Passage - Dowry Creek Marina to River Dunes Marina, Oriental, NC
44 miles 6 hours.

As I write on Saturday morning the wind is blowing 25-30 Knots. The wind is really whistling around the windows of Liquid Therapy. I’m considering doubling the lines at least on the bow which is getting tugged the most. We got underway at 6:10A yesterday morning. The weather was supposed to deteriorate by early afternoon and we had a 6 hours run.

The morning calm winds started to get a little breezy as we winded our way through ICW protected waters and still concerned about the Neuse River. The wind would be blowing on our nose for about 6 miles and then we’d have to turn broadside to the wind for abut 1 mile.

I noticed a tug pushing a barge a few miles behind me on my AIS black box. He was doing 7.6 knots and we were doing 6.5 knots. So, he would be overtaking me if he followed our path. I spoke with the tug over the radio to see if he would be following us or headed out to the Pamlico Sound. My luck is he was going to be overtaking us in a few hours. I told him I’d stay well to the edge of the channel and would make sure he had a good place to pass me when the time came. Going through my mind was “what if my motor quit?” Would the wind blow me into his path? I have the most reliable motor in the world. But things like that happen. I always think about the motor cutting off when I cross a shipping channel in the Chesapeake or I’m in the Norfolk shipping channel area. I always stay on the edge of those channels to be out of the way if “the motor cuts off”. When the tug was about 3/4 mile behind me it looked really large. And, finally when my black box said he’d overtake me in about 7 minutes I slide out of the channel into a little cove to let him by. It was much better having the tug in front of me.

When we reached the wide Neuse River there were white caps. I told Susan to get ready for about 1 hour of splashing. Susan closed the windows and literally battened down the hatches as we were starting to take spray. When I made the turn into the creek I was still on a pretty good angle and Liquid Therapy didn’t roll much at all.

Turning into the River Dunes Marina channel was fine except two more boats were having docking assistance prior to our turn. OK, I redeemed myself a bit from the prior days docking and it was about a 3 star landing on the first attempt.

We had a wonderful poolside clambake and met two other cruising couples. We always have fun meeting new people and talk about everywhere we’ve been and all the boat issues and are instant friends. Everyone at our table had a music connection too. One lady had just released her first album and the guy sitting next to me had written scores for TV. Very cool people around the water indeed.

Today’s picture is Susan gazing at the sun almost setting at the clam bake.