We did the traditional ICW trip a few years ago. This site includes a day by
day log.
http://www.sv-loki.com/The_Trip/the_trip.html

West Palm to Norfolk is about 25 travel days, so you'll need 50 days. You've
given about 180, so you have 130 days left for playing tourist, and cruising the
Chesapeake. As you can see from our log, we sometimes traveled 2 or 3 days in a
row; other times we stopped for a few weeks. Only you can say which places you
want hang out in for extended stays.

As for hurricanes, aside from last year, the upper Chesapeake is a safest place
on the East Coast. The standard strategy is to head south after the Annapolis
Boat Show on Columbus Day.

-jeff





"ALCCA" wrote in message
...
Hi everyone. We are planning taking our boat to the Chesapeake this summer. We
would like to leave the first week of May from Palm Beach and make our way
North through the ICW. We are not in a hurry and would like to enjoy the
cruise
without any kind of schedule. Our concern is that if we really take a very
slow
approach we may be increasing our chances of being in the path of a hurricane
and secondly that we may miss a lot of the great cruising grounds in the
Chesapeake by running out of time. We would like to start heading back the
first week of October. One approach we have began to discuss is to try to get
to the Chesapeake by mid to June and then take our time coming back. Does any
one have any suggestions which one may be the better approach?
Thanks
ALCCA