We left Cape Charles quite late in the season. My hope was that we would be able to take a leisurely trip down the ICW staying for a while in several locations. This was not to be the case. It was cold, below freezing at times and with no heat on the boat the decision was made to leverage the holiday vacation to move south as quickly as possible. That said we did linger in a couple of locations.

The first stop was Portsmouth VA where we were able to snag a spot at the “free dock” I had heard rumors that the fixed dock would flood at high tide but assumed it was just the lunar tides. Nope. The dock flooded every high tide we were there.

We ended up staying two nights so we could avoid a trip in the freezing rain. There wasn’t much to do in the city because the Covid lockdowns were still fairly strong and given the season there wasn’t anything going on outside.

Next stop was going through the Great Bridge Lock and then stopping at the free dock in Chesapeake Virginia. There we were able to pick up our COVID boosters at the local pharmacy, get supplies, and thanks to the advice of a woman single handing down the ICW for her 40th year! We were told what specific kerosene heater to pick up and were no longer cold.

After there we hopped down to just south of Coinjock and anchored in the “North River” where we picked up the wildest mud with our anchor.

The following night we made our way to the base of the Alligator River where we had zero reception for cell phones or internet and decided to spend the night exploring what the Shortwave Radio could pick up. I was very pleased.

Then the next night we made our way to Bellhaven where we found the free dock. We ended up staying an extra night so that we could hang out for Christmas Day and then moved on to Oriental NC the next morning for another free dock.

I would have liked to stay longer at Oriental NC it seemed like a pleasant town with a good cafe and kind people.

But it was time to move on. So we did an overnight to Wrightsville Beach NC by hopping outside at Beaufort NC spent the night at Wrightsville then hid out a storm in Carolina Beach NC and ended up staying about a week before hopping back outside and making our way to Charleston SC.