East Coast advice

[owenrms]

Hi everyone - we are looking to move our Leopard 48 slowly northwards from West Palm Beach in May. The goal is to be spending the summer in the Chesapeake before heading south again post the hurricane season. ICW is out due to mast height.

We have never explored the East Coast so want to take it in easy sections (just two of us on board) knowing that the last fling around Cape Hatteras will likely be a couple nights at sea.

Looking for advice on great marinas or preferably anchorages as we head north. Also looking for recommendations on the best cruising guides/pilots for this region.
Thanks

[Durangutan]

Hello Owen. We moved a newly purchased boat from Boca Raton to the Chesapeake in May of this year. I had never been on the Atlantic. I used the Coast Pilots and Waterway Guides along with a complete suite of other paper resources (charts, pilot charts, light lists, tide & current tables, etc.) as I'm not very tech savvy. I did have a couple of chartplotter apps on the iPad which were also helpful. In our case, however, we were in a hurry and thus stopped only once in Beaufort, NC after leaving the Lake Worth inlet. Among my greatest concerns was the infrequency of deep water inlets which I felt limited our options for refuge so I made very detailed notes grading those options well before we left.

[Auspicious]

There are 20-something decent inlets up the US East Coast, almost half of which are Class A all weather all hours inlets.

You made a point of going slowly. I hear you. Northbound is the easy direction to go fast: get out in the Gulf Stream and you should be on Chesapeake Bay in four days. Cruiser the Chesapeake for the summer and then work your way back South hopping from inlet to inlet.