Cheryl's Notes:

We finally left Elizabeth City on Friday morning. NOAA was still predicting 15-20 knot winds, but www.windmapper.com was right on with only 5-8 knot winds from the northeast. The wind pushed us across the Albemarle Sound without too much trouble from the waves. We made it down past the Alligator River Bridge and set the hook for the night. Saturday morning we continued down the Alligator-Pungo Canal. We had a little excitement along the way. We passed a catamaran anchored near a channel marker. Wow, we thought, we should mark that on our charts as a good anchoring spot. Wrong, they went around the wrong side of the green marker and were hard aground. About two green markers later, we noticed a sportfisher type boat on the side of the canal. They looked like they were anchored doing a little fishing. Wrong again, the object bobbing in the water was the bald head one of the fishermen walking around the boat trying to figure out how to get the boat off the bottom. This was the same boat that passed us earlier going about 20+ knots. Talk about a hard day on the water. Towboat US had a really busy day in the canal. Ironically, the sport fisher passed us later and bypassed all of the channel markers. Some people never learn.

We noticed that our leak was back as we headed towards Belhaven. We stopped for fuel at Dowry Creek Marina, having flashbacks of our service at River Forest Marina in Belhaven on the last visit. We were fueled up and water tanks topped off in under 20 minutes. We headed into Belhaven harbor and dropped the hook for the night. We had three objectives while on shore. Find internet access, find a small store where we could buy bread and buns, and find a new idea on how to patch our leak. The first two were easy. We found a hardware store and decided to buy a bicycle tire patch kit. We then went on a mission to find bread. There was a Food Lion in town, but it was a two mile walk. We agreed that two miles was excessive for bread. I will let John tell you about our great find. We then sat at a little outside burger place and had a snack while checking email. Same story, no one calls and no one writes.

We headed back to the boat and I tried our repair one more time. I roughed up the rubber surface, spread on the rubber cement and added the patch. No go, so we added a little 5200 around the patch to hold it fast. Almost there, but still not quite right. Aha, I grabbed a tie wrap and secured it over the patch to hold it in place until the 5200 could cure. Voila, I am a genius. Now we just have to pray that it holds until we get back to New Bern.

John's Notes:

Cheryl has already told you about our encounters with a couple of boats that were grounded. But, she didn't tell you about the near miss that we also had. We sailed off the anchor in Bellhaven and continued to sail all day. The winds were in a favorable direction but were blowing between 18 and 25kts. We tucked in a reef before we left so we were fine as far as having too much sail up. Anyway, after leaving Bay River and entering Pamlico Sound, the wind and seas really pipe up. Now we have steady 20kt winds with higher gusts. The seas are running 4-5'. Needless to say, we are having one hell of a ride. Rail down, deck awash. We are having fun now. This is probably the best sail that we have had since leaving two and a half months ago. We are close hauled and I am having way too much fun. At least that is what the TowBoat US guy said when he practically stopped his boat in front of me and called me on the radio. He just wanted to inform me that unless I made a pretty hard turn to starboard, I was going to be in water that was about 3' deep. Ooops, having too much fun tends to take your mind off your chart plotter. Whew! That was close. From where I was steering in the cockpit, I could see my depth sounder and it read about 15' so I didn't think that I had a problem. The way the wind was blowing from the NE, had I went aground I could have done some serious damage, to say nothing about the damage to my ego. Next time I am in Oriental I'm going to stop by the TowBoat US office and thank them for the heads up.

For those of you that are paying attention, you will remember my telling you about the famous fast food place in Annapolis - CLUCK-U CHICKEN. I promise that the next time we are there I will get a picture. Figuring that we are on the way home, there probably won't be much that can top that. I just hate being wrong! Cheryl told you that while in Bellhaven we needed to pick up a couple of things. One of them being bread. The problem with Bellhaven, like most of the small towns that we have visited in the last couple of years, most of the stores were out of business. Not even a convenience store in the downtown area. We asked a clerk in the hardware store where we could get a loaf of bread besides Food Lion. She said that we might try a place a couple of blocks up the street. What the hell, we have nothing else to do. Off we go. As we get close, it looks like a gas station that went out of business a couple of years ago. There is a sign, however, that says OPEN. Turns out that not only do the gas pumps actually work, it is a little tienda (how were we to know that they have a large Spanish population). Anyway, we look all over the store and can't find any bread. We did find tortillas and figured that we could use them to make wraps. I love those. After I paid for the tortillas, I turned around and see a loaf of bread sitting right in the middle of an assortment of candy. Why didn't I think of that? Well, naturally, I'm going to buy the bread in addition to the tortillas. Pay for the bread and as we are putting it in our bag of goodies I notice the brand name of the bread. Are you ready for this? Are you sure? I know you think I am making this up.....no, it's not Wonder Bread.................it's..................here we go.................BIMBO BREAD. Are you F!^&#%G kidding me? Check out the picture above, I couldn't make that up. I think Cheryl has refused to eat any of it. I can see it as a TV sponsor. And now, TRAILER TRASH brought to you by BIMBO BREAD. Can't wait for the new season to begin. Hum, does it come in whole wheat? There is just no end to the possibilities of what we can find along the way.