First trip south on ICW

Our plan....
Move our 36’ SeaRay from southern Chesapeake Bay (Crisfield ,MD) to New Burn, NC the first week of November.
We have to be house bound until December 26.

Heading south from New Burn, NC in January. Planning to spend January and February living on our 36’ SeaRay. We are thinking about staying in Charleston,SC for the month of February.
No plans for March.
We have to be back in the Southern Chesapeake by the first of April.
Your wisdom will be much appreciated.

I hope you have a good heating system! Your whole trip will be cold, even when you get to Charleston. It snowed when we passed through Charleston in February a few years back.

Chrisjs said:

I hope you have a good heating system! Your whole trip will be cold, even when you get to Charleston. It snowed when we passed through Charleston in February a few years back.

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I saw the average temps, is Georgia far south enough?

ChesapeakeGem said:

I saw the average temps, is Georgia far south enough?

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Enough for what? It will be warmer than Crisfield, a little warmer than Charleston, but not "warm" per se.

Savannah is a delightful place to hunker down for awhile. We spent a lot of time there when our boat was being worked on at Thunderbolt Marine.

As noted, it will be winter during that whole time period and it will not be unusual to have snow somewhere along your trip. But no need to winterize anything.

It's New Bern, by the way...

Lol! Thanks for the correction.
Sounds cold, defeats the purpose

Chrisjs said:

I hope you have a good heating system! Your whole trip will be cold, even when you get to Charleston. It snowed when we passed through Charleston in February a few years back.

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So Charleston is out, if we start there in January

ChesapeakeGem said:

So Charleston is out, if we start there in January

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seems to me, you have to continue south...

I left Crisfield for FL on January 28th 2016. Started a thread when I left as ice was forming around my boat. Some interesting reading.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s27/finally-heading-south-24408.html

I normally head South in the beginning of October. November isn't a bad time to leave...as long as your heat is working. A cloudy day could be chilly on the fly bridge. While you won't need to winterize the boat before leaving in November, the water will be turned off at Somners Cove in October.

Imo, winter North of the FL line sucks!

Ted

December in NC can be very nice.. It all depends on the timing of cold fronts. Some years the fronts come early and hard, other years we have beautiful weather up to Christmas.

Crapshoot, really.

Just be prepared for bad weather and cold, but you might be pleasantly surprised.

Our cold is usually Jan and Feb. March can suck too. Seems our seasons are shifted clockwise from most areas. Dec usually much nicer than march.

O C Diver said:

I left Crisfield for FL on January 28th 2016. Started a thread when I left as ice was forming around my boat. Some interesting reading.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s27/finally-heading-south-24408.html

I normally head South in the beginning of October. November isn't a bad time to leave...as long as your heat is working. A cloudy day could be chilly on the fly bridge. While you won't need to winterize the boat before leaving in November, the water will be turned off at Somners Cove in October.

Imo, winter North of the FL line sucks!

Ted

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Thanks Ted!
I will quote you on that [emoji41]

Sorry, Florida is full!

O C Diver said:

I left Crisfield for FL on January 28th 2016. Started a thread when I left as ice was forming around my boat. Some interesting reading.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s27/finally-heading-south-24408.html

I normally head South in the beginning of October. November isn't a bad time to leave...as long as your heat is working. A cloudy day could be chilly on the fly bridge. While you won't need to winterize the boat before leaving in November, the water will be turned off at Somners Cove in October.

Imo, winter North of the FL line sucks!

Ted

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Enjoyed reading your post, thank you

ChesapeakeGem said:

Our plan....
Move our 36’ SeaRay from southern Chesapeake Bay (Crisfield ,MD) to New Burn, NC the first week of November.
We have to be house bound until December 26.

Heading south from New Burn, NC in January. Planning to spend January and February living on our 36’ SeaRay. We are thinking about staying in Charleston,SC for the month of February.
No plans for March.
We have to be back in the Southern Chesapeake by the first of April.
Your wisdom will be much appreciated.

Click to expand...

We went from near Annapolis to Charleston for this last winter. It was always warmer than here, sometimes only 5°F or so, but more often 10-20°F throughout the period from mid-January to mid-March. Usually quite comfortable, actually, but not T-shirt and shorts weather.

OTOH, the last leg of our southbound trip started near Myrtle Beach on about 12 January, and it was 22°F when we left there. Luckily the greenhouse effect on our bridge helped, since it was bright and sunny.

We understand this last winter was unusually cold in that part of the southeast; our dock neighbors in Charleston told us several times that what we were seeing wasn't really common. They actually had snow there a couple weeks before we arrived, apparently VERY uncommon.

The trip back, mostly in late March saw comfortable temps all the way north.

We found Charleston to be very pleasant, lots to see and do, friendly people, plenty of decent restaurants, the marina offered shuttle service, and there are three free city bus routes we could use for most of our downtown (peninsula) travels.

FWIW, we stayed in Ashley Marina, a "condo" marina next door to the city marina, nice enough, decent location relative to the city (grocery shopping/resupply was easy enough), with decent monthly rates. We didn't need a car at all. WiFi access there sucked; the marina management said they were experimenting with OnSpot at another marina they manage, and that could likely fix it.

