NC to CT Day 1
Beaufort, NC to Oriental, NC

After spending 3 months on the hard at Bock Marine, Beaufort, NC we are finally back in the water and headed north... HURRAY!
New bottom paint and a lot of rust repair and a new paint job on SAILS... not total.. just the blue hull... weather did not really let us work as often as we would have liked so we did not complete the decks and house but got a good start on them... will try to finish up over the summer little by little... :)
We were put back in the water on Monday 4/16... spent the night on the docks at Bock Marine and departed at approximately 0920 and headed north on Core Creek toward the Neuse River. Winds were WNW 20-25 knots... not much of anything for waves until we reached Neuse River then we had 2-3 ft. waves initially and they slowly diminished as we approached opposite shoreline and Oriental, NC.
Heard a lot of boats on the VHF as we traveled today... only saw one other boat... a sailboat named GRACE that we passed in Core Creek. Was funny seeing another boat named GRACE as we had some new friends at BOCK that were on a sailboat named GRACE.
With the Neuse River a little rougher than we desired we opted to stop in Oriental, NC for the night. Needed water so rather than our normal docking at the free Oriental Town Dock we stopped at Whittaker Point Marina on Whittaker Creek. WE have stayed here in the past and they have a courteous car and very nice club house.
We called the marina about an hour out and reserved a slip and asked about the depth of the approach channel to the marina. Last time we were here the channel was a little skinny and with fresh bottom paint we did not want to be kissing the bottom with SAILS. They told us approach depth is 7 ft. and 8 ft. at the docks... Well, we found that this was not true, and we saw typically 5.5 ft. in the channel and about the same at the dock. SAILS never kissed the bottom luckily.
Another boat was not so lucky coming in the channel and went aground coming in... 40' sailboat that called TowBoatUS for assistance. Was not long after this that TowBoatUS came in towing the sailboat GRACE we had passed in Core Cree earlier.

We were docked at approximately 1130 at Whittaker Pointe Marina located 34°
35°01.752'N 076°40.909'W. Traveled today for 2 hours and 10 minutes covering 13.7 nautical miles averaging 6.3 knots.


Posted at 1:43 PM
CT to NC
New Bern, NC to Beaufort, NC

We ended up spending longer than expected in New Bern due to a Winter Storm that kept temps below freezing for about a week... temps ranging from 7° at night to low 20's during the day... I would guess about 6" of snow.

Departed from New Bern Grand Marina on 1-10-2018 at 0945... I was solo on the boat with susan staying behind to drive our car from New Bern to Bock Marine in Beaufort, NC.
Was flat calm on the Neuse River despite forecast of 2 foot seas... Even saw a few boats moving around... was a nice day.
I arrived to Bock Marine at approximately 1450 and was securely docked at 1500
34°49.440'N, 76°41.424'W. Traveled today for 5 hours and 25 minutes covering 31.5 nautical miles averaging 6.0 knots.

SAILS will be hauled out of the water tomorrow morning 1/11/2018. We will be the hard for the next couple of months for SAILS to get a little TLC.
Posted at 4:03 PM