Intracoastal Waterway Day 2

Dawn over the Virginia/North Carolina border.  This is the moon setting and it was apparently
a ‘Harvest moon’ which is brown

Another bald eagle – as common
 as ospreys around here!

Having spent the night at Pungo Ferry (Statute Mile 28, give or take a bit) and with another 175 miles to go to Beaufort, we needed to make an early start to the day on ICW Day 2 (Friday 23 November), in order to get back on the timeline for a 4 day transit from Norfolk to Beaufort.  So, the alarm went off whilst it was still dark [Ed: and jolly cold!]  and we had slipped our mooring before the sun showed itself  above the marshes of the Virginia/North Carolina border.  We passed the anchorage at Blackwater (too shallow for us) at which Active Captain reports mention yachties seeing bears at the water’s edge. It would have been nice to have seen a bear (from a distance) but the previous evening had been too cold for us to indulge in wildlife spotting.  After an hour in the cockpit whilst the sun was still up, we had rapidly retired below to the warmth, and sonorous whirring, of the diesel heater.  In the chill of this morning there were no bears.to be seen either.  If they were sensible they were all busy hibernating!

Coinjock

But there were bald eagles to be seen, flying over, and sitting on the lateral beacons in, the wide and shallow North Landing River that sits between Pungo Ferry and Coinjock, the next ‘major’ town (or so the books imply) on our route.  When we got there, Coinjock did not seem like a major town at all, though there are ‘marinas’ galore along the banks.

The Alligator River Bridge

From Coinjock we had another hour and a bit motor along another narrow dredged channel in a wide expanse of river [Ed: and, to use Charlotte’s description of Manchester in winter, “frickin’ freeeeezin’” it was too] until, oh great excitement, we reached the edge of the Albemarle Sound.  This wide (10+ miles wide) sound is a veritable ocean with soundings reaching the heady depths of 5-6m throughout.  With a favourable 18kts northeasterly wind we hoisted the mainsail, unrolled the genoa and SET SAIL (engine off) for the mouth of the Alligator River, 13nm away.  At the mouth of the river the navigable channel becomes very narrow (dredged) again, so we stowed the sails and motored towards the Alligator River Bridge. There is a surprising amount of road traffic on the bridge but, nevertheless, it still opens on request for traffic up the river, though the bridge tender tries to get several boats through at once.  We missed an opening for 5 or 6 boats but didn’t have to wait long for the yacht behind to catch us up and the bridge to open for us both.  And the bridge tender is very proactive, calling up ‘yacht southbound approaching the Alligator River Bridge’ to ask their intentions (head through the bridge or head west to the marina?) in a true Dukes of Hazard southern drawl.

Motoring up the Alligator River hoping to get to the anchorage before the light goes

From the bridge to our planned anchorage for the night is about 18nm and we had about 3½hrs of daylight remaining in which to make that distance.  Doable, but not easily.  The wind was tempting and, for a short while we did sail, but we couldn’t keep up a steady 6kts so we resorted to engine power and willed the Beta onto greater and greater things as the light started to fade.

We made it before sunset – just! And there was a veritable crowd of us anchored
off Deep Point (Mile 102)

Happily, we made it up the Alligator River and around the corner a bit to the anchorage behind Deep Point with about half an hour to go before sunset.  It’s another wide and shallow patch of river, with low banks around. There’s no protection from the wind and quite a fetch if it is windy but the bottom’s gloopy mud so the holding’s great and there’s plenty of space from other boats.  There were 4 of us in our anchorage that night – quite a crowd – and one boat a little further south.  But there was no socialising – it was just too cold to consider anything other than huddling below……. 

Digging out the Pela oil extractor so that we could do the engine oil change first thing the next morning

……except that the next morning we needed to do an engine oil change so Nicky used the last of the evening light to dig the Pela oil extractor out of the port lazarette.

A ‘Harvest’ (?) Moonrise

We popped our heads out from the warm fug of the cabin long enough to appreciate the moonrise (definitely a browner colour than normal) and then rapidly retired below, toasting Nicky’s wisdom/native wit in calling Customs and Border Protection to report BV’s entry to North Carolina from Virginia earlier in the day, rather than at our anchorage for the night.  When she had called, Officer Rushok had said that she needed to call at our evening destination.  Nicky had replied that she was concerned that there would be no cellphone coverage there and so wanted to report early.  Hint taken, Officer Rushok had made appropriate notes on the computer system. Just as well really – there is no cellphone coverage in the wilderness of the Alligator River, but there are some very pretty sunsets and moonrises.

Deep Point, Alligator River, North Carolina, USA