.  Well we were so surprised that we made it through the Railroad bridge, we hadn’t quite made a plan as to what to do next.  We saw other boats in the distance at what we “thought” was the Dismal Swamp entrance.

We had notice that just beyond Norfolk, there was work being done on a railroad bridge. The bridge, according to the charts is “normally open”, that is, unless a train is passing through, boats can go underneath.  The work being done forced it to be down, with only a few scheduled openings per day.  With the “great migration” going on, that was not a good thing.  There were reports of up to SEVENTY boats standing by to get through.  That would be bad enough (just like Amityville cut on a holiday weekend) — but keep in mind that all of those boats would then be lumped together and looking for the same docks the next night or two.  We thought we would stop at Portsmouth just across the water from Norfolk — but of course all of the sail boaters had already scored the few free docks.  As we were trying to decide,we saw that no one was waiting to cross through the last scheduled bridge opening, except one small sailboat.  And through we went.

As you go past Hospital Point in Norfolk, at marker Red 36, you begin the official part of the ICW.  And here it is (alright, maybe it isn’t as exciting to you as it was to us).

Just catching up on a few posts.  Started using the Pentax camera, but the photos were not in the correct format to post them here.  Took me a while to figure that out.  Cell service has been a bit spotty through North Carolina as well, which is where we are today.

As you pass through Norfolk, you come across a huge amount of Navy ships, commercial ships and even a cruise ship.

Stayed at Norview Marina, next to a very huge power- cat; its owner runs it single handed.

Spent an extra day at Solomon’s Island.  VERY COLD, low 30’s with front warnings.  Piled every blanket we had stored on the boat onto the bed and went to sleep in sweats (and the Skipper kept us warm).  Funny that you don’t really think about the usual chores to be done when planning a trip like this, but we spent the whole day washing the boat, doing laundry, vacuum, etc.  A few boat gremlins decided to appear:  small power issue with the stove and we lost our onboard water, apparently the faucet opened slightly in the bathroom – probably from the vibration of being underway, sending our fresh water overboard.  Minor issues, to be fixed at our next several day stop.

We wound up bypassing Annapolis going south, as the boat show was this weekend.  We plan to stop on the way back up to NY.  Came down the west side of the Chesapeake, and we are staying at Calvert Marina, Back Creek, Solomon Island.  Just back from a “Taste of Solomons” restaurant tasting, had a little taste at 5 different places.  Who knew there were so many ways to prepare crab??!!  Now, it is time for a nap.  Much thanks to the folks at Calvert for the use of their loaner car!

Stayed at the town dock at Rock Hall.  Guidebooks all say, “good free dock, except in south winds when it is exposed”.  NOAA forecast:  “Southwest winds 5, switching to NW 5-10”.   So we warped the boat around to face bow into the expected light winds from the North.  THEY LIED.  Wound up with winds straight out of the south, 20-25 with higher gusts.  No sleep that night, we eventually put out every bumper that we owned, tied, tightened and loosened lines, and bounced at the dock all night long. Too rocky to take pictures that night, but here is what it looked like next am.  No damage to the boat, thankfully.

Before that happened we did go into town for ice cream.  And of course when they saw the Skipper, they gave him a “doggie cup”.

We moved down to Cape May NJ from Atlantic City.  Nice offshore run, no issues.  Stayed at Utch’s Marina. Very shallow heading in at low tide.  We did briefly meet our first several other loopers heading south.  Cute downtown known for Victorian