I was asleep and then was hit in the head with a Honeycrisp Apple, jolted into the reality of being in a port-side lee cloth sailing in the ocean. I sat up, swung my feet to the floor at the end of the settee, and stepped on two bananas. That’s pretty much the story of the second half of the trip from Beaufort, NC to Charleston, SC. The macrame slings from Etsy that hold our fruits and vegetables inside on the starboard side had swung past the point that the cup hooks keeping them attached couldn’t do it anymore. Fruits and vegetables flew across the cabin. The waves were large and the boat was rocking but we were still sailing along at 6.5 knots so I took it in stride and cleaned up banana mush on the floor in the dark at 2:30 a.m. That’s blue water sailing in a nutshell. Our original plan was to sail to St. Augustine. The forecasted southwest gale force winds in the ocean off of Savannah on Wednesday night, followed by strong winds on the nose Thursday afternoon heading further south caused us to reconsider our destination and so we headed into the Charleston Inlet. We’ll miss a mooring ball, showers, mail, good food at The Drunken Horse St. Augustin’s, and amazing live music (on Sunday afternoons - I’m sure they are good every day but Sunday afternoons are over the top!) at Dog Rose Brewing Co., the  Marine Supply & Oil Co which is a must-visit place for any sailor, plus the bonus of a Christmas Parade this Saturday. As you can tell, I love St. Augustine, in short bursts, particularly on Sundays. The constant in this sail was that the wind blew from roughly 010º. After a few slow hours leaving Beaufort, NC, wind speeds picked up and never dropped below 20 knots. Perfect for Avemar. It was a very cold, one-starboard tack sail except for two short jibes to get around Frying Pan Shoals. Two reefs were in the main and two in the staysail. Avemar’s Wind Pilot steered for most of the trip. The story of the trip, other than the apple-to-the-head wake-up call, was about the huge waves during the night on Tuesday. Winds were still 25 knots with higher gusts from the same direction, but the waves changed from the stern to hitting Avemar on the starboard side for a few hours. It was chaotic but we both hit the sack and got some well-deserved sleep. As a bonus, after 34 years of sailing, I finally experienced a wave coming over the stern and swamping the cockpit with 5” of water. I was on watch at the time and thankfully I was sitting in the companionway under the dodger and only the pillows I was sitting on got wet but it was quite an experience for a first-timer! All in all, it was fun. I got to sleep. April enjoyed her midnight to 4 am shifts at the helm and counting shooting stars. We are happy to be at anchor with the woodstove burning and waiting out the upcoming blow in a protected spot and are now looking for the next window to our next adventure… southbound!

At this pace, Avemar will be south of Charleston at this time tomorrow and then the winds build and build. Will we be far enough south? I don’t know but I’m developing a bail out route to St. Augustine. After a slow start from Beaufort, NC yesterday afternoon, winds picked up today! 25 knots from behind and 6.5 to 7.5 knots of boat speed for most of the day. The swell has set in now making things below a little uncomfortable but April and I are enjoying sailing again vs. the ICW! Oh, we lost the cups on our B&G wireless wind instrument at the top of the mast. That sort of sucks if for nothing else but to record these gusts in our logbook! We’re hanging on below!

April and I met our friends Sput and Suzy on SV Validated this morning in Oriental, NC and we cruised together to Beaufort. We had the tide with us for most of the trip so it was a leisurely day. As we were turning into the Taylor Creek from the river, we hit a submerged jetty. HARD!! The obstruction is well marked with signs, so we took the green nun #3 at the entrance to the creek wide to port. Well, that mark is not in the right location. If you are ever coming in from the ocean, stick to the reds!!

April landed in New Bern, NC very early today and got a hotel room after returning from a quick visit with her daughter in Austin, TX. I was only a few hours away in Oriental, NC last night. We decided that we would meet in New Bern rather than paying for an Uber to taxi her to the boat. For the next few days, the forecast shows rain with wind gusts in the 30 knot range. We decided that a slip in a marina for a few days was the best plan with: Showers. Laundry. Walmart delivery. Engine maintenance. A freshly washed deck. Another bonus is that fellow Sea People aboard SV Fearless are here!

I tried hard to get to New Bern, North Carolina today, but 65 miles is a long way to motor singlehanded in one day. April‘s flight lands tonight at midnight. I’ll meet her tomorrow morning and we will continue heading south. Today had some good sailing and some regular old motoring. There were a ton of boats coming out of the Great Dismal Swamp canal. When we were there, we only saw two or three boats moving along with us but this morning, there must’ve been about 12 boats coming from behind so they were back there somewhere. By the way, that alternate route is an amazing trip if you draw less than 6 feet. Just do it once.

April will be in Texas for a couple of days and I’m slogging it down the ICW to Beaufort, NC. Motor sailed on a nice reach early this morning but the the wind went on the nose as I entered the Alligator Canal. April will fly into New Bern and meet me later in the week. It was a beautiful trip, just very long. 65 miles to go. I will target Oriental tomorrow and Beaufort on Tuesday.

Taking the decision to head southbound on the Intracoastal Waterway through the great dismal swamp was an excellent choice. April and I expected the transit would take two days and we would spend one night in the canal. After we arrived, it was so beautiful and there are free docs along the route that we ended up spending four nights. We highly recommend this route if your boat draws less than 6 feet. April caught an Uber on Saturday morning and flew to Texas to visit her daughter for a few days. I locked out of the South Mills gates and motored down the river passed Elizabeth City and then sailed across the Albemarle Sound on a 7 knot deep reach. I went through the bridge at the Alligator River and turned west to anchor along the shore for the night. It was a beautiful trip.

