We just finished an extended trip from the northern edge of Chesapeake Bay down through North Carolina as far as Beaufort and back. The main reason was to look for waterfront property, but it turned out to be a terrific adventure just for the scenery and the trip. We stayed on our 382 Formula most nights, but also got off and stayed at friends' houses 6 times. the actual trip started May 22, and ended June 27th, but we took two 4-day breaks and one 9-day break, rented a car and drove home.

We met tons of friendly people at the marinas (even saleboters!) and learned a lot about the crusing lifestyle. Very, very cool. We also got beat sensless by Albemarle Sound (3 times!) and Chesapeake Bay (twice), but learned a lot about seamanship and boat handling in the process.

If you've never done a trip like this, it's worth thinking about. Just make sure you're ready for every contingency and always have two backup plans.

...and be ready for the fuel bill...

Where was your favorite area for waterfront property?

Ultimate poker run? You two are the ultimate powerboaters! Glad you had a good and safe trip! Hope to see you soon my friend!

Why didn't you use the "Lawn Dart"?..... It would have been considerably less expensive....and garnered a lot more attention.

T2x

That's AWESOME Chuck!!! How did the Formula run with the "new" power?

That is REALLY neat Chuck. Man, you will remember that trip with great fondness for the rest of you life. What a cool trip.

My Uncle took a 48 Viking from Chicago to Stuart, Fl...he talks about it like it was one of the coolest things on earth. I can see why. That is awesome, glad you had fun.

Maybe next time you will take the Bat Boat...

You wouldn't have to worry about being beat senseless....

Chuck, I'm glad to hear the trip went well Obviously the Formula is running better than ever.

If you ever decide to boat around the "home port" again give us a call

Rob

P.S. say "HI" to the Dianne for us!

Btw

Did you find your dream property?

OK - Hopefully I'll get to all the questions...

1) There were lots of nice places, but we like the area of the Neuse River across from Oriental. South River comes in from that side, is virtually undeveloped, and the cities of Oriental, New Bern and Beaufort are not too far away (by water). Both New Bern and Beaufort have decent regional airports. Oh - and the land prices haven't been pushed out of sight there yet. (Forget Chesapeake Bay.)

2) Took the Formula for a couple of reasons, primarily because we could fit all the $hit that The Admiral was carrying with us. Also, although the BatBoat has air conditioning, it doesn't have a TV. (Or an engine right now.......) It would have cut the fuel bill by about 70%, though. As far as attention goes, we were in the land of salebotes and trawlers almost all the time. Backing into your slip between a Hunter and a Grand Banks at the end of the day with a pair of 600's barking through Stelling headers brought us all the attention we could handle. Fortunately, most of our neighbors appreciated the novelty of it. Unless we had to leave before 8:00 AM....

3) YES - It was way fun (most of the time). Don't think that we took any still pictures, but we have a fair amount of video. I'll try to capture a few frames, but they might be a bit grainy.

4) The Formula's running great - no more exhaust problems. We cruised at 50 mph/3800 rpm most of the time, but gave it a pretty good workout on the last day during the Formula Rendezvous run up to Fairlee Creek. Saw 74.7 mph on the GPS with 150 gallons of fuel, enough clothes for two weeks and tons of accumulated real estate paperwork. We must have weighed 13,000 pounds, and the bottom of the boat looked like a biological experiment gone horribly wrong.

5) Lots of great memories. We're ready to take more trips like this, but need to shop for something with diesels in it first.....

6) It doesn't matter what boat you have on a bad day in Albemarle Sound or the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Those bodies of water would humble a 50-footer when they're riled up. 75% of the time, we had VERY nice water to run in, and we never got rained on while we were underway.

7) We'll be out around the Sassafras River/Jellyfish Joel's this weekend, and might even stop by the flats on the way home Sunday afternoon. No way that I'm going further from home than Annapolis for the rest of the summer, though.

Best pieces of equipment on board: cooler (and refrigerator) full of cold water and our Garmin 2010C chartplotter. The ICW doesn't always follow the path you think it will, and stepping outside the lines can be very, very bad in some areas. It even kept a running trip mileage for us.