Our first night out was so cold that I saw our young crew sitting at the helm wearing most of the clothes they'd brought with them huddled under our heavy quilt. In the morning after our first dolphin sighting, we arrived at Atlantic City and dropped anchor, planning to spend only a day to replace engine hoses; we left five days later.

First, the hoses were the wrong size, then the weekend intervened so we didn't get the parts until the 15th. In the meantime we moved into a marina for water and power as the batteries were low because we couldn't run the engines very long with no water circulating in them.

May 16 - we're heading for Cape Hatteras on the outside when the waves increased uncomfortably so we went inside at Norfolk and continued down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The next day we spent the morning stuck on a sand bar. Once off, we continued south through a canal where we shared a lock with a tug boat pulling a large barge.

May 18 was our first trouble-free day, and we were finally warm. The troubles returned the next day when we hit a tree stump and were pulled off almost immediately by a large power boat. Worse, one of our crew noticed the starboard hull laying low in the water. Seems the automatic float on the bilge pump had failed and there was water in the engine room. We pumped the water out, replace the float, and anchored for the night.

We arrived in Beaufort, North Carolina on May 20 for provisioning and fuel. Also tried without success to find a vet for our dog, Star, who's paw was continuing to hurt him. We're also trying to fix a problem with the fuel not switching properly between tanks.

To be continued.