After we spent a couple days recovering, which mostly means catching up on cleaning and boat chores, it took us another three days to reach our home for the summer – a marina on the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina.

The ICW trip was uneventful, and I’ve written about it before, so I won’t go into too much detail this time. In fact, I’m really just narrating the photos I want to share.

After our offshore trip, we noticed we had streaks of rust running down from the stanchions – we’d had this problem earlier in the year, so I went through and polished the stainless and applied passivator. Yet here we are. Since the passivator didn’t help, I assume our problem stems from the deck hardware. The gelcoat wax helped on the bows, but on the transom the wax must have worn off.

Not every sunset is memorable, but occasionally I have to drop everything and grab the camera to shoot the sun before it dips below the horizon. Our last night in Wrightsville Beach was like that – a big ball of fire sinking into the coastline.

We had pretty great weather the rest of the trip. It was hot, but tolerable. Mostly we were running in between the Outer Banks of NC and the mainland.

The only part of the ICW we really have to weather-plan is the Neuse River. It looked like we’d have a good downwind day with following seas. We motorsailed with the full genoa out, but again, we have no wind instrument so we have no idea how strong the wind is. It’s never a good sign when your neighbor has no more than a handkerchief of sail out though…

The Neuse River wasn’t too bad. If we’d been going against the swell lit would not have been a fun day, but we tackled the whole thing in one big long day because the forecast for the following day was even worse. Instead we spent the following day in the Pamlico Sound, which was nice and calm.

Tannins cause the water to turn the color of sweet tea. It’s a stark contrast to the fabulous blues of the Bahamas, and it stains our transoms yellow.

We did have one incident where we came around a corner and found a bunch of boats anchored in the channel. Apparently a bridge couldn’t open, but maintenance was working on it. I think we waited about 2 hours for that bridge, along with 8 to 10 trawlers and power boats. When the bridge finally opened, the radio started buzzing with entitlement:

“So, the fastest boats should go first.”
“I think I’m the fastest – fourth boat back.”
“Anyone doing under 10 knots should hang back.”

Naturally we were the last to go through (sailboats are always the slowest), but we were close to last in line anchored anyway. A couple asshole trawlers cut in line, but we won’t talk about that.

We finally made it to the Pungo Alligator Canal, a four hour stretch of ICW that is calm and narrow and…really boring.

However, we saw some wildlife there. When I first spotted this out of the corner of my eye I thought it was a chair at the edge of the water.

And there were a couple bald eagles around, but it was nearly impossible to get a photo of them because they’d fly off before the boat even got near them.

Lastly, we were plagued by horseflies the size of humming birds. I’m pretty sure a bite from one of those things would put us in the hospital. Kyle wasn’t too pleased that I ran away from the helm every time one of them flew near me, so he did most of the driving after that.

One final anchorage, then we spent our last day dodging crab pots through the Albemarle Sound, to arrive at our home for the summer – or, more accurately, the boat’s home for the summer.

We got in on Thursday around 4pm. We’re tied up right at the Tiki Bar. It’s incredibly strange to be tied up to a dock again after living at anchor for so long. I looked out the window a couple times and saw the dock RIGHT THERE and panicked. It’s so calm here that we can sustain cobwebs in between the boat and the dock. It’s hot. It’s really hot.