Our travel, both directions, was fairly leisurely. Mostly short hops, sightseeing along the way, but with slightly fewer stops on the way back. (There's only so many times you need to see McClellanville, SC, even if it was a nice place.) OTOH, we left here in mid-November and it was too cold for anchoring -- at least for us (don't like to run the genset over night) -- so our marina bills were higher than what might normally be necessary. OTOOH, that gave us an excuse to stop in some decent places, do more shore-based sightseeing than we might have done if we'd anchored most of the time.

-Chris

For the last two years we had done exactly what you propose. We are in Solomons. We stage the boat in New Bern in Nov or Dec. New Bern weather is normally not bad. Many folks don't winterize there. We leave New Bern a day or two before New Years. The first year the trip was perfect. Temperatures were 50-60s, I think it was a warm season that year. Last year we got the Artic Blast most of the trip. We never run from lower helm but for this trip we were inside for a straight week. We had to stay in Georgetown SC for several days due to snow and ice. I saw ice coming out of the marshes just north of Charleston. Backing out of a slip in Southport we were breaking a skim of ice on the water. We enjoyed the experience but we may stage the boat in Georgia this year. I think Charleston is probably far enough south.

Bring a cell phone as most bridge tenders are watching TV and not the VHF.


Went south from NYC one January , before cell phones , some bridges required either multiple shots from our 12 ga starting cannon, or a call on 16 to the coasties to wake them with the land line phone.


The further south you go the more traffic there will be , so its easier.

menzies said:

Sorry, Florida is full!

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Full of what?

ranger42c said:

We went from near Annapolis to Charleston for this last winter. It was always warmer than here, sometimes only 5°F or so, but more often 10-20°F throughout the period from mid-January to mid-March. Usually quite comfortable, actually, but not T-shirt and shorts weather.

OTOH, the last leg of our southbound trip started near Myrtle Beach on about 12 January, and it was 22°F when we left there. Luckily the greenhouse effect on our bridge helped, since it was bright and sunny.

We understand this last winter was unusually cold in that part of the southeast; our dock neighbors in Charleston told us several times that what we were seeing wasn't really common. They actually had snow there a couple weeks before we arrived, apparently VERY uncommon.

The trip back, mostly in late March saw comfortable temps all the way north.

We found Charleston to be very pleasant, lots to see and do, friendly people, plenty of decent restaurants, the marina offered shuttle service, and there are three free city bus routes we could use for most of our downtown (peninsula) travels.

FWIW, we stayed in Ashley Marina, a "condo" marina next door to the city marina, nice enough, decent location relative to the city (grocery shopping/resupply was easy enough), with decent monthly rates. We didn't need a car at all. WiFi access there sucked; the marina management said they were experimenting with OnSpot at another marina they manage, and that could likely fix it.

Our travel, both directions, was fairly leisurely. Mostly short hops, sightseeing along the way, but with slightly fewer stops on the way back. (There's only so many times you need to see McClellanville, SC, even if it was a nice place.) OTOH, we left here in mid-November and it was too cold for anchoring -- at least for us (don't like to run the genset over night) -- so our marina bills were higher than what might normally be necessary. OTOOH, that gave us an excuse to stop in some decent places, do more shore-based sightseeing than we might have done if we'd anchored most of the time.

-Chris

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Thanks Chris,
We appreciate the info. Sounds like the lower helm will be used for the first time

fryedaze said:

For the last two years we had done exactly what you propose. We are in Solomons. We stage the boat in New Bern in Nov or Dec. New Bern weather is normally not bad. Many folks don't winterize there. We leave New Bern a day or two before New Years. The first year the trip was perfect. Temperatures were 50-60s, I think it was a warm season that year. Last year we got the Artic Blast most of the trip. We never run from lower helm but for this trip we were inside for a straight week. We had to stay in Georgetown SC for several days due to snow and ice. I saw ice coming out of the marshes just north of Charleston. Backing out of a slip in Southport we were breaking a skim of ice on the water. We enjoyed the experience but we may stage the boat in Georgia this year. I think Charleston is probably far enough south.

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We too were considering New Bern, but have changed our plans to move her to Charleston November 1st, from the Chesapeake. Then in January fly down and make a decision from there
Thanks for the Pictures brrr

ChesapeakeGem said:

Thanks Chris,
We appreciate the info. Sounds like the lower helm will be used for the first time

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ChesapeakeGem said:

We too were considering New Bern, but have changed our plans to move her to Charleston November 1st, from the Chesapeake.

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If you leave here in early November, you probably won't really need the lower helm, or at least not often.

We didn't leave until Nov 14th, and our bridge was comfortable for the first leg of our trip -- to Myrtle Beach, by mid-December. Too chilly for anchoring out without running the genset overnight, but daytime temps were nice enough.

We left the boat there for holiday family visits; when we got back in mid-January it was indeed nippy... but at least that was relatively short-lived.

-Chris