We left New Bern on Friday night and had an absolutely stunning sail down the Neuse River. Sunset was gorgeous, and we were flying along – Chris said the highest he saw was 8.3kts over ground. Unfortunately I was absolutely exhausted and didn’t fully enjoy it. Instead of stopping at the same spot we anchored on the way in, I said we’d keep going to Adams Creek. By the time we got there, it was dark and the wind was gusting into the high 20s from the wrong direction, so we had to keep going down to South River. I won’t say I was having a four-year-old level meltdown, but I wasn’t too far off – all I wanted was a quiet night. Eventually we found a good spot to anchor, and while it wasn’t flat calm, it was much better than the 2-3′ waves we’d been seeing and we spent a relatively settled night.
In the morning, we hauled anchor late for us (0830!) and had a beautiful sail most of the way to Goose Creek. Even when the wind started to die, we maintained decent speed with the main up. The Goose Creek passage was a sad one – we passed the last of the palmettos we’ll see on this trip.
We planned to stop at Dowry Creek Marina for fuel and a pump-out, and after Chris checked the weather as we approached Belhaven, he decided to book us a slip for the night. There was a chance of severe thunderstorms, and after my frustration the day before, he wanted to make sure we had a relaxing night. As we approached we could see a storm forming behind us, and the winds kicked up. We were nervous about coming into the slip given the wind strength and direction, but the Dowry Creek crew is awesome and had three people waiting on the dock to take our lines. With a good crew who knew what they were doing, it looked easy, even though it was anything but. We got diesel and pump-out in our slip, took on more water, got rid of our built-up trash and recycling, and we got in a swim in the pool and showers all before 8. I tossed in a load of laundry (I still can’t believe they do free laundry there!), and we finished putting things away. I love being out on anchor, but it was also good to come into a dock to take care of all that.
We left Dowry Creek at 0700 for our longest ICW travel day yet – a 68nm trek to Elizabeth City. We passed through the Alligator River/Pungo River canal, which remains one of my favorite sections of the ICW, and enjoyed a perfect, sunny morning. I took the helm through the Alligator River where we were able to roll out the jib, boosting us up well over 6kts – sometimes reaching as much as 7.3 over ground. It clouded over, but the forecast afternoon thunderstorms didn’t materialize and we had a perfect crossing of the Albemarle Sound. The breeze settled back and the sun came out, making pot-spotting tough (they’re EVERYWHERE in the Sound), but we were glad for the good weather.
The Pasquotank River is beautiful; we were intrigued by a really unusual building on the north shore that turned out to be a dirigible hangar. So random, but really cool! We chose to anchor in Forbes Bay, a little bend in the river surrounded by nice homes and relatively well-protected. There were evening thunderstorms in the forecast, so we kept watching radar, but they broke up as they approached around sunset. We had a simple dinner in the cockpit (jalapeno pimento cheese and stout) to celebrate the long day. It felt good to knock off so many miles in a weekend, and we’re excited to visit Elizabeth City and run the dismal swamp route next weekend!
