Preface -----

I originally had planned my first extended trip to be to Elizabeth City NC. My original interest stemmed from a conversation I had with sailmaker Dudley Boycott of Sparrows Point, Baltimore. But I decided about a year ago (mid 2011) to make it Beaufort NC and Cape Lookout, just offshore. 

Beaufort is on the Coast but the town is protected by all kinds of little sand bars/shoals and Islands.  The old part of town runs parallel to a deep channel that is about a quarter mile wide. It has a board walk with docks along most of the mile that accomodates boats from the size of mine to ones MUCH larger.  There are also lots of moorings out in the channel.  The currents in the channel are pretty strong and change direction with each tidal cycle.

In the headings I give the travelled distance and time. The distance is in nautical miles sailed/motored.  If I was tacking into the wind or rounding land masses, it is longer than "as the crow flies".

For some of the days, I show a chart.  I downloaded these from my Garmin each night since they show my "track".  Besides showing my actual path (track), the Garmin calculates distance, time, actual speed every 30 seconds, average speed, etc.  This gives a "picture" of my days "sail".

Most of what I have posted are taken verbatum from the hand written logs that I wrote each evening.  I have added this preface, a trip Summary.  To the daily logs, I have added a few afterthoughts for clarity and interest.

After achoring each day, I had a checklist I used to make sure I didn't forget anything important. One was to turn on my phone GPS and send out an email to some of my friends and family with my coordinates. I did this through a Boat US phone app that sent a link.  All the person at the other end had to do was click on the link to open a map showing exactly where I had anchored for the night.

I wish now that I had done this blog on a daily basis.  I only had wifi 5 or 6 times during my trip but it would have been nice to have kept this up during my trip rather than doing it after I had finished.  Maybe next time.