Belhaven NC

We left the last anchorage at dawn and made a run for Belhaven, NC before the remnants of Hurricane Ida passed over us. The harbor is fairly protected (not where I would want to be if there was a real Hurricane coming), but good enough for the weather we experienced. We never saw the 50+ mph winds that were originally forecast. A few gusts reached 40mph and we have had 7 inches of rain over the past 48 hours. We could have sailed today, but it is still pretty uncomfortable out there.

We are two days sail from Beaufort N.C. which has a special significance to cruising boats heading south. It represents an ideal point to head offshore and make a passage directly to the Caribbean. Instead of motoring the next 900 miles to Miami which will take us 6 weeks, we could be in the Caribbean after a 4 day passage offshore.

Three reasons to skip the ICW:

1. Neither of us are particularly excited to be motoring through the various canals and back woods towns that make up the rest of the Intracoastal Waterway for the next 6 weeks.

2. The ICW turns West after Beaufort which takes us away from our goal of the clear blue water and white sand beaches of the Caribbean.

3. Once in Miami the prevailing winds will be directly on our nose making it difficult to sail through the islands.

So why not head offshore from Beaufort? The answer is mostly fear, but I am not sure if that fear is stronger than the draw of sailing through Caribbean waters in a week.