Back in Belhaven, NC

We’ve travelled 727 Nautical Miles since leaving Stuart, FL and although I would like to be further along on this journey than we are, maintenance issues and few good offshore sailing windows made this trip more tedious than I would have hoped.
Yesterday we arrived at the Dowry Creek Marina, one of my favorite stops along the coast, and a good place to leave Mavis for a week or so. It’s time for a crew swap. Rob’s been very generous with his time and I promised I’d have him back by Easter so tomorrow we will leave Mavis and head back to Long Island. It will be nice to be off the boat for a few days before I return, this time with Cindy, to finish sailing her home to her slip in West Sayville.
The voyage ahead will be between 400 and 500 nautical miles depending on which way we go. We’ll need to sail up the Pungo River to the Alligator River-Pungo Canal and then out into the Alligator River and across the Albermarle Sound. Then we’ll take the North River up to the Virginia Cut into the Elizabeth River and Norfolk, VA.
At Norfolk we will decide based on the weather if we will jump offshore and sail the last 250 nautical miles offshore to Fire Island Inlet or if we will travel up the Chesapeake Bay, through the C&D Canal and down the Delaware River to Cape May where we will wait for a weather window to sail the 135 miles home.
Either way, I’m hoping for an enjoyable, boring, and uneventful voyage.