We made it to Ortega Landing on Sunday, with breaking waves on the Ortega River... but docking was OK.
Surprised it really did sorta-kinda take us a whole month to get here. Our original concept was to leave Annapolis circa 1 Nov, arrive OL 1 Dec. Given some snotty weather on the Chesapeake, we didn't leave until 5 Nov. Then some find-parts-and-fix-it work followed by some weather in Portsmouth held us up there for 4 days.
As we came down the Chesapeake we had noticed our brand new port main alternator wasn't alternating... and as we were leaving Portsmouth we discovered the genset wouldn't start... so we needed to limit ourselves to marina hopping for shorepower. And then we found that weather was affecting many who were making the ICW trip south... and many were holding in marinas ahead of us, so that meant we couldn't move 'til they moved... etc. Which meant we were held up briefly for weather in Oriental, then again in Wrightsville Beach...
Then we had a family medical thing come up, thought we'd have to leave the boat in Southport for a while (great support for that from the folks at South Harbor Village Marina), and even though that situation cleared itself up (sorta) it held us up for another few days. Then we had another weather hold up at St. Simons Island waiting to get into Amelia Island...
And so forth and so on. Our OL reservation was supposed to start on 1 Dec but we originally thought we'd be in the vicinity much earlier, maybe time for a side trip to St. Augustine or somewhere... but no, sure enough we arrived on 1 Dec.
Genset issue is hopefully just the battery; generator needs 500 CCA, 10 year old 880 CCA battery now only giving 333 CCA... new battery en route.
And our yard sent us a replacement alternator, so this time we'll try to get the installation correct.
Not to worry, we've been in vacation mode since 1 Nov, staying here for 3 months, all good!
-Chris