KILMARNOCK, VA

The morning started out beautiful as we left Urbanna on the Rappahannock River. Smooth waters! Well, we got a big wake up as we entered the Bay! Yikes, 3-4' waves! Much bigger than predicted, as is usually the case. Jake, the cat, did his usual "get sick at both ends" routine.  Our TV was flying back and forth on its arm on the wall...not good. We found a way to bungee it to prevent the swaying. Gotta love bungees!!! Fortunately, this rough water episode lasted only about an hour until we turned into Fleets Bay to head up to Kilmarnock. Things settled down nicely.

We are at the Chesapeake Boat Basin for 2 nights. Another town to explore, and a farmers market in the morning!

URBANNA

So yesterday, we cruised up the Rappahanock River to Urbanna. We took the Trolley around to get an overview of the town.

Stopped here at the town's old fashioned lunch counter in town for a milk shake.

Boarding the Trolley

Just like the HOLLYWOOD  sign !        

Beautiful Sunrise and Beautiful Local Boat 

HISTORIC YORKTOWN

On Wednesday, we proceeded on to Yorktown. Maridee said it reminded her of a mini Williamsburg. There were lots of old houses and a neighborhood from the Revolutionary War days.

GOT TO SEE BRUCE HORNSBY'S HOUSE...YA THINK ???

Beach at our Marina on York River

MARK AND MARIDEE 

Victory Statue

KNOTUGAL AND FOLIE A DEUX

The neatest thing happened as we were eating dinner at a waterside restaurant. Two Navy Stealth Boats showed up. They were doing some training. The water was real rough and it took them at least a half hour to dock. It was great entertainment! 

OFF WE GO

Yesterday, we decided to head up to NYC with Mark and Maridee. We dropped the lines promptly at 7:30 AM this morning and headed North. Bay waters were smooth!  About and hour into the trip, Mark and Maridee's boat overheated. They determined as long as they ran at a lower speed, things went OK, but it would be too risky to go as far as NYC. So, change of plans. Plan B. We did a 180 and headed up the James River to Smithfield...famous for the hams. New plan is to cruise around the lower Chesapeake and save NYC for another year.

Using a tree trimmer to work on top of a mast...very clever

Adult beverage after a hot walk into town

FOLLOWING FOLIE A DEUX

Historic town kinda fun

NORFOLK DAY 2

Started out the day with a walk to Charlies Cafe for breakfast . Fabulous Mom and Pop spot!

After breakfast, we went back to the boat and headed up to Hampton Roads to our next stop...Rebel Marina. We joined up with friends from Houston, Mark and Maridee. We plan to cruise the Chesapeake with them. They had a great big welcome party for us on their boat! We met lots of really nice people that really use their boats!!! It was fun picking their brains for cruises to take.

The next morning, Maridee took us in their car all around Norfolk and Virginia Beach. We stopped at a great place, beach side, for lunch. Had Orange Crushes all around. From there, we stopped at the grocery store to provision for our upcoming cruising.

NORFOLK

Made it to Norfolk in just 10 days! Boat performed well, and the weather cooperated. We stayed in the downtown Waterside Marina...a favorite. There is always so much going on here, and is such a safe downtown area....lots of people having fun and families.
We had dinner at the Chartruese Bistro....all organic locally grown. It was a bit exotic for John, but he was a good sport. From there we walked over to the Mall and did a bit of window shopping. On our way back to the boat, there was a Mid Summer Festival at the adjacent park. People were dressed in all kinds of fanciful attire.

We finished up the evening with a glass of wine on our sun deck, looking out on the harbour! There was even a fireworks show put on at the baseball stadium which we could see from the boat.

Great Lock between Coinjock and Norfolk

Example of the costumed people at the festival downtown Norfolk

pretty scenery along the way

COINJOCK, NC

Staying tonight at this famous stop over in the boating world. After 86 miles and the Albemarle Sound, we were happy to be docking about 4PM. This is not a fancy place, but has a 1000 foot face dock. Yachts of all shapes and sizes dock here for overnights. Tonight, we have a 110' AB Yacht as our neighbor, along with the jerk on the Sport Fish that waked us badly earlier this afternoon.