After much debate, and a telephone call to the visitors center, April and I decided to take the Great Dismal Swamp Canal south on the Intracoastal Waterway to Elizabeth city. What a great decision!

Winds were 15-20 kn for most of the day. It was one long starboard tack. Around midday the waves had built to 5 feet but after a few hours the sea calmed down and the wind dropped below 10 knots. A pretty easy trip with a full genny and staysail with one reef in the main. Oh, for the first time my 34 years of sailing, I kissed a very large green channel marker. It is fine but I have a new woodworking project.

We’re slowly heading to the Bahamas. We stopped at the Mathews Yacht Club to see an old friend before leaving the Chesapeake. We plan to rendezvous with SV Validated on Monday and transit the Great Dismal Swamp canal towards warmer waters and weather.

It was a slow beat down the Chesapeake Bay on the second day or our migration to warmer weather. A chill sail though. Cold and warm. Breezy and then light. Avemar is staging in this area near the Rappahannock River to meet up with another sailboat to head south in Monday.

It was a short motor tonight. We just had to leave the Maryland Yacht Club. One could get addicted to trash cans, free water, showers, a full bar and restaurant. LOL.

There was no wind today, so April and I sailed from Solomons Maryland to the Maryland Yacht Club. This is our last preparation and provision stop before heading south for the winter.

We have a flight to catch. This morning we checked the forecast and we decided we didn’t have time to beat all the way to Baltimore and make our plans work. Instead we had a leisurely downwind sail to Solomons, MD.

The northwest 10-15 kn winds turned into 20-25 knots and shifted north. We were on the east side and didn’t want to tack across the bay again and sail all night so we bore off and found the closest protected spot which was another 5 miles away. Great sail. Long day!!!

We had a quick little sail across the Potomac River from Colonial Beach tonight to pick up mail before heading back up the Chesapeake Bay to catch a flight on Thursday.

Nice slow evening sail up the Potomac River to get fuel in the morning.

Sea People glitched tracking this trip. The dates are wrong. We left Ocean City on August 25 at 6pm and arrived at the Maryland Yacht Club at 5am on August 27. Since it didn’t post I trimmed the saved track but eventually gave up at being perfect about it. It’s plus or minus 10 miles. It’s too difficult to trim a track precisely on an iPhone14 Max Pro in the app, but this is close enough. Anyway, we sailed from Ocean City to Pasadena, MD.

April and I sailed Avemar down the Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore, MD to attend the annual Blessing of the Fleet weekend on the Potomac River.

We left NYC a day earlier than we had planned to try to ride the NE winds after Ernesto passed by as far south as possible. The end of the wind happened to be at Ocean City, MD. We brought a passenger this time. As we were getting underway a bat attached to the bottom of the solar panel and slept there until we anchored. Ocean City feels link any tourist beach boardwalk town, but cleaner. Easy inlet to navigate and we never saw less than 12 ft on an ebb tide. Anchored in the sound just south of the inlet. No other anchored boats. Quiet at night. Lots of beach, sightseeing, fishing, and jetski traffic through the no wake zone in the daytime! Based on 24 hours here it seems that they are unfamiliar with sailboats in these parts. Mickey Fins Bar & Grill (great appetizers & 40lb bags of ice for $12!) said we could use an empty slip to park the dinghy to go to the laundromat and grocery store.

Yes. We sailed with a pod of at least 8 humpback whales for an hour. Coolest thing ever.

We timed the tide change perfectly this morning and motored west to east through the C&D Canal along with a nice 3 knot push. Today was a short day and we’re tucked in behind two short islands on the edge of the Delaware River. The next stop on the way to Rhode Island will be in Cape May, NJ. This trip makes 1001 nautical miles sailed in 2004!

We have been fighting a broken prop shaft coupling since we left Beaufort, North Carolina. Once the problem was diagnosed, I shipped a new part to the Maryland Yacht Club. That is where we are tonight. This morning when we woke up at an anchorage about 5 miles away as a crow flies with winds blowing 18 to 22 kn, and we got the boat ready and headed out to the Chesapeake Bay and immediately the wind died. We drifted in the bay most of the day and then the wind picked up this evening to about 5 kn and we slowly beat upwind to our destination. Thank goodness today did not have extremely high temperatures! So in the end, the sail turned out to be rather enjoyable, it was just a long day. Sailing into the slip was fairly uneventful too and some nice people on the dock grabbed lines as we sailed into the slip.

As we left the mooring ball in Annapolis, the transmission or the prop shaft started making a horrible noise. We sailed out into the Chesapeake Bay and north towards Baltimore. We decided to turn into the Magothy River because of severe storm warnings for later this afternoon. Avemar is anchored with one other sailboat in a beautiful anchorage between two small islands. We were sailing to Baltimore to get a part for the transmission. I wasn’t expecting it to totally break on the way there. Ugh. I’m glad I can sail!

We got a late start after replacing the prop shaft keyway to the transmission coupling, a few errands and getting water and fueling up Avemar on Monday. We had winds from behind all day but less than 12 knots. We managed to gybe up the Bay and sailed from Solomons to the Smith Point light. Then winds dropped below 6 knots and boat speed went under 3 knots so the engine came on for the last 7 nautical miles. We anchored in 40 feet by the Naval Academy and crashed for a solid night’s sleep! A fun and calm day overall and well spend a week seeing friends and exploring Annapolis before heading further north!