2025-05-18 524 miles from Vero Beach, FL to Oriental, NC

We left Vero Beach on Monday, just as soon as our last package arrived in the mail, and started motoring up the ICW.  The package was supposed to get there 2 days earlier, so we had to sit and wait for it, but at least they included some Swag with the parts - so not a complete waste.

Nice tote bag, key ring and pen

We motored up the ICW, spent the night near Cocoa Beach, and got up at 11:30 to watch the Falcon 9 rocket launch, which was postponed until 1:30 a.m.   Could not drag ourselves out of bed for that one, but we heard it.   Next day motored up to Daytona Beach, anchored for the night, and early next morning completed the trip up to St. Augustine, FL, where we got a mooring ball for the next two days.

We saw a couple of nice boats on the way up, and normal scenery along the Intercostal.   Did have some excitement when Kris got too close to the green marker and ran aground - even though she was still in the channel.  Backed off and got going again - the only damage was to her pride.

This pretty boat passed us twice on the 2.5 day motor trip up the ICW

Looks tight, but there was plenty of room for both of us

We had stopped in St. Augustine to go to a store called Sailor's Exchange to get new anchor chain.  We had not completely worked out how we would haul our old chain in, and the new chain back, when our friends Ed and Cathy on What If said they would drive the one hour to St. Augustine and help us out.  How great is that.   We had our old chain loaded in the dinghy, and they parked near the dinghy dock.  We were able to load the old chain in the truck and take it in and get the new chain with a minimum of fuss.   Huge thank you to Ed and Cathy.  We went with them on the errands they had for the day, and their errands were perfect for us as well.  Stopping at Home Depot, Staples, West Marine, Goodwill, and Sailors Exchange.   Of course, we went out for lunch, and had a delicious lunch, followed by Ice Cream later on.  Lots of good visiting and errands made the day fly by.

Ed, Cathy, Dean and Kris 

We were back to the boat by 4:00 p.m. or so, and got the new chain in place and anchor attached.  Then we looked at the weather and decided it looked good with South winds to head offshore to Beaufort, NC.  So we left.

Had good sailing Thursday night, but a bit lumpy, and then Friday and Saturday were fairly pleasant with light south winds.   Our new mainsail did just great.  

Quite the difference between the old jib, on left and new main on right

Saturday night the winds started building, and we put in one reef, then two, then Kris looked at the timing and decided we needed to slow down as we were arriving too early and would have an outgoing current with incoming swell on approach to Beaufort inlet - which we did not want.  So we dropped the mainsail, and sailed with jib alone, but were still doing 6 to 7 knots, so dropped the jib as well, and "sailed" with bare poles dead downwind at 3 to 4 knots until the wind died a bit and moved west.  Had to motor the last 4 hours, keeping the speed down to 3 knots to time the entrance for favorable currents.   We sailed 372 miles averaging 5.8 knots, which was good considering we slowed way down to kill 6 hours waiting on tide changes.  Had several military boats out doing "stuff" while we slowly motored in.

One of the military vessels out and about

Since we got into Beaufort inlet around 9 in the morning, we decided to keep going, and motored until around noon, where we dropped the hook in Cedar Creek, about 7 miles south of Oriental, North Carolina.   Tonight will be the first night of full sleep for the last 3 nights - Looking forward to it.