Another ICW Week Already?!

Phew, this week has been full of F~U~N! It started with our return to Beaufort, NC. We really love this little town. The people are so welcoming and we have such fond memories from our first visit in July.

Other than the usual, provision, clean the decks, walk the town and eat in restaurants, we took a ghost tour!

Seeing as how Beaufort is proud of its’ pirate history and it was very close to Halloween, we thought a ghost tour would be a perfect way to learn some history and hear some scary stories.

Jacob weaves a tale.

We signed up for the Beaufort Ghost Walk 7:30 pm tour. Our guide, Jacob, was an excellent story teller who wove history and pirates and fear into an entertaining 70 minute walk through the oldest parts of Beaufort. I highly recommend this tour if you are up for a bit of walking and history.

Final stop, Beaufort graveyard.

On our motor to Beaufort, we noticed our steering had a bit of extra vibration in it, so Frank dove in and checked things out. Glad he did because our port rudder was 40 degrees different from the starboard rudder. It appears the set screws for the port side rudder were completely stripped off and our rudder was not working properly!

After diagnosing the problem and securing parts, Frank and Bill, of s/v Our Log, went to work fixing the rudder. Together they through bolted the tiller arm to the rudder post.

Our rudders are now in alignment and the port rudder connection is much sturdier and steering and docking are MUCH easier!

Bill and Frank with the rudder arm repaired.

Thank you a ton, Bill, for sharing your expertise and time with us. I know Frank appreciated talking with you about the repair as I was no help and you are so knowledgable!

On the morning of Halloween, we left Swansboro, NC very early. Our reward was seeing these dolphins playing in our wake!

Frank and I got into the swing of Halloween and sported our costumes most of the day.

There was quite the traffic jam at one of the bridges so we offered to move ahead and lead the way since we have such low clearance without our mast.

Unfortunately we did not hear the warning about a shoal near one of the markers and LIB ran aground! Yep, happy halloween to us ~ we get to join the “we have run aground” club!

I am quite certain the TowBoat U.S. driver thought we had been drinking when he saw Frank standing on the deck in his shark costume!

Thank God we didn’t have any damage to LIB and Steve, the TowBoat driver, was able to free LIB from the shoal.

Thanks for the help, Steve!

On Halloween evening we met up with Mindy and Ron of s/v Follow Me for some ‘reverse trick or treating.’ Essentially this meant we gathered our goodies, jumped in our dinghy and visited boats in the anchorage to deliver treats! Our candy was appreciated but the mini shots Ron and Mindy dispensed were very well received.

Ron, Frank, MG and Mindy on Halloween.

We saw “snowbirds” Susan and Kevin on s/v Radiance.

The ICW is a thousand mile display of variety. Each day we see changes in vegetation that can be anything from low lying marsh grass to towering bald cypress trees decorated with Spanish moss. We see small towns, wildlife preserves and prosperous cities. The variety keeps the travel interesting as we navigate.

The navigation itself is very different from our ocean experience because the water is shallow and the traffic is greater. I find reading the water difficult because there are no depth hints based on the color of the water and the water is not clear. The land signals I am accustomed to, such as deeper water near sharp banks, do not exist either. How am I supposed to know which side of a canal is deeper when both sides look alike?

The upside is that eventually I will get much better at reading charts and daymarkers, but for now I rely heavily on Frank for guidance.

Here are some photo highlights from this week…