Morehead City Yacht Basin doesn't open until 8:30 and although we all needed to buy fuel, we opted to leave at 8 Friday morning and put a few miles in before stopping at Jarret Bay Boat Works to buy diesel. We managed to get in and out and all three boats fueled in about half an hour when we did stop. Our goal was to get to Belhaven, at the turn in the Pungo River. It meant a long day that included the Neuse River (often called the "Nasty Neuse") and Pamlico Sound - also notorious for stirring up a chop now and then. Our luck was still with us and both bodies of water posed no problem. We motorsailed as much as we could and made it to the anchorage off the town of Belhaven by 6:30pm.
Large bodies of water don't always lend themselves to good photo ops, but we did see this cute tug on our way up Adams Creek on our way to the Neuse.
With another long day ahead of us we were up and on our way before 7 this morning. The most remarkable thing about this morning was the number of bugs - most of them May flies that were EVERYWHERE when we all came on deck. We finally got the vacuum out and tried to clean the cockpit a bit once we were underway. We still had a few of them flying around and dying all over for most of the day!
The weather both yesterday and today was beautiful. Clear skies, mostly fair breezes and pleasant, if a bit cool, temperatures. We continued up the Pungo, through the Pungo-Alligator Canal and out the Alligator River with what little wind we had on the nose. We still had a long way to go and were glad we could put up the main for crossing the Albemarle Sound, but it was too close to carry the jib, so we motor-sailed the 12 miles across. Luckily we turned further west when we reached the Pasquotank River and had a nice beam reach with both main and genoa drawing well. We averaged over 7 knots under sail alone for the whole ride up to Elizabeth City and scooted through the swing bridge there at 7:15. We were anchored in the bend in the river by 7:30. We all opted to forgo all cockpit lights of any kind in the hopes that the bugs won't find us so appealing. Tomorrow - the Dismal Swamp. ~~~(\_~~~M&D
The home of USCG Aviation is located along the shore of the Pasquotank River. The Waterway Guide talked about all the different types of aircraft that are based there and how far and wide their missions carry them, but it didn't mention this blimp-like thing. I thought it looked like an overgrown weather balloon.
We never tire of pretty sunsets - Pekabu III is on the left as we anchored in Belhaven last night and Andiamo on the right just after sunset here in the bend in the river just past Elizabeth City.
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