Virginia Cut to Oriental, NC

We have been making some really good progress these past three days. We have been traveling with our friends on S/V Sheila, and it has been really fun to work together sailing during the day and then hang out at anchorage at night. The nor'easter that moved up the east coast during the past few days gave us very little rain, but strong northwest winds. This has enabled us to have the sails up for most of our travel these past three days, which is pretty rare in the ICW. On Wednesday we crossed Albemarle Sound. The winds were forecasted to be 15 - 20 with gust to 25, directly behind us. By the time we were in the middle of the 12 mile crossing, the winds were 25-30, with gusts to 40, right on our beam. The shallow sound produced steep short breaking waves. Thankfully we were flying along with a partially furled genoa at 8+ knots and made the crossing quickly. When we entered the Alligator River on the south side of the sound we found out that the draw bridge was closed due to the high winds. This happens when winds are higher than 30 kts, and despite this bridge being more protected than the sound, it was still honking here as well. After about 20 minutes the bridge tender radioed that sustained winds had come down to 28 kts so he was going to open it. We were glad to get through and then enjoyed a great sail down Alligator river under only the genoa.
That night we anchored in Broad Cove, tucking as close to shore as possible while the wind still blew hard. Thursday brought more good progress and great ICW sailing with the wind still out of the NW. We made it to the west end of the Pongo River/ Alligator River canal and had a beautiful and calm night to catch up on some sleep. Yesterday was another great day of sailing and we arrived in Orinetal, NC around 1430. Together with the crew from S/V Sheila, we went ashore for ice cream and groceries. Today we will make the short trip (20 miles) to Beaufort, where we will be holed up for a few days waiting for mail and doing some boat projects. Our insurance does not cover us south of Beaufort until November 1st, so we will likely spend Halloween there as well.

Motorboats plowing past us in the ICW, although it is not usually this crowded.

Ted cannot refrain from making this a game, racing anything else that moves. 

Calm waters in the ICW

We think these birds were starlings.  They completely engulfed us for several minutes - moving across the sky in waves

Lucy makes a flag and we hoist it up the mast until the sun fades it or the rain washes the water-color out...and then she makes another.  So far we have had flowers, crazy patterns, a pirate and a pumpkin.