April 19 – May 5, 2024; 13703 nm and 1872 days after departure from La Rochelle

Beaufort was such a quaint little town. Pretty houses with their southern charm surrounded by tidy blooming gardens made us and especially me fell in love immediately. What a change of scenery! Suddenly we were transported back to civilisation, culture, history, to proper groceries stores, shops bars, live music…But the most beautiful part for me was the delightful spring atmosphere. Flowers ready to blossom as soon as the sun would lure them with its rays. People lunging for the first warm sunshine stroll and the air smelling like fresh delicious spring. I guess I missed that spring vibe so much! I just didn’t know it. And to top it all wild horses grazing just behind Altimate’s anchorage!

Oh yes! Being 600nm further north was a big change regarding scenery but also regarding temperature. Already on our way we were putting on more and more cloth. Shoes, socks, long sleeved tops, trousers as well as windbreaker (which were all stowed away for years) were now popular clothing items on Altimate. Anyway, we wanted that, didn’t we?! Going up the east coast was supposed to be colder. Though we were a bit surprised, due to a nasty cold front which seemed to be having fun making us freezing, that the temperature dropped down to only 10℃. Boy that was a bummer! So glad that we had our heating and that it was still working! Fortunately that was just a short period of super cold weather. After that we embraced nice spring weather with lovely temperatures and enjoyed Beaufort.

The reason we picked Beaufort as a stop was to catch up with some friends, former colleagues of Norbert. Linda who lives in San Francisco proposed to meet there as she visits often her sister who happened to live in Beaufort. Ty and Kellianne were coming in from Durham (close to Raleigh) which was only a 3 hour drive (just around the corner for Americans or Canadians). All in all a great spot to meet. As we arrived much earlier than we had planned we had a lot of time in Beaufort. Linda had kindly introduced us to her sister Lisa before she had arrived. That was such a luxury! Not only could we use her adress for deliveries, she also took us to grocery stores, shops and chandler. She told us about the just reopened farmers market, offered us to use their shower and laundry, helped us to get a refill for our propane and took us to CBP (Customs Border Patrol) office in Morehead City. (The officer asked us to come in because our departure from Puerto Rico didn’t show up in the I-94 registry of their system, which caused that we officially haven’t left US territory. That again would made us leave the US already mid June. So a very important appointment!)That was extremely nice especially because Beaufort doesn’t provide public transport at all. We were so spoilt, thank you Lisa!!!

Thanks to Lisa all the errands like getting groceries, finding propane etc. were done super fast which provided us with even more play time. By chance some sailors friends which we had first met in Linton Bay/ Panamá also happened to be in Beaufort. They invited us to visit the Bonehenge Whale Centre with another sailor couple. That was organised by Dianne the OCC (British offshore sailing club – Ocean Cruising Club) port Captain. As well a very lovely lady who looks after her sailors like a duck mom after her chicks. She offered to take us grocery shopping or whatever a sailors heart would need. What a luxury place we had ended up! But now back to the museum which turned out to be super interesting. Actually it was more of a workshop than a museum. The facility was focused on research, conservation, education, skeletal rearticulation and specimen collection of North Carolina cetaceans, including whales, dolphins and porpoise. Keith the Natural Science Curator and Director of Bonehenge was super passionate about his work and gave us a fascinating introduction about it.

Thanks to the nice spring temperatures we had the pleasure to listen to outdoor live music on several evenings. Sometimes with our sailor friends and sometimes just the two of us. In any case it was always fun. The Beaufort people all seemed to enjoy having foreign sailors in their city. They were curious where we were from and always happy to chat with us. We felt more than welcomed in that little town. Then Linda arrived and we had even more fun. As soon as she arrived she joined us to watch a football game (a game she is not interested in at all) in a dark pub whilst outside the sun was showing off shining her best. The next couple of days she took us for a looong walk at Fort Macon State Park and introduced us to pickle ball. A super fun game similar to tennis but much easier to learn. Played on a badminton sized court with smaller raquets and a lighter ball. We immediately loved it and wanted to play again.

When Ty and Kellianne arrived on Friday afternoon we had them all aboard Altimate for a long sundowner. The sun was already set when we went ashore to grab some food. We had burger from a food truck and listened to life music at our favourite bar (yes our favourite bar, after all we were already regular guests). Saturday was farmers market day. Linda was busy with preparing dinner for us. So we played Beaufort guides and took Ty and Kelli to the Farmers market including a stop at the wooden boat show which happened to be that weekend. As soon as Linda was ready to join she called for another pickleball game on one of the many courts which can be used for free when being a resident. Which we kind of were as Linda, being the sister of Lisa was kind of a resident, wasn’t she😉? Again we loved it but were also pretty exhausted after 1,5 hours of playing. Our bodies somehow thought we played much longer… Anyhow after a well needed nap Kelli, Ty and us walked to Lisa’s house. Lisa, her husband Matthew and Linda invited all of us for a great Greek dinner. The Altimate Crew in particular enjoyed not only the delicious food but sitting at a huge table with nice dishes, candles lots of glasses and so much space. We were so spoilt and we had so much fun!!

Sunday was another fun-day! Linda, Kelli and Ty asked for a sail day so they got it! We took them out for a few hours and Kellianne was right on the helm as soon we hissed the sails. I hope the other two had fun too😉! Much too fast the afternoon was there and we had to say goodbye once again. As Beaufort was such a nice place to be we will for sure come back on our way down the coast. And…you never know, we might meet all up then again.

For us it was also time to leave as we were looking forward to having Luis join us in Annapolis, MD. Again Beaufort was convenient for a spot to start our next trip. Its location made it possible to leave almost regardless the weather situation as we could either sail around Cape Hatteras or -like we did- take the ICW (The Intra Coastal Waterway was originally developed as a commercial waterway in the early 1900s, but today it is primarily used by recreational boaters. It is a network of navigable channels, rivers, bays, and canals that stretches more than 3,000 miles along the eastern and Gulf coasts of the US, from Boston, Ma to Brownsville, Tx.). The wind and weather situation made our decision easy as it was not favourable to go outside along Cape Hatteras. A difficult passage when having northerly winds as the golf stream with its immense current is close to shore. And we all know by now wind against current is a no go for sailors. So the next day Monday the 6th of May we left Beaufort to head to Annapolis taking the inside route.