Mike
11/01/2007, Oriental, NC

Oriental - October 30

We left Belhaven at daylight and stayed ahead of the pack all the way to Oriental. The sails were up and down, and helped quite a bit, but the engine was always running. Our path, for those of you who care in the least, was down the Pungo, across the Pamlico River, through the Hobucken Cut, out into the Pamlico Sound proper and finally up the Neuse River to Oriental.

We arrived to find that the Anchorage was reasonably full but after a couple of tries, got our anchor set in a good spot for the night. We are right next to "Peace", the boat that rafted off of us in Deep Creek, so we got to say Hi to Ann and Neville.It was mid afternoon, so we went ashore to wander around the town for a while. Oriental is small and quiet. One of the four restaurants we saw had a sign out advertising all-you-can-eat- shrimp which caught our attention. We ran into Jim and Beth, the Madcap sailors, and made a date for dinner.

On our walk we also ran into Claude who has a small Bayfield and was anchored next to us in Annapolis. He is traveling with a couple form Marquette who we met briefly and who seem like people that we'd like to get to know. Restless, Steve and Carol's boat, is docked there and looks to be no worse for their owners going home for a week. They will be back tomorrow and will catch up in a few days.

The shrimp were great.

bye

Yes, I forgot to say Happy Halloween yesterday. We did not have any trick-or-treaters!

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Mike
10/31/2007, Belhaven, NC

Belhaven October 29

We weren't sure when we went to bed last night if we were traveling today or not. Our next hop takes us out into the Pamlico Sound which is another large body of shallow water. The forecast was for 25 to 30 mph winds and we really didn't know. I was up before daylight and not one of the 12 boats in the anchorage was make any sign of getting underway. Decision made.

I spent most of the morning removing our stern light...which has been covered most of the time by our dinghy, and installing a new LED stern light on the aft edge of our solar panels. Our neighbors from Madcap, a Bayfield 36, stopped by to introduce themselves and we promised to get together later in the day.

By the time I was finished with my projects, it was time for lunch and a trip to town. We took two back packs with the computer in one of them on the off chance that we could find a Library. The old part of town which is located on the water is quaint but we were looking for a grocery store and a post office, which were located about 1.5 miles out on the highway. So off we went for our daily exercise.

On our return we dinghied over to visit the Madcap sailors as promised and had a very nice chat. They returned with us to inspect Sapphire and more idle conversation.

I cooked some Flounder for dinner along with some fresh spinach wilted in olive oil and garlic... (I had seen Kevin do this one evening up on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.)

We didn't take any other pictures in Belhaven.

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Mike
10/30/2007, Belhaven, NC

Sunday, October 28 - Alligator River to Belhaven.

The wind came up at about 2am. We were up and set the anchor drag alarm on the GPS and went back to bed. The alarm went off at 4am and were up for good. The wind was at 25 knots gusting to thirty with about three foot waves. I don't think we actually dragged much at all, but we were not taking any chances. As soon as we could see well enough to avoid the crab pots that were sharing our anchorage, we were up and gone.

We motored to the end of the Alligator River and entered the Alligator - Pungo Canal which had one turn in 18 miles. Most of the terrain was cypress swamp with a few grassy marsh type areas. Today's trip was only about 35 miles and much of it reminded me on the dead stream swamp up by Houghton Lake. In fact, most of the area inland from Cape Hatteras seems to be virtually uninhabited. ...The canal took us to the Pungo River which we followed to our current anchorage off the town of Belhaven. There are 12 boats here this evening and most, if not all, will be gone in the morning. There is a Bayfield 36 next to us for the second night in a row but we haven't met them yet....it has been so windy the last two days that all trips in the dinghy mean getting wet.

Today I put on long pants for the third time since we left and, for a time this morning, had on two layers of fleece. The temperature got up to about 69 this afternoon, but it was cloudy and windy enough that it felt cool for the first time. The sunset was beautiful this evening.

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