The trip south - SC to GA

Yes we have made it all the way to Georgia. Only 300 miles to go.

So we have not raised a sail once in the past month or so. We have been motoring down the intracoastal waterway (ICW) which is a series of interconnected rivers, canals, swamps, and other inland waters that begins at Norfolk VA and takes you all the way down to the Florida Keys. Its nickname is the "ditch" and in some parts that is exactly what it is -- a ditch carved out by the Army Corps of Engineers. So for anyone who has been worried about us being offshore in bad weather, worry no more. We are "inside" and are anchoring in safe harbors every night.

We have seen some interesting things on this leg of the trip. We have gone straight through a military firing range (they weren't practicing at the time), seen some interesting lawn decor along the ICW, and narrowly avoided a tug pulling a quarter mile train of barges. I apologize for labeling the photos "Long Ass Barge" but that is what the tug captain let slip over the radio when he was asking us to get out of his way: "You see ma'am, I'm towing this long-ass, I mean big ol' barge here...". It looked like he was towing the entire Alaskan pipeline to me, 10 barges behind him at least! We are in "hurricane country" now, we can tell by the outrageous-looking houses on stilts. In all other respects they are beautiful homes, mansions even, but the stilts sure detract from the beauty. I guess it's better to have an ugly house still standing than a pretty one washed away by a storm surge. We have not seen any bad weather, the hurricane season is tapering off and officially ends on Nov 30th.

So as we were leaving Wrightsville Beach NC, I ran the boat aground. Luckily it was soft ground and we used the other engine to get us off the bottom, but it was still kind of stressful and not the greatest way to start out the day at 6:30 am. Running aground is fairly common along the ICW from what we have read. There is a lot of shoaling in the rivers and creeks so many times the chart says it is deeper than it really is. For us running aground is no big deal because as a catamaran, we use the engine on the other hull to help us get off the bottom and into deeper water. So far the score is Kevin: 2 groundings, Amanda: 1. But not for lack of trying. I have had several close calls so I imagine I will be ahead by the end of the trip.

Heading south through North Carolina we went through the Cape Fear River. I wonder who named it Cape Fear and why? The name conjures up images of scary winds and currents and waves. Why would they name it something like that, just to intimidate you? Kevin suggested that we change the name on all our charts from "Cape Fear" to "Cape Fun & Games". That's how I'm going to refer to it in future. Just you wait -- it'll catch on.

We made some new "friends" one night at an anchorage in the Calabash River. We had dropped our anchor and were swinging around in a strong current drifting far from our anchor. Another boat called Turnabout* comes swooping in and drops their anchor right next to ours. I tried telling them "no", that our anchor was over there but they didn't listen. Our boat was far away so we thought it would be okay, but then later the tide changed and the current switched sending our boat in the opposite direction. Of course we ended up on top of each other at 2 am. We had asked them not to anchor there, then told them "hey put out some fenders" (they refused) and finally around 2:45 am our boats bumped each other. There was no damage, and technically they should have been the ones to move since we were there first, but they wouldn't move and we ended up picking up anchor and resetting at 3am. Funny thing is, now we see them EVERY DAY, rain or shine. And what's worse is that they get up earlier than us and get going, and then we get going and we motor faster than them, so we literally pass them every day. We haven't seen any other boats as many times as we have seen Turnabout. At first it was irritating but now it's just plain funny.

We have met some nice people though. While we were docked at Myrtle Beach we met Jack and Jo, from the sailboat "Maggie Rose". We went out to happy hour with them and then the next night we both anchored at the same place and grilled burgers. And we have also seen several other boats that are the same make/model as our boat (Manta catamaran). There are only 100 of these boats in the world and we have seen 8 of them since Rhode Island. Pretty much everyone we have met has been very friendly, and all of us seem to be heading to the same place, so we'll probably see some of them when we are in the Bahamas.

Here's an interesting fact: there are two Beauforts on our charts, one in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. I was pretty confused until I heard the natives pronounce the name of their home town. Beaufort, NC is pronounced BOH-furt. Beaufort, SC pronounced BYOO-furt. Go figure.

