time for a splash

November 13, 2006

All the work is complete on the engine and Whisper is getting splashed first thing tomorrow morning. Finally! This week seemed to take forever, I suppose because we thought the job would only take 2-3 days. At any rate, we're clean, have gotten a good TV and internet fix, and have eaten more Sonic burgers than is healthy in one week. Ready to hit the high seas, unfurl the sails and feel the fresh air on our faces. Wait...that won't happen until we cross the Gulf Stream into the Bahamas in the middle of December. I'm getting ahead of myself here.

This next leg of our trip is on the Intra-Coastal Waterway (the ICW) which is basically a mostly man-made canal that extends from Maine to Texas. The part of the ICW from Norfolk to Key West is almost all through canals where we'll have to pilot our way through locks and under various types of bridges, including swing and lift bridges, not to mention the basic fixed and draw bridges. We'll have the sails neatly furled underneath their covers and the engine will be running full steam every day for probably 8-10 hours. Luckily, we have a small, efficient diesel so it shouldn't be too costly, well, not nearly as expensive as the gasoline engine power boats. Our friends Rupert & Dorrie are a couple days ahead of us, so we hope they'll do some sightseeing and drag their feet so we can catch up with them.

Our first town of any significant size is Elizabeth City, NC: http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Elizabeth+City,+NC

we'll probably be there on Thursday.

From this point on, our blog entries will be less frequent as we won't have unlimited internet access like we do now, but we'll try. If anyone knows any interesting, out of the way spots down the ICW, let us know. We have bikes so can travel at least a couple miles in each direction.