Badabing!

After leaving Cape May on Saturday we tried our best to sail in light winds by putting up the spinnaker and having Conrad and Mark put on fins and hang off the back of the boat to give us a push.  Boat speeds of under 2 knots were't going to cut it so after a few hours we had to resort to turning on the engines.

Cape May Nature Center

 

Thursday we were on the boat all day because it was very windy, cloudy and cold (a high in the low 70s). After dreaming of winter while enduring the heat wave in Annapolis, none of us even left the interior of the boat except Matt who wore a jacket. We are total babies and much like Goldilocks--it's too hot, it's too cold, waaah.

Jersey Shore

Please ignore the fact that it's 3 days later and
Matt and Conrad are wearing the same shirts as in Annapolis.

At a sushi restaurant in Annapolis, the Japanese waitress asked us whether we were from Jersey because of our deep tans. Reality show stereotypes reach far. We're in South Jersey now.

Cooler on the water? Not so much.

We really enjoyed our stay in Annapolis even though it was the temperature of the sun, due mostly to some new live-aboard friends. They are the kind of people that you feel like you have known forever, even though it's only been fifteen minutes. They live in a marina and were very generous with their time, space and stuff. They have two great kids. Their 9-year old son 'speaks' Star Wars and Lego--Conrad and Mark can't stop talking about him. They also have the cutest and most articulate 2-year old daughter ever. We stayed a couple days longer than we were going to, so that we could spend time with them.

The heat forced us to resort to covering our cabin with a blue tarp. Along with our laundry, we were full-on live aboard. At least it was a canvas tarp and not plastic.

Now we are in Chesapeake City, at the mouth of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, for a day. The boys loved the C & D Canal museum. It is small but has some great videos and models of the canal, including pieces of the old water wheel. The town is very historic and almost every building near the waterfront seems to have a name and a story. Tomorrow we head to Atlantic City.

Annapolis (unplanned)

We are spending the next day or two in Annapolis to have a small repair done to our jib. We don't have to do the repair here but it's probably a good place for it. We have only been here for the boat show and it is a lot less crowded now, at least mid-week. We like this town though. Instead of ice-cream shops (though those are here too), the majority of non-restaurant businesses along the main street seem to be t-shirt shops and art galleries.

As we normally do when we're back in a civilization, we are stuffing ourselves full of ice-cream. And going to parks and museums of course.

Take me to the river house

We visited our good friends who have a summer home near the Potomac River. We spent a great couple of days with them and their adorable toddler. They fed us delicious barbecue and took us to a local island in a fast boat. We can't let the boys do too much of that or we will be too spoiled to go back on our boat.

As long as none of them blows us up, we'll be happy

Our first submarine sighting.  "I would like to have seen Montana..."

When we were at the beach at Cape Lookout, I pointed out to Conrad that there were hermit crab tracks in the sand. He said, "Really?" and walked over to look. After a few seconds he said, shaking his head, "Those aren't tracks. It says 'joy.' Someone wrote it." Oh. Yes, I'm doing a great job educating our children.

Cape Lookout

We came to Cape Lookout by chance after meeting some great people on a sailboat that we anchored near in Beaufort. They have a daughter who is between Conrad and Mark in age. They highly recommended Cape Lookout, saying it was one of the nicest anchorages in North Carolina. We were not disappointed. The beaches are beautiful, the water is clear, and the weather was perfect. The boys had a great time playing on the beach.

We were supposed to leave today but when we went to raise the anchor, the buttons for the windlass didn't work. Again. Matt spent the morning troubleshooting and fixing the windlass. He was able to get it working by cleaning the corroded leads of the wires. So we didn't have to raise our 110 anchor by hand to go somewhere and buy a new part.

 

 

If we had to be stuck somewhere, this was a good place for it. We got to spend another day in paradise and found five dozen little neck clams (66 to be exact). Our buddy boat helped us find them and then let us keep them all. We leave for our two-day passage to Norfolk today.

Wild horses...

We have had a couple good beach days. The island near Beaufort with the most popular beaches is also filled with wild horses.

Today we took a dingy ride to Morehead to get some sushi fish. Morehead is bigger than Beaufort and seems less like a small town in some ways. We spent some time at the History Place while Matt walked to the sushi place. It has memorabilia from the area but is very kid-friendly with great tunnels and some toys.

We are heading over to Lookout Bight for the next couple of days and from there will sail to Norfolk.

Happy Independence Day (Beaufort, NC)

Remember how we were somewhat amazed that Wilmington would just close down a 4-lane US Highway on demand for any old boat? Well, Beaufort doesn't have that. No bridge raising during rush hour and then only at half-hour intervals. After spending all day sailing, we waited a long 10 minutes for the bridge to go up and then squeezed the boat through what seemed like a pretty narrow opening.

Water torture (no not Chinese, we're Korean here)

What? Pictures of navigation instrument panels are boring you say? Well, 50 knot winds on an anchored boat are so not boring. At least the anchor held and nothing else blew away.