Oriental, North Carolina

We fairly raced down Long Island Sound after departing Wickford, Rhode Island, and the free town mooring there. Block Island Sound, Rhode Island Sound, and Long Island Sound were all relatively calm by the time we poked our head around Point Judith about 0800 on Monday, September 8th. The wind picked up a little in the afternoon, and by the time we reached The Gulf it was blowing a bit. We anchored behind the island, but spent a very rocky night with opposing wind and current. After a rocky ride to Manhassett Bay, we spent a very peaceful night at anchor, and the next morning headed down the East River and through Hell's Gate in New York City.

We met up with friends from the Trawler and Trawlering List in Great Kills Harbor on Wednesday, September 10th, taking a mooring ball provided by friend Kevin who is the Assistant Listmeister. The next day we pushed our way down the New Jersey coast to Absecon Inlet (Atlantic City), and the next day we were in Cape May by noon. We then had a very pleasant (unusual) cruise up Delaware Bay on Saturday, and by mid-day on Sunday we were at Henderson's Wharf Marina in Baltimore. Judy flew back to Florida on Monday for some business meetings, and then returned on Thursday. While she was gone I helped Jennifer with various projects at her home.

We departed Baltimore on Friday, September 19th, with a bit of a wind from the northeast. By the time we approached the junction of the Baltimore Channel and Chesapeake Bay we decided we'd had enough and pulled into the Magothy River where we anchored for the rremainder of the day. The next day took us to Solomons, Maryland, and the day after that (Sunday) to Old Point Comfort at the south end of Chesapeake Bay. Weather forecasts were warning of a storm advancing up the coast, so we made plans to wait it out in the Great Dismal Swamp Canal - similar to what we did two years ago on our trip south. We got fuel in Portsmouth, Virginia, as we passed through the Norfolk area, and then headed to the canal. By late afternoon we were in the canal and tied up to Elizabeth's Dock along with two other boats that had locked into the canal that afternoon.

The next four days were spent in the canal, waiting for the storm to pass (it did blow quite a bit and rained a lot the last two days we were there), and by Friday we were heading south through the canal and on to Elizabeth City. We then cruised through the Albermarle Sound, Alligator River, Alligator River-Pungo River Canal, Punto River (where we anchored for the night), the Pamlico River, Pamlico Sound and into the Neuse River. We're now in Oriental, North Carolina, a nice little fishing village on the north shore of the Neuse River. Today we're going to cruise further up the Neuse River to New Bern where we'll play tourist in the historic town.

The weather forecast is good for the next five days (as far as the forecast goes) so we should be able to continue south without further weather delays when we depart New Bern.

Heading south from New Brunswick

From Gagetown, we returned to the Royal Kennebeccasis Yacht Club on August 20th. By the time we reached the RKYC the wind was blowing so hard no one could raft up with our trek's boats that were already on a mooring, so we anchored in the lee shelter of an island near the club. That night at dinner we discussed how we would proceed through the reversing falls the next day: those who wanted would make the crossing in the dark at around 0500; others would make the crossing at about 1300. We elected to make our crossing in daylight at the slack tide around 1300. It was relatively uneventful.

From St. John we went to Dipper Harbor for the night, and the next day proceeded to St. Andrews on Passamaquody Bay. The sun came out and the weather was the best we'd had the entire time in Canada, so we elected to stay the full day on Saturday. We had a great day touring the gardens and walking around the town.

We departed on Sunday, August 24th, and several hours later had checked back into the United States at Eastport, Maine. We then headed out around Campobello Island and made it to Roque Island Harbor that night. From there we returned to Northeast Harbor, Maine, for a night (we climbed to the gardens there - in sunshine), and then to Southern Harbor on North Vinylhaven Island, back to Snow Island on the northeastern side of Casco Bay, and finally to Portland where we enjoyed the Labor Day weekend with friends before heading out again on Monday, September 1st.

Since then we've stopped at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Scituate and South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and then stopped at a marina in Warwick Cove, Rhode Island, to wait out the remnants of Hanna as she made her way up the coast. We departed Warwick Cove this morning and are now in Wickford, Rhode Island, about 8 miles from the ocean and Rhode Island Sound. The forecast for tomorrow looks good, so we're going to get underway at the earliest light tomorrow morning heading for Long Island Sound and as far as we can get before dark. We hope to cross Long Island Sound to Great Kills, New York, in two more days.

Since leaving Portland the weather has been fairly good, with only a few days of fog.