Passage from Atlantic Yacht Basin to Anchorage 36º18.5’N 75º59.0’N North River, NC
40.2Miles

Wonderful weather for a slow trip down the ICW. And, that was what we did mainly taking in the old growth cypress trees and watching out out for the stumps of long gone trees too. There is one race from Centerville Turnpike Bridge to the North Landing Bridge. They are about 4 miles apart and open on the hour and half hour. With only 1/2 hour to go from one to the other we have to run Liquid Therapy hard. And, we did and we made it and I’m glad to say she didn’t overheat since I cleaned her heat exchanger. Liquid Therapy seems very happy right now.

Coinjock marina was full when we called for reservations. They offered us to raft to another boat. That means tying outside to a strangers boat at the dock and having to walk across their boat to get to shore. We have done that before actually being the 4th boat out in a raft in the Dismal Swamp. But we opted for a nice anchorage that we found last year a few miles south of Coinjock. As we passed Coinjock we saw the marina mostly empty and it was 4PM. As we anchored we are still in full view of the ICW and lots of boats and radio traffic calling Coinjock Marina told us they would be full fast. The snow bird boaters are on their way north from Florida.. Many NY, CT NH boats and lots of MD and VA as well boats passed by us heading north. WE never saw any cruisers headed south like we are.

We anchored and the weather was just about perfect 82º and breezy enough to not feel that hot with forecast of 71º for sleeping. Just perfect except BUGS. Right at sunset we noticed a few flying insects and a few mosquitos. That quickly changed to swarms that you could hear - like in a horror movie that we weren’t watching but rather we are in this movie. Liquid Therapy does not have screens. It’s still on the to do list from about 10 years ago. I have thought of just buying one of those large mosquito nets from the army surplus store and just covering the boat during a bug battle. Might still do that. Even after closing every hatch and window bugs were still gathering around our cabin lights. They weren’t biting us but still we were swatting them as they landed on us. I actually got the vacuum cleaner out and sucked up many of them in places they were gathering.
As I’m writing this at 7:30AM many are clinging to the windows to get out. Once we get going today we will open everything up and hope they all blow away.

We are far enough away from Norfolk to not receive any TV. But, we have good internet and can watch Netflix. And, we brought our Sonos Alexa which is the silver edition as shown on the Saturday Night Live advertisement ( SNL Alexa Commercial -a must watch .. ). We ask Alexa about the weather and to play music mainly.

Today’s picture is one of the millions of bugs that invaded Liquid Therapy last night..