Christmas Day 2007 Morehead City, NC

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

BEST WISHES - JOYCE AND GORDON

December 23, 20007 Belhaven, N.C.

This the "winter scenery" along the Alligator River. When we went through last fall there was still autumn leaves on the trees. The tall golden sea grass and leafless tress contrast against the Evergreen trees. The air temperature was in the mid fifties so we were able to strip off some of our multiple layers and longjohns as we head further and further south.







This is a beautiful "mansion" in Belhaven, North Carolina which is part of the marina where we are currently docked. The first owner was a wealthy businessman who was VP of the southern Norfolk-Carolina railroad. This was a "Put together made to order Sears Catalog house." The second owner was the Heinz ketchup family and currently it is a "bed and breakfast-restaurant-marina". Today the temperature is supposed to hit a high of 70 degrees. We plan to head south tomorrow after the cold front comes through this afternoon. We should have favorable conditions to make fifty miles and then anchor at Summer River before proceeding to Beaufort, N.C .on Christmas Day.

Sunset in "Little River" which is an anchorage we took to avoid some unfavorable winds on the Albemarle Sound. It was a quiet anchorage with little white cottages along the shoreline.

Coinjock, NC 20 December 2007

Since we won't make it to Florida for Christmas this year, we decided to decorate the boat with this wreath. We also got some cornish hens, candied yams, cranberry sauce and other "fixings" for a Christmas dinner on the boat. We hope to be in Beaufort, NC for Christmas. We had our refrigerator updated so it is really keeping the food frozen-of course we really won't be able to test the refrigerator until we are in the warm waters of the Caribbean!














One of the aircraft carriers at Norfolk. When we were crossing the shipping channel we spotted an aircraft carrier about a mile ahead of us and we were soon visted by a helicopter flying around us to "check us out". We got on the radio and let them know we were headed into Hampton, the coast guard replied "thanks ". On the TV news we heard that a fleet of ships were coming in the following day after deployment in supporting our troops.







The Captain had to bundle up as we crossed the shipping channels in Norfolk, Virgina. He has the auto pilot on but is watching to be sure we stay on course. The first mate is taking pictures and watching the container ships and Navy ships along the shipping channel.






























One of the many bridges we needed to go through as we left Norfolk, Virgina. We have had to wait for bridge opennings on this trip once for 45 minutes and once for a half an hour because of the timing between our arrival between the bridges.

The autumn leaves are gone but the beautiful golden sea grass and evergreen bushes are lovely along the intercoastal waterway toward our next port of call Coinjock, North Carolina. The winter daylight hours are short which makes our journey along the intercoastal waterway shorter between ports of call. We can't see the waterway markers at night and the water is shallow if you get out of the patches of serpintine waterway channel so we really concentrate on staying on course in the cold winter days of limited sunlight. Also we have shorter trips-because of the distances between marinas.

Deltaville, VA December 16, 2007

We are finally on the move again. We had a new engine installed and are now getting experience with it. It is a Yanmar JH4-TE 70 HP Diesel. It took quite a few weeks to install as the mechanic had alot of complications with setting up the engine bed. The alignment is very precise. In the process we also had a new AC refrig and engine drive refrig system installed. The old systems finally died along with the engine.

We are laying over in Fishing Bay Harbor about 35 miles north of Norfolk, VA waiting for a large low pressure system to clear out. Hope to be underway in a day or so.

We would like to be in Beaufort, NC by Christmas and we need to stop there for a 50 hour service on the engine. Then we will be on to Florida with hopes of arriving the second week of January.

Mean while we are wearing lots of layers of clothes although it is still warmer here this time of year compared to Chicago Land!