Leave New Bern on Sunday November 21 and motor down the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) to Wilmington, NC (takes 2 ½ days), anchor at Carolina Beach, NC and then on Wednesday morning motor out the Cape Fear River into the Atlantic Ocean, hug the 60-foot contour and sail to Jacksonville, FL arriving by Friday. Yep, that’s the plan… (sarcastic giggle) let’s see how it works out.
There was no time, due to poor planning on my part, for a shake-down cruise. (Shake-down is a trip to test and stress all of the systems on the boat) There has been so many changes made to the boat that we need to take the time to see if anything breaks prematurely or doesn’t work correctly. If I had had the opportunity to test everything I would have gone from New Bern, down the Neuse River to Adams Creek and then out Beaufort Inlet (Morehead City) and out into the Atlantic and be on my way all in the same day. But it seemed prudent to take the 2 ½ extra days to test everything enroute to Wilmington down the ICW and use that trip for the shake-down.
For weeks before leaving I worked out my departure planning based on 4 to 5 different offshore weather forecasts, updating it daily and working on different sailing routes, I knew that if I could find a weather window with 3 good sailing days, I could be in Florida quickly as opposed to motoring down the ICW which would take 2+ weeks. This time of year, motoring down the ICW is 10 hours a day (sun up to sun down) of endless boredom, mind numbing – stab a pencil in your eye boredom.