We wanted to see a movie in Beaufort SC (byoofurt). Thought it might be fun to just take an afternoon and see something mindless and fun like "Zathura" or something. We were so excited that a movie theater was just across the street from where we were docked. Of course the theater was only showing 3 movies: Saw II, Jarhead, and Doom. Anyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of even the thought of horror movies so Saw II was out. Also having missed the first Saw for similar reasons I figured I might not be able to follow the storyline. And I tend to end up with post traumatic stress disorder after watching war movies (cried, literally sobbed, for 2 hours straight after seeing Black Hawk Down), so no dice for Jarhead. So although I am not a huge fan of shoot-em-up video games I agreed that Doom sounded the best of the three until we checked rottentomatoes.com and saw all the horrible reviews every critic in the nation had given it. So no movie. That's okay, I plan on seeing lots of movies while I'm back in Phx in December.

So now we are in Georgia. Tonight we are at St. Simons Island, but last night we anchored in the Wahoo River. Kevin looked at me as we were heading up there and said "Guess what, tonight we'll be anchoring 'up the Wahoo'." Well, I thought it was funny. ;) That expression will never be the same to me again. And sure enough, who should anchor next to us? Turnabout.

*name has been changed, we know we're gonna run into them again someday.

The trip south -- NJ to NC

We have come a long way since I wrote last, more than 400 miles. At an average speed of 7 miles an hour. I know some of you who can run faster than that. We've actually seen butterflies flying faster than our top speed.

After our stopover in New York we decided to sprint (at 7 miles an hour) down the coast as fast as possible to make up for lost time. New Jersey was, well, it's hard to describe New Jersey. My mom used to say if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. But those of you who know me well know that I've never been one to hold back my opinion. So here it is. We hate New Jersey. Sorry if I offend anyone with an affinity for NJ but after you hear this you'll understand. First of all, at our first anchorage a huge ferry came steaming right through the anchorage, even though there is no channel. And when we called the marina guy to ask him if that was the norm he was very curt and rude. Then, at the second place we stopped we ran aground (stop laughing, Jean). Luckily it was mud so no damage and we didn't get stuck or anything. And in another channel, one of the marker buoys was adrift and the coast guard didn't seem to care. And the worst was one terrifying day with waves of up to 8 feet and a terrible pounding every time we slammed into them. I don't want to scare anyone back at home, but we were pretty unsettled after that day, we definitely don't want to be out in those conditions again. On the plus side we anchored right in the heart of Atlantic City one night right next to Harrahs, and the lights were really pretty. But other than that, we didn't see anything about the famed "Jersey Shore" to tempt us back there again.

From Jersey we went up the Delaware Bay and into the C&D canal which connects the Delaware with the top of Chesapeake Bay. The canal itself was kind of pretty, we had a favorable current pushing us through and pretty soon we arrived in the Chesapeake. We stayed for a week in Annapolis which was a fantastic place with lots to do and see and we also had a chance to get into Washington DC to see the monuments and visit with our friend Carrie. For those of you who don't know her, Carrie has super celebrity spotting powers. While we were in Georgetown we saw a movie being filmed starring Nicole Kidman. Kevin's new zoom lens came in handy and he was able to snap some great shots. Then we went to lunch nearby and sure enough if Nicole wasn't sitting at the table directly behind us. So if next year sometime you guys see a film called "The Visiting" and see the scene with Nicole punching a pay phone, we were there during filming.

After DC we continued south through Norfolk (dodging submarines and Navy jets practicing bombing runs over us) and chose to take the route through the Dismal Swamp Canal. The canal is 22 miles long and has locks at either end. If you look at the photos it was neither dismal nor a swamp. But we did see several homes on stilts, a bunch of "no trespassing signs" and a tin shooting target shaped like a man and riddled with bullet holes(?!). So we knew we were in swamp country and were glad to be going through there on a sunny day. I think I might have heard dueling banjos in the distance.

So now we are in Beaufort North Carolina. It is a beautiful town with a great waterfront. On the way into the docks we saw three pods of dolphins. It is nice to be far enough south to see them again. We are docked next to a massive 70 foot power yacht. There are lots of mega yachts here where we are docked. Our 40 foot boat looks like a dinghy in comparison. Today Kevin's cousin Jeanne came to visit with her husband Bill and daughter Jessica. We had a nice lunch and an ice cream soda afterwards.

Tomorrow we will start up again, heading south down the intracoastal waterway -- we're about halfway to Florida now, the weather is warming up and we are sure appreciating seeing the sunshine again. It was pretty darn cold there for a while, it got down into the 40's inside the boat at night until just the last few days.