3 little Mantas sitting in a row

Karen and Duane on Sojourn invited us to join them and Kathy and Ed on What If at their dock in Oriental NC.  Those two boats sure look good.

BIG WIND, little wind

We stopped in Elizabeth City NC at the Mid-Atlantic Christian College free dock.  They have really big people here.

Relaxing, checking out boatyards, seeing friends, rowing for groceries and nice dinner out

Spent a nice few days anchored in a very calm peaceful anchorage.

View out back door

Checked out Zimmermans boat yard here, trying to find a good place to haul next spring, and get some work done.  It always pays to know in advance where you want to haul.  

Zimmermans does a lot of catamarans here.  They have a great reputation, but might be a little pricier than we want for now.    If we had major work, I would consider them, but we only need a few thru hulls plugged.  We will look at a few more yards.

A benefit of coming to check them out, is meeting other catamaran owners, and also seeing our friends we met in the spring, that are getting work done on their boat.  Always nice to reconnect and catch up.

We also took time to make a dinghy run up the creek, then paddle the dinghy for about 1/4 mile up a small narrow creek to get groceries, and also had a nice meal out (out being, got to go, and ate on boat) at a good Mexican restaurant. Mi Casa Azteca, in Matthews, VA.   Food was good.  

Would have gone for lunch, but have to go at high tide to have enough water in the small creek to get close.

Matthews looks to be a cute little town, might have to come back this way

Matthews, VA

and explore more, when high tide is not at 7 in the morning, or 6 at night.

Will head out tomorrow, will spend a night in Portsmouth at a marina, do laundry, top of batteries and water.

Fly back for wedding, Dean alone on boat, sailing south

 We left Annapolis and headed north - only to be closer to Baltimore, as Kris was flying back to attend the wedding of our niece.

Kris had to leave the boat at 8:00 a.m., to catch and Uber ride to the airport.   Wouldn't you know it, the hardest rain we have seen since the last tropical storm hit arrived right as we needed to get the dinghy in the water and head in.  Kris was soaked, and left a puddle in the poor Uber drivers car, but made it safely to Boise, then enjoyed a 8 hour drive with Derek (our son) to Bozeman, Montana for the wedding.

Sassafras River, Mt Harmon Plantation, Rock Creek, and Annapolis

 We left Cheasapeake City, and headed to the Sassafras River.  Anchored in Back Creek, near the Harmon House Plantation.  

Motoring to Sassafras River

Great sailing - a little too fast, followed by lots of anchoring and wrapping a line on our prop.

 We had a great sail from Coney Island, NY down to Cape May New Jersey, - only issue was we were too fast.  We left at 2:00 in the afternoon, and sailed the entire way down with a very smooth ride, with only about 2' seas.  Winds 14 to 18 knots, so full main and jib the entire way.  

Not much of a moon, but lots of stars out.  Got into Cape May at 5:30 a.m. in the morning, as we averaged 7.5 knots which was faster than we had planned on.   Dropped the anchor, around 6:30 a.m.

Notice SOG at 10.3 knots surfing down wave.  WOO HOO

IDA is here and gone, - life jacket works

Being this far north we planned on having less impacts from hurricanes, you know they are suppose to stay down in Florida.  Anyways Henri came through and we saw little wind and rain where we were at.  Ida is now coming through so we moved to a protected spot for wind, Coney Island Creek.  We knew the rain was going to be a lot, 3 to 5 inches, and we got that.  We  received 3 weather warnings on our phone for flooding issues.  We were low on boat water but filled our 100 gallon tank in about 2 hours with rain water using our rain catcher.