BELHAVEN, NC

Stopped here after a fairly short day. Thunder storms were forecast for the afternoon, so we docked about noon. It  rained all afternoon....good day to relax, nap,read. Early evening we walked into the cute, historic town for a gourmet dinner at Spoon River Artworks and Market Restaurant...a very trendy restaurant for this seaside town. We were told to get reservations, so we went early.

We arrived as the doors opened for dinner

nice walk back to the boat after dinner....lots of historic homes along the way

River Dunes, NC

Stopped here Wednesday night. One of our favorites. Great docks, great laundry room, great restrooms, pool, wooded, good area for walking....just an overall good stop for the night. It is just North of Oriental, NC.

ROUGH START, LONG DAY

The winds on Bald Head picked up to about 25 knots over night with even higher gusts. Bald Head is situated right at the mouth of an inlet. We planned on an early departure, as we wanted to do over 80 miles today. We got up , the wind was blowing, and we had a tough jetty to power through to get out of the marina. We were nervous about this, but assessed the situation and decided to "just do it". All went well (sigh of relief). Throughout the day, we hit several very shoaled spots and bridges to wait for....we missed one bridge opening by 5 minutes and had to wait an hour for the next opening . Not fun when you have shallow water on the side and current pushing you forward.
We arrived at Swansboro, NC about 5PM, walked onto the historic, quaint town and had a great dinner. The Captain is very tired tonight!

This poor barge ran aground. Notice the itty bitty Sea Tow trying to pull him off the shoal.

BALD HEAD ISLAND

Woke up bright and early to hit the notorious Rock Pile just north of Myrtle Beach. As I have mentioned from earlier trips North, it is about a 3 mile section on the ICW lined with rocks...bad ones... tear into the bottom of your boat bad. Before entering this section, you issue a Securite on the VHF radio to let any oncoming vessels know you are headed that way. There is no room for passing. It turns out, we followed a huge barge through there. It was nice to have such a big guy running interference in front of us.
The day was slow going with lots of no wake zones and jet skis. We arrived at our destination of Bald Head on the Cape Fear River about 3PM. This was a new stop for us. It was very pretty and upscale. There are no cars allowed on the island. It is all golf carts which was a bit scary as people drive pretty fast through heavily wooded cart paths.

Lots of beautiful beach houses set among the dunes

View of the marina from the light house

Old Baldy, oldest lighthouse in NC

Myrtle Beach

Again, a wonderfully uneventful but enjoyable trip to MB. We arrived about 1PM, took UBER to the movie theater and again to dinner at the Flying Fish. From there, we walked back to the boat and sat up on the sundeck enjoying our face dock view of the ICW with a glass of wine. Life is good :-))

PAWLEYS ISLAND ON THE WACCAMAW RIVER

 We are staying on a face dock tonight at a marina that has  a very nice neighborhood nearby and not much else. We will have a  Salmon dinner onboard and kickback after a long day

COAST GUARD BOARDING IN CHARLESTON

We cruised from Beaufort to Charleston yesterday. We left about 8AM and arrived about 4PM. We were able to successfully out run a big storm at 10 MPH :-)) Actually, the storm seemed to follow us, but we never had any rain. Happy about that.

Gigantic Crane and Barge we passed on the
ICW

Upon entering Charleston Harbor, headed for the City Marina, the US Coast Guard came up next to us and asked to board KNOTUGAL. They followed us over to our spot on the dock and waited for us to get tied up. They wanted to do a safety check. I am happy to say that we passed with "floating" colors!

OUR USCG BUDS

THE BOAT THAT BROUGHT OUR BUDS

We were put on the MEGA DOCK at the City Marina. We were sandwiched in among some 120' yachts.

After all this excitement we decided to walk around Charleston and find a nice cold beer. Did I mention that the humidity was 87% and it was 93 degrees? Needless to say, my hair looked as if I had just stepped out of the shower, and John's t shirt was soaked. We found a fabulous spot for our beer, The Husk Bar on Queen St. They accepted us as we were and happily took our $$$.

This is a large board of lures that was on the Sport Fish Yacht on our dock, that's a lotto lures!

BACK TO THE BOAT

We arrived back to Hilton Head on Monday, July 13. We were able to get the oil changed, the bottom cleaned,  the front AC fixed, laundry done and the provisions bought, all in time to leave by Thursday, the 16th! We had a wonderfully uneventful trip over to Beaufort for our first day out on the water.