As I begin writing this the sun is just peaking over the eastern horizon. The water is glass calm as we make our way down toward Ocracoke island and then on to Beaufort where I will leave Pandora until mid January.
The sunrise was beautiful this morning from the earliest light when we picked up the anchor.
A perfect reflection of the trees on shore. Brenda, this would make for a lovely tapestry. Get on it! Please?
A little while later, a full sunrise reflected on the still water. What a great way to begin the day.
On this trip we are taking a different route, one that my crew Jim enjoys. We will head further east toward the coast, a route that I have not taken before. Instead of going through the Dismal Swamp Canal, we took the “Virginia Cut” that has a single lock.
It’s a huge lock that carries commercial traffic and there were quite a few boats there when we arrived.
Jim has done this route a number of times, most recently just a few weeks ago. He keeps his boat in the lower Chesapeake and enjoys heading in a loop down to Ocracoke and then returning via the Dismal swamp canal further to the west.
After leaving Hampton shortly after dawn yesterday we headed down past the naval base. A cruiser was picking up a mooring out in the river. Just how many sailors does it take? A lot, it seems. Aboard Pandora. It only takes two, one in a pinch. 
Hey look… His and hers aircraft carriers. If the election doesn’t sort itself out next week, there’s one for Hillary and one for Donald. Now, that would be fun. 
And speaking of NYC, which I wasn’t, Highlander, Malcomb Forbes’s old yacht was in dry dock in Portsmouth. I saw here there last fall too. She’s looking a bit worse for wear. Too bad. 
In any event, we are making our way down the ICW and tonight we will take a slip in Ocracoke, go out to dinner and then make our way to Beaufort by Thursday night.
Interestingly, even though this area feels very remote, we have been passed by a half dozen boats in the last few minutes, all large powerboats heading south as a group. They will get there a lot sooner than us but their “burn rate” is probably 30x greater than us. Unlike their “cousins” on the CT River, almost everyone slows way down so that they don’t rock us with their wake. What a welcome contrast. I guess that’s because they know they might run into us sometime in the future. At home, they couldn’t care less as they blast along leaving a 4’ wake to toss us around. Very unfortunate.
Speaking of “carbon footprint”, on the last day of the programs in preparation for the Salty Dawg Rally to the BVI, we were treated to a live USCG “rescue” right off of the marina docks. It was just amazing to see the chopper hovering a few hundred feet from us. 
Before the chopper arrived a small cutter was on scene to be sure that nobody strayed into the “hurricane zone” while the chopper was hovering overhead.
Our “MC” for the discussion that proceeded the “rescue” we had two “Coasties” who shared a lot of terrific information on how to do our best to avoid a ride in a chopper in the future. Very nice guy but he did look serious. “I’d like a show of hands if you have an EPIRB on board. Another if it’s registered with your current information.” Everyone’s hand went up. Then he smiled.
Our rescue chopper is the only one in the USCG that is painted yellow instead of sporting the normal diagonal orange stripe. We were told that it was a “centennial edition” marking the 100th anniversary of the USCG. Think of it as sort of “Eddie Bauer” USCG chopper edition without the soft denim settees. Well, perhaps not exactly like that because they have to be able to hose everything down after all the salt what they kick up. “Hey you, scuba man, yeah I’m talking to you! Rinse off before you sit there. This is s a special edition craft you are dripping on.”
“Do I have to go? It’s really windy out there.” It was windy with about 20kts from the north and the salt spray kicked up by the massive down-wash from the spinning rotors coated all of the boats in the marina with a fine mist of salt.
Then they lowered him to the water. For a second “rescue” he jumped. 
All and all, it was a fascinating experience with everyone feeling better prepared and more certain than ever that they wanted to do whatever they could to avoid having one of these guys swim up to their boat and greeting them with “Good morning. I’ll be your rescue swimmer today.”
It’s comforting to know that the USCG has my back and that if I ever have to “pop my EPIRB” and call for help, that the “Calvary” will be on their way soon enough. Oh yeah, if you want a chopper ride, don’t go more than about 250 miles from shore as that’s their limit. Of course, they have boats to but they are WAY SLOWER.
So, with no need for rescue on the horizon, here we are motoring along in flat calm on a beautiful morning. What a way to go. It’s beautiful day indeed.
Oh yeah, you know the thing about “cruising is boat repair in exotic places?”. Yesterday was fun as my head macerator pump croaked and spilled raw sewerage into the bilge. That was fun. Sorry, no photos but be assured that there was plenty of cleanup with bleach after I was done, Brenda.
Happily, I carry a spare, now installed, so all’s well. Such is the fun of boating.
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