Current Position: Georgetown, SC Hi everyone, Our stutter step start has finally ended, I hope. I don’t know why but when we do not use the boat for a couple of months it takes several stutter steps to get going again. This time we have replaced the oil cooler for the V drive and put in a new universal joint. And that was just to get past Great Bridge. But Hampshire Rose has been doing us well since then. I won’t brag about anything because I don’t want to tempt fate and have something else go wrong. From Great Bridge we motored along the ICW, through Coinjock (without stopping for prime rib) and anchored at the entrance to the Albemarle Sound. The winds were light, and although they were forecast to come around to the south, they were still going to be light. Well they came around from the south and blew us awake. It was not too bad, enough that we couldn’t go back to sleep so we were up around 6am, making coffee and underway by 7:15. The run across was uneventful, though the winds stayed on the nose all the way. We entered the Alligator River and were able to put some sail up and by the time we made the swing bridge we were sailing without the motor. It was clear but cool, but we had a really great sail into the anchorage at the bottom of the Alligator River. Part of the allure for driving down the ditch is that it passes through a lot of uninhabited areas. Probably the first 260 miles are relatively isolated and devoid of human interactions. The Alligator-Pungo canal is one of these areas. The man made canal connects the Alligator River to the Pungo River, and with the exception of a kink in the middle is pretty straight. It passes through swamp lands, mainly, but also there are some areas with trees and shrubs. We had been seeing lots of birds, kingfishers, osprey, buzzards and several bald eagles. It’s nice to know that regulating DDT has had a beneficial effect on the bald eagle population. The first couple of times we came south we didn’t see any bald eagles at all, now they are almost commonplace. We were motoring along, about one third of the way through the canal. I was down below fixing lasagna for dinner, and Holly was at the helm. She called to me to come up, said there were cows in the water. I came on deck and sure enough in front of us about 200 feet were 3 animals. They were too small to be cows, and I thought maybe they were wild pigs. We slowed the boat to nearly stopped so as not to frighten them, and as we drifted slowly towards them it became obvious that they were bears. A mother and two cubs. One cub was holding onto to mum, obviously not a good swimmer! As they noticed us the mother sped up a little and the last cub lagged behind. The mother got to shore scrambled onto the bank and immediately turned towards us and reared up, as if to guard the other swimmer. The cub with the mother sprang six feet up into a tree and sat watching us. All three made it safely and as the lagging cub reached land, the mother turned away and made into the woods. We had never seen bears in the wild before and it was a great thing to see. We had planned on stopping in Belhaven, but made really good time and reached up into Bath Creek where we anchored just inside the entrance. Our dear friend, Jo Ruth who lives in Greenville, NC had fallen and injured her left ankle and right knee, so we thought a short visit would be in order, just to cheer her up. So we sailed up the Pamlico River to Washington, which is only 20 miles from Greenville by car. Just outside of town there is a railway trestle bridge which usually remains open for boat traffic, but it was closed. Not knowing if it was closed for a train or broken I called the bridge tender on channel 13, the normal bridge frequency. No answer. I tried several times with no response, so I called the city docks, again no answer. I began to think that our radio was not working so I put out a call to anyone and some nice person responded. So at least the radio was working. Finally the city docks responded and they had called the bridge tender by phone and there was a train due in 20 minutes. No problem we would just go around in circles for a while until they opened it again, but at least someone knew we were there. This was the time when the lower clouds decided to let loose with their water. It poured and poured with rain, we were literally soaked and looked like drowned rats. Unfortunately it didn’t let up any. I never did hear how much rain actually fell, but I would guess it to be 3-4 inches over a few hours time. Ditches and roads were swamped and driving was treacherous. The rain lasted for the rest of the day and didn’t stop until the early hours of the morning, though it did let up somewhat after midnight. It was cold and wet and we knew we were too far north. Our visit with Jo Ruth went well, she is recuperating and able to get around somewhat, although she can’t drive yet. Wednesday saw us underway bright and early again, this time headed for the Neuse River. We had a good sail most of the day until we got into the Neuse proper when the winds went around to the nose and we had to motor again. We were making pretty good time, so headed up the river towards Oriental area to find a good anchorage. The forecast was for clearing skies and cooler, but sunny weather in the afternoon, but with strong north-west to north winds over night, so we had to pick our spot carefully. We found a really nice cove off of South Creek, opposite to Oriental, where we could pull way up and be protected from most any direction. Although the winds did pick up overnight we were very comfortable. Our depth sounder has been playing up, switching itself on and off as it pleases, usually when we are around some shoal water. I took the thing out and cleaned the electrical connections etc, and it seemed to help, but it is still unreliable. I had wanted to open the thing up and see if there are any loose wires, but can’t figure out how it opens. There are no screws or any such fasteners to loosen. Oh well, I re-cleaned the connectors and hopefully it will last us for a while. Holly ordered up a new unit, but it won’t be ready to ship for a week or so. The unit is 12 years old, ancient in the realm of electronics, and no longer sold or stocked. Luckily the repair facility said they could refurbish one for us. Now we have to wait until they have done it before deciding where we will be close to for them to ship it to us. Hopefully it will fix the problem, because we are getting into the portion of the ICW that is pretty shoal. Anything just outside the channel is around 1 foot deep so we don’t want to make any mistakes and run aground. We stopped in Bo’fort NC for overnight but didn’t go ashore. We are both still a little under the weather, Holly more so than me. I’m sure it will go away eventually but in the interim it sucks. Today, Friday we are motoring down Bogue Sound headed for Camp Lejeune and the anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay. It’s a long ways, around 45 miles and the wind keeps veering around to ensure it remains on the nose. Coupled with a foul current and we are just having fun. At least the sun is shining, though the temps are still down around high 60’s, we need another 15-20 degrees to feel comfortable. That’s all for now, it’s time to make some soup, yes soup, something hot to keep the chills away. We had six boats in the anchorage at Mile hammock, not many considering the thirty four that were there last year! We had considered going off shore form Bo’Fort to Wrightsville Beach, but the forecast was for 25-30 knot winds and 6-8 foot seas, not very enjoyable, so in keeping with our mantra of ‘pleasure boating’ we decided to motor sail down the ditch. We have picked up more boaters heading south and the boat ballet around the numerous bridges is getting old. Oh well, at least we are still ahead of the Annapolis boat show power boats, they are a royal pain! Well it’s getting late and we are nearly to Carolina Beach where we will anchor for the night. Next comes the Cape Fear River and then on to Calabash at the border of South Carolina. As you can see w have made a lot of southing, more later, we have been out of internet access….. We’re still in shorts…… S/V Hampshire Rose ~~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~~~~_/)~~_/)~~~_/)~~~~~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~~~~_/)~~_/)~~~ _/)~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~~~~_/)~~_/)~~~_/)~~~~~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~_/)~~~~~~~_/)~~_/)~~~