Sophia Bramhall

We finally left Great Bridge after staying there for 5 nights. We spent one night at AYB then four nights at the town free dock. Now we are on our way to Jeff (our broker for Willow) at Severn Yacht Center to get a haul out and our port engine transmission fixed. We are hoping he gives us a good deal since he was our broker! Abdu - our proshot employee of 6 years joined us on Sunday and he will be traveling all the way to New York with us. He has a flight back to Egypt in about a week and is flying out of New York. Our plans have changed quite a bit over the past few days. We have now decided to rent a car on Wednesday afternoon and drive to Bedford NY on Thursday to make it to Lizzie’s wedding. We are very excited for our two upcoming weddings and then will hopefully be able to pick up Willow in early July to continue our travels to MV. We went through the great bridge lock yesterday which went okay. It was very challenging without reverse on the port engine and we ended up doing a 180 (similar to the fuel dock in FL) before getting tied off. There was a current coming from behind us which we did not expect and we tied up the bow line first. I could not engage the port engine in forward idle once the bow was tied off so tried reversing with starboard but the current was too strong and the stern swung out and we did a 180. In hindsight we should have tied off the stern line first and this would not have been a problem…anyways the lock operator was very helpful and said this happens at least once a day 🤪. We then had to twist another 180 degrees before we exited since we could not reverse out of it. Very exciting stuff! Anyways we will be very happy to have our Port engine working again and are going to get a few other smaller projects done while hauled at Severn.

It was a windy day! We had 17-22 knots of wind most of the day. We spent the morning on calls then started sailing around 12:30. Sophie had a few more calls underway 🤪 After dodging an absurd amount of crab buoys we made it to the Albemarie Sound which was enormous! It was about a 15 mile crossing with 20knots of wind at our back. There was a decent swell coming from both the south and west so it was a little bumpy but not too bad. It was a cloudy weathery day but the rain held off. We found a spot to get Duggie to shore but we got attacked by flies so we ran for about a mile then came back to Willow. Making a Mexican bowl tonight with pork, rice, beans, lots of veggies and guacamole 🥑 Planning on getting to Norfolk VA tomorrow which is a 45 mile trip and we have a Marina lined up so we can provision, get fuel and water and rest before our overnight to NJ. Abdu is hopefully going to meet us Thursday evening so we can leave early Friday. GETTING CLOSER!!!

We made a lot of progress today even though we didn’t start moving until 12. We spent the morning doing some maintenance and working. Completed an oil change and transmission fluid change. The port engine has been acting up and sometimes takes some time to get into gear so we are hoping changing the fluid will help. It was a long hot day on the intracoastal and we got a few work calls completed underway and also got to put our jib up for the last few hours! We were sailing downwind in 20knots and hit speeds over 7.5knots which was fun. We had to open a swing bridge and they opened on command. We didn’t even have to slow down to go through which was impressive! Very good bridge operator. Then as we approached our anchorage around 7:30 the sun was low and there were some waves from the strong wind and we went through a field of crab pot buoys. It was like dodging land mines! It took a lot of focus but we made it safely to our anchorage which has great protection from the 20-30 knots we are expecting tonight and tomorrow. We also deployed a trip line on our anchor tonight for the first time. I tied one of my crocs to a 15 ft line that is attached to the top/back side of the anchor. We read some reviews that said this area is know for getting anchors snagged on logs so we decided to try the trip line. It is actually really nice to have since we can see exactly where the anchor is at any time. Hopefully we won’t need to use it tomorrow!

We moved through Pamlico Sound by the Outer Banks today - it’s a massive sound! Got to put both sails up for a bit which was fun and fast, then we ducked back in to the ICW rivers. Jib went back up for the second half of the move as we were racing against the thunder/lightning storm moving right behind us. We juuuust missed it by anchoring north of it, phew! Belhaven NC is a cute little boating town right on the river with a couple of tasteful marinas and even a free public town dock for big sail boats! We walked around the cute suburb with nice old houses then went out to dinner at a local tavern right as they were closing at 8 :) Pretty sunset!

We sailed/motored almost 40 miles today and at this pace we will be in Norfolk VA by Wednesday. Hoping to do another overnight from VA to the middle of New Jersey which will be about 160 miles! Today we went under 3 bridges that were 65 feet hight. Very thankful that Willow is a perfect size for ICW bridges. We also went under a rail bridge that was always in the open position unless a train is coming. We could have made it further but we were going to go right into a few thunderstorms so we decided to anchor a little early instead of pushing another 17 miles to the next good anchor spot. Again we were greeted by Dolphins right as we anchored…they must be following us. 🐬 It’s hot and windy today! We are planning to sit in the water by the beach near where we anchored and cool off!

BIG DAY! 60 miles of motoring on the intracoastal. It was a beautiful day and we took turns at the helm and at the computer. We opened multiple bridges along the way and cleared a few fixed bridges as well. We also passed what we thought was an army training center because there were warning for unexploded material everywhere and signs that said we could not pass when light lbs were flashing. Must be some type of military bombing range (right in the wetlands). Gotta love the US military… Tomorrow looks like a windy/rainy day so we are likely going to stay in this area and explore the land! Let’s see what NC has to offer!

We anchored in a very populated area near Carolina Beach last night. We needed to restock at Publix and I was also able to pick up some Deisel engine oil since we are about ready for another oil change. It was a great town with a few dinghy docks and easy access to the beach where we saw a paraglider (with a fan motor) having fun in the sky! Duggie also very much enjoyed the walk. People in the south have been quite friendly and we have had nice conversations with a number of strangers. Today we are hoping to get to Emerald Isle and have some weather coming in tomorrow so we might take a break for our 4th anniversary on Thursday!!!! Stacy, if you see this, can you believe it has been 4 years since you married us?!?! It has been a wild adventure and we have been loving every second of it. Thank you again for making our special day truly incredible 🥰.