Long days on the intercoastal

The way south is either off shore or in the “ditch” as cruisers call it. Offshore is an option but it helps if you have a good weather window or be a “hairy chested seaman” which I’m not. When we got to the Atlantic Ocean at Morehead city, the winds were from the SW, right on the nose, so we opted to go down the ditch. Here’s the chart of Morehead to give you an idea of what we have to deal with.

There is both good and bad things about the ditch. It is very protected and does run pretty much in the right direction and there is plenty to see as you go by at your leisurely pace (6 MPH). The negative is bridges. Some open on the hour some on the half hour and you inevitably get there just as they are closing the bridge so you wait and wait. Here we had to wait more than 15 minutes so we have dropped an anchor and shut the engine off while we waited.

Another item is the tides. You folks up is the great Lakes are blessed with both fresh water and no tides! The tides can be a blessing or a curse. While sitting at anchor in front of a bridge we had 1 ½ knots of tide going in our favor. One mile later we passed the inlet to the ocean and on the other side of the inlet the tide was going 1 ½ knots against us. We went from 7+ over the ground down to 4+ over the ground. It was like slamming on the breaks. Sometimes, it can be so boring that you just can’t stand it but most of the time there is something interesting to see waiting just around the next bend such as a junk boat or a container ship!


Also there’s the multimillion dollar houses that line the waterway. Anna decided that this is the one that she is going to buy.

The area that we are in now is cut through cypress forest and swamps and is very beautiful.


The weather is going to stay against us until Friday then we might get a chance to go offshore and with a little luck we could skip the marshes of Georgia and jump right to Florida.