January 10
Yesterday morning we woke up around 8 to discover that the winds had died down dramatically, and that we were alone at our anchorage. We quickly pulled ourselves together, and pulled anchor seeing as we wanted to make sure that we made it all the way to Beaufort for today, rather than having to put in at another anchorage along the way because of not having made enough miles. Truly the trip between our anchorage Church Creek and our arrival in Beaufort was completely uneventful. We did see some huge dolphins along the way, and actually had one that was jumping coming toward the boat (usually they are jumping in parallel with the boat so you don’t really get to see their faces or undersides - but this one we did). As we were about 5 miles off from Beaufort, we spotted Rotop’s OPEN flag flying ahead of us, and we closed the gap just as we pulled into the anchorage we’d decided upon with Martijn the day before, the Lady’s Island Bridge anchorage. We pulled alongside Martijn, who had already dropped anchor, and chatted for a minute as he pulled himself together to go ashore, as he was hoping to make it to Best Buy before they closed to pick up a new computer. We dropped anchor a little ways away, and got ourselves situated for the evening.
At about 7:00 Martijn returned… SUCCESS! He’d been able to get the laptop he needed so that now he could load all of his navigation information onto it. While I put together a quick dinner, the guys worked on getting Martijn’s computer up and running. We all enjoyed a nice quiet evening at this beautiful (and calm) anchorage before turning in for the night.
This morning we got up and crossed through the Lady’s Island Bridge, and glided over to Beaufort’s free town dock where we tied up, got really nice HOT showers, and have been enjoying the beautiful day. We’ve also finally named the kitten - Skipper. She’s adapted beautifully to boat living, enjoys playing with her mouse that Martijn made for her, and has even gotten brave enough to come and explore the cockpit, although she really isn’t all that interested in going beyond the confines of the cockpit seats (thank god).
We’re off to explore Beaufort a little, and see some of the beautiful and historic sites to be taken in here before we go back out to anchorage this afternoon. More later after some exploring!
January 10th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Yay! Kitten! Also glad to see that the freezer situation has finally been managed.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Hello Three Sheets,
I stopped and spoke with Lynne at the Jacksonville Landing on Wednesday. Great blog! I enjoyed reading about your adventures. Hope you have a good visit in Jacksonville; sorry the weather has turned cold. The capt’n and I will be taking a 3 week trip south in May 2009 and cruise 1/2 year when I give up my day job in 2010. On your way to the big pond or ICW - look for us on the St. Johns River after you pass Blount Island. We’re the only sailboat on our side of the river.
January 17th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Hi Brian (and Lynne),
Your mother came to visit us this weekend and showed me your website. It’s great! What an experience it must be to take such a sailing trip! I love seeing your photos.
It was interesting to see how much warmer it got as you headed south. It looked SO cold in NYC. The temperature went to 21 below yesterday in Swanzey so I was quite envious of your warm environment.
I had a great visit with your mother, and she always likes spending time at the B&B. It has been quiet here as Elizabeth’s family moved to Honduras but David still lives here.
Best wishes.
Susan Schuster