Hard to Say Good Bye

leaving the dock

This past week was busy.  Had to get our personal stuff packed away, and get the house ready for our house sitters to move in.  Plus get stuff placed onto SunDaze, and provision for our trip.  Busy as bees this week.  But we got it done.  Handed the keys to the house sitters and waved good bye.  

We had Thanksgiving with our families during the past week as well.  Always hard to say...we will see you in a few months.  But time flies by too quickly.  We will miss you guys!!!

We woke up to a chilly beautiful morning and left the dock, ready to get our trip underway.

 

Lovely early morning

We stayed on the ICW for a couple of days.  Our goal was to head to Cape Fear River Inlet and then go out of the inlet on towards Charleston, SC.

Hobucken on the ICW

ICW

We moved along during the day, and anchored out at night.  Cold, but tolerable.  We brought along some winter wear for this part of our trip.  

I started by first read for this trip...another D. Brown book, Angels and Demons.  Ahhh..nice to have some time to do nothing but read and relax.

We are traveling with a buddy boat, Moon Pie. Glad to have another boat along for the trip.

Moon Pie

 After a couple of days, we headed out of the Cape Fear Inlet, Charleston bound. 

Cape Fear Lighthouse

Sun setting on the Atlantic

Last of the days light

This sun set lasted over an hour

After being off shore for about 28 hours we headed into Charleston Harbor.  What a welcome sight.  I can tell you I am not a true sailor at heart.  Off shore passages are not my favorite thing to do.  I deal with them as best I can, and count the hours until we head back inside.   While I love the water, I do not love the constant motion for hours on end.  After about 8 hours, it starts to wear on me.  While it may look calm in pictures, on the boat, it is a continuous roll.  And if the roll comes from behind us, I tend to get sea sick.  During this part of the trip, the sea was kind to us, up until the last few hours.  Coming into the harbor took much longer than it should due to the state of the water.  But once inside the harbor, we were back into settled waters and we were happy!

Moon Pie inside the harbor

SunDaze docked at marina....resting!

We stayed in Charleston for a few days, catching up on boat chores, laundry, and visiting.  We love the low country and always plan to stop here to catch up with our good friends and enjoy this city.

 

Charleston sky

Walking from the marina into town

Triple berry cobbler at our favorite bakery in Charleston

a beautiful yacht that we heard was for sale at the bargain price of $75,000,000.  or so we heard?

Mast from a boat that did not make it through the hurricane

We left Charleston after a few days via the ICW as the weather was unfavorable for going off shore, Yay!!!!...  Off to Beaufort, SC.  and it was cold!  Lots of soup and hot tea for us during this part of our trip.  Plus fuzzy clothing!

 

Trying to keep warm!

Shrimp boats

When we are traveling on the ICW, we try to get as many miles in during the day light hours, because it is not advisable to travel on ICW at night.  So it is often times a long tedious day at the helm when traveling this way.   Plus it is mostly motoring and no sailing.  But it is much calmer than the ocean and we get to sleep at night because we are anchored in a safe little spot.  On the ocean, or what we refer to the outside (of land), someone must be at the helm at all times...day or night.  I much rather be sleeping!

So that's the wrap up of our first week, or leg of our journey.  

Until next time...

Enjoy!