Norfolk and the ICW

By Sailor Keddy -
Last Tuesday was a very productive day. Monday night we had the pleasure of eating with an Admiral in the Coast Guard, Jim Watson, the father of my girlfriend in college. He's one of the most personable, down to Earth guys I know and gave Jon and I some great advice for fixing up Winchelsea a bit. The hole in the exhaust was in a section of 2" steel pipe and I thought the only solution would be to weld it, or have it replaced entirely, $$$. He said he had a similar problem on his own boat and replaced it with a length of high-temperature hose. Well, Jon and I spent over three hours on Tuesday morning cutting that piece of piece of pipe out and the afternoon finding that replacement hose. It worked fantastically. We also got the alternator working again, so despite the fact the wind turbine is completely shot, we can charge our batteries again without having to pay for a marina slip with shore power!

After those repairs we left Norfolk Wednesday morning and spent four days on the Intracoastal Waterway. Easy as pie. If you passed Kindergarten, you can navigate the ICW. All you really need to know is the difference between red and green (or triangles from squares), stay between the lines and, if you get confused, follow the leader. It was my birthday during that leg, so we more or less drank the boat dry one night and blared a classic rock station on the radio at anchor in the middle of Cypress Swamp. A pretty good way to ring in year number 27.

We are now in Beaufort, NC. I've decided to take a break for a couple days, enjoy this great southern weather, and see a friend as they pass through. Our plan now is to make either Charleston, SC or Jacksonville, FL by Halloween. I'm pretty much on my original schedule, if only a day or two behind. The warm weather and friendly people in the south are really starting to make this trip very enjoyable. I leave you with a few pictures I've been taking...












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