What a month we have had! It has been our first full month of traveling, and we have been so excited to be able to travel this month with the family aboard s/v Totem, encouraging and experienced world sailors! It has been a month of challenges, interesting new places, and wonderful new people. Here is what it cost us, a family of five aboard a 47′ sailboat, to cruise for the month of December.
Suffice to say, taking the ICW all the way from Norfolk to Charleston was not plan A. I think we are on plan E or F by now, but that is what weather will do.
How do your kids like living on the boat? It’s the one question we get asked more times than not.…
On December 8th we left Coinjock, a little stop with a dock and restaurant, on our way South, after getting some provisions and paying a diver to clean the bottom of our hull, and headed for an anchorage in Alligator River. It was a beautiful day, cold but with the sun peeking through the overcast sky. It was also my birthday and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it: out on the water with my family.
The day started out blustery and cold and didn’t get much better. But we were excited to officially pass mile zero on the ICW; it meant the prospect of warmth! We were even more excited to be traveling with two other boats, s/v Solstice and s/v Totem. Although Solstice and Totem had become world travelers neither of them had traveled the ICW before so it was new to every single one of us.
It was a long three weeks at the dock in Norfolk, Virginia. Not because we weren’t enjoying our boat or the area or the people, but because I (more than my husband, surprisingly) was anxious to literally and figuratively “untie the dock lines” and trade the comfort of the marina for the wild unknown of travel.