Friday, April 22nd and we are away at 7am in cool but sunny conditions. We have been travelling a lot with the enclosure up when we are near the ocean - the breezes are very cool! At Morehead City we headed for a marina, pumped out, fuelled up, and moved to our slip. It is much warmer here on shore. We used the courtesy car to reprovision and once we got everything put away we walked to Floyd's for a very good but late dinner.

Oriental was our next stop and we were lucky to get on the free town dock. We met Liz and Bob aboard Arapesh from Montreal and finally caught up with Bill on Charisma who we met last year in the Exumas. Oriental is a small quaint town and we spent the afternoon in the shops and were able to buy fresh shrimp on the way back to the boat. They looked so good, Ron went back for a second pound for the freezer.

Sunday morning we left for Belhaven but the Neuse River was so rough with wind on the nose, we bailed out at River Dunes and spent a lovely afternoon there, catching up on laundry and reading. Ron even had time to give the boat a much needed wash. River Dunes is one of the nicest marinas along the ICW.

Monday morning it was sunny again but still cool. Winds were much lighter and in a favourable direction, so we travelled past Belhaven and Dowry Creek to anchor in the Pungo River. Active Captain said there was a beach here to take your dog ashore...well, it wasn't much of a beach and the anchorage was just so-so!

On to Alligator River on Tuesday. We had a bit of a rough, rolly night last night so nice to be at a marina for the night! As we arrived, a dredge was clearing out the marina entrance. We still managed to plow through some mud where he hadn't dredged yet. We had several loopers in trawlers stop at the marina after a fairly rough ride for them on the river. This marina is at a gas station on the side of a hghway. The little convenience store makes the best burgers and fries - our dinner that night!