I was planning on writing a more interesting post, but the cold has a way of sapping my motivation. I’ve hardly been taking any photos lately either, so I’m really grasping at straws for content here, BUT! You deserve an update.

If you follow us on Instagram, you’ll already know that we’ve been on the move for a few days now! Our first week of traveling has really run the gamut. The temperature is just about the only thing that’s been steady, and it’s been 40s at night and 50s during the day. When it’s sunny, that feels great, but we’ve had a few days of gray skies and gray water separated by a dark gray line of trees. Cold. Gray.

We left Cypress Cove Marina early on Wednesday (the 20th). We’d moved back our leave date about three times so we were both excited to finally break free of those dock lines!

Right away, Kyle’s dad buzzed by us for a few photos, which was great because we’d accidentally taken one of his fenders with us!

We had a beautiful day on the Albemarle Sound, we were happy we’d taken seasickness pills before we left because it was pretty lumpy! The next day was uneventful, we anchored in a small creek.

We stayed in that creek for two nights while we waited out some unfavorable weather on the Neuse River. We saw our first spectacular sunset at anchor since we were last traveling in June.

Since we had a day off, Kyle fiddled with the windlass, one of the buttons was corroded so he had to drop the anchor manually. That was a daily project for a while, although it seems to be working again.

After that, gray on gray. We anchored in Beaufort, NC. Midway through the night we woke up to winds that were almost double the forecast – I was even looking at our (now functional!!!) wind instrument when the highest gust hit. 43 kt at around 2am, about 50 mph. Fortunately our anchor held fast, unfortunately that was the last time either of us slept that night.

The following day we only motored for about 4 hours, because we lacked anchorage options. Otherwise we’ve been putting in 8-10 hr days.

Today was our biggest day, we struggled with adverse currents to make it to our anchorage before dark but we made it! Today was sunny and felt warm. It was also the most eventful day. We heard someone get cussed out on the VHF, which is a great way to piss off the Coast Guard (I believe it’s illegal to swear over VHF). We also met a dredging operation trying to transit the ICW, they were almost a half mile long and kept hailing other boats as they tried to make it around bends and turns.

After this we’re going to try to jump offshore and really cover some ground. We’ve been on the move for almost a week and we’re still not out of North Carolina, and we’re still losing daylight and fighting to stay warm. The temperatures haven’t been too terrible, but day after day after day of cold temps is exhausting.

I know this isn’t the most upbeat post in the world, but we’ve really had a good trip so far – not nearly as bad as last time! If it weren’t for the cold weather I think we’d really be enjoying ourselves! In the spirit of thanksgiving, I’ll note that I’m crazy-grateful for our space heater, which has warmed my frozen toes more than once! I’m also grateful for a working wind instrument, ours broke on our delivery trip (TWO YEARS AGO) so I’ve literally never sailed my own boat with a working wind instrument. Kyle says he’s grateful for the ability to live this lifestyle. I guess that’s a good one too! He’s also thankful for wool socks. Warm feet, so important!