ICW thoughts

My current bike - still for sale - any takers????

 We used to ride motorcycles a lot. To the tune of a quarter million miles for each of us on a couple dozen motorcycles over the years. But one of the trips I remember most is a 5 day camping trip on one of our first bikes, a Yamaha 750 triple with 6" over forks. It was, without a doubt, the worst handling motorcycle we ever owned, with the worst set of brakes. We packed up 5 days of camping gear and clothes and rain gear and the two of us and off we went. The end of this trip involved an endless ride up I-95, which is an endless 4-lane swath of concrete cut through a forest, leaving you nothing to entertain your eyes but two walls of green for hours on end. I was still riding on the back at the time and more than once I woke up from a dead sleep having toppled over to where the first sight that greeted my eyes was concrete roaring past my face shield. Many miles, and many mountains of rainy roads later, Tim coasted the bike into its storage shed, dismounted, removed his helmet, and said "Tomorrow you get your own bike."

Here we are 32 years later and as we were motoring down the Virginia Cut today that trip was all I could think about. We motored 7-1/2 hours since this morning through countryside that rarely changed and saw almost no wildlife (which surprised me to no end). There were bits and pieces that we enjoyed, like Coinjock, a cute little waterside town with great character and many characters. Unfortunately, we have been limited in our stops at places like these because of the constraints of our boat. If we had stopped in Coinjock, then the next stop available to us (for either depth or expense reasons) would have been either too close or too far. There are very very few places that a boat like ours can stop on the ICW without being in a marina, something we are not wanting to do because of the cost. Anchorages for a boat the size of ours are few and far between and at $2.00 to $2.50 per foot per night, the marinas add up quickly.

On the few bluewater excursions we took prior to choosing Kintala we found out quickly that we are open water people. We like the long days of sailing with no land in sight. We like the challenges of weather and the endless inky sky with a billion stars on night watch. We love the nuances of the ocean's personality, the colors, the sounds, the smells. So while we agree that this trip down the ICW is a necessary part of our voyage, and there are certainly things we have enjoyed seeing and doing, the boat we prepared for our retirement is a true bluewater boat that is most at home in blue water. After seeing how Kintala dug in and let fly on the open water of the lower Chesapeake, I will be happy to see her where she truly belongs on the open sea.