Casting off

Passage making, November 2017 Making a passage is entering in to Water World where everything moves and dreamtime flows free.   Water rushes, swooshes and slaps against the hull as  the boat rises with each wave, crests, and falls into the next valley, until we are no longer sure where water ends and sky begins. The first day we are excited and nervous after months of preparation and anticipation. We weigh anchor at dawn and leave the flat water of Taylor Creek, North Carolina.   A 2-knot currant pushes us through the narrow inlet between Carrot Island and Beaufort in to the sea. We are on full alert looking for the next mark, noticing any drift towards the shoals to the south, until we find ourselves in open water. After a few hours we are alone at sea, surrounded by an unbroken horizon. It is disorienting at first as our bodies and senses adjust to the constant motion, the crowded quarters and vulnerability of traveling in a small boat over open water. ...

Beaufort, NC, Sunday, October 29, 2017 We have been hanging on a mooring ball in Taylor Creek, Beaufort, NC for the past week and are getting ready to head to Florida. Boat life is starting to feel normal and owning a car and having access to a real shower are in the distant past. Beaufort is a quaint historic town with a long history of whaling and boating. It welcomes transients such as ourselves, offering dingy docks, hot showers for $2 and   a laundromat. Since leaving Norfolk we spent 4 days on the Intercostal    Waterway traveling south, part of a procession of “snowbirds”, boaters migrating to warmer latitudes. There were numerous bridges openings and even a lock . After passing the Dismal Swamp, the Pungo Ferry, and Coinjock we were seemingly by ourselves and in North Carolina.   Beautiful, protected nature anchorages marked our way and the weather blessed us with summer like conditions. After spending a calm night in the Alligator River we ent...