Tuesday, October 6 . 2020
Passage, Manteo Waterfront Marina - National Park Service Docks Ocracoke
66 miles

Beautiful day. Just beautiful. We got underway about 7:40 to a no wind morning. We got about 1/2 knot tidal current push. It’s always nice when the current or wind work with you. We had a good trip down the Roanoke Sound to the Oregon Inlet channel and finally the Old House Channel that drops us into the Pamlico Sound. That was 18 miles. The 48 miles remaining were all the Pamlico Sound with only two course changes over about 7 hours..Really loving the autopilot on those long courses.
I spied 5 shrimp boats working the Pamlico. That’s good new for when we get to Ocracoke to eat and buy at the Seafood Co-op.

Electronics start acting odd. I loose Internet connection whichI expected in the middle of the Pamlico. But my WIFI signal is also gone from my router. I go down in the main cabin on the dash the sun has baked the router and it has shut down. Now the day is cool and we have picked up a little northerly wind. And the boat and wind are pretty much the same causing a no wind situation. I unplug the router and rush it outside and it cools off and comes back to life. Then my autopilot asks me to confirm the course I set over an hour ago. I acknowledge and the autopilot goes back to work. It does the same thing a little while later. I know we are near the devils triangle., But then I realize all my flybridge instruments are also overheating. I break out the fan and set it up to cool down the electronics. How crazy? A nice cool day with 0 apparent wind and electronics are failing from heat.

The rest of the trip was just nice. We enter the Ocracoke channel into Silver Lake and head over to the National Parks dock. It’s too late for the Park Rangers for the day. I get docked with the help of some other boaters and then we get told the power pedestals have not been repaired since Hurricane Dorian last year. What? They have a new pavilion, new black-top parking lot and no power. That is a deal breaker for boaters. Typical government priorities I suppose. I hadn’t bothered to call ahead for reservations as it is first come first served and the Park Service doesn’t have a published phone number for you to call. I confronted the about that in the past and told them the number I had been calling. They told me the number was one of the Rangers private cell phone and wanted to know how I got it. I told them it is published as the contact number for their facility in the Atlantic ICW Waterway guide. They were shocked and said there was supposed to be NO PHONE # published. The Rangers all had phones on their desks.

Anyhow we will be moving to the nearby marina in the morning. We are planning on staying a week at least. Got to get my Ocracoke fix.

Today’s picture is the shrimpers at work in the Pamlico Sound.