The next adventure has begun!

After two months of being tied to a dock we are off again. The time was well spent. We completed some projects and did some traveling. Cori spent a month with her parents and family in South Dakota and I arrived later to spend a couple of weeks. We both were able to attend our family reunions and it was great to get reconnected with extended family.

We have been talking about traveling up to Maine this summer but are now at least a month behind but are going to try anyway. We got back to the boat last Tuesday (8/2/16), we kept checking the weather, made a couple of last minute provision runs, swapped out stuff from the storage unit and decided it was time. Saturday morning we untied the lines, maneuvered to the fuel dock to top off the fuel and headed out. We had plans to stop downriver for the night with friends before continuing on but with the weather they opted out so we decided to continue. All was well until the storm caught us. It was short-lived but intense: 30 knot plus winds, pouring rain and lightning all around. After it passed we changed to dry cloths and continued on until anchoring just before sunset. We were up first thing in the morning to make as much progress as we could and continued on. We are motoring since there is little chance of sailing while traveling the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW). We missed several storms but finally got hit after dropping the anchor. We planned on stopping at Coinjock NC for a night so we got a later start in the morning and quit when we arrived at the marina making it a short day. We need to stop at Coinjock for several reasons. There are no good places to anchor between Coinjock and Norfolk so we need to start early to make that leg in one jump. They also have the best prime rib in their restaurant I have ever had. I order the large serving and have enough left over for several more meals.

We also need to rush to Norfolk because the weather window will not be open for very long and we want to jump out and make it to Block Island in one leg. The weather is forecast to be favorable for the rest of the week and we want to take advantage of it. Therefore as soon as we got tied up in Coinjock we started getting the boat ready for an offshore trip. We are hoping to get to Norfolk early enough to just continue out of the Bay and shoot straight across. If that doesn't happen we have several places along the route that we can duck into.

The next report should be from somewhere in New England.