Trip today: 56 miles in 7 hours

6:30 anchor was up and we followed 'Still Crazy', 'Redemption' & 'Seabird' into the Alligator River. We now have just 100 miles remaining of the ICW, but still a long way back to Toronto...hmmm!

At 9:15 we started across the Albermarle, notorious for kicking up in a hurry...and that's exactly what it did! The high winds with gusts to 21 knots were supposed to arrive later in the afternoon. By noon we were at Buck Island, and with the channel narrowing and wild gusty winds, we rolled in the jib. We then radioed Seabird to advise him of conditions...singlehanding would be a challenge in these conditions!

Just after noon, the USCG issued a bulletin that the 'North Landing bridge' was closed due to mechanical failure...great., we needed to go through that bridge to get to Great Bridge, today's destination. OK, change in plan...luckily, just ahead of us were Coinjock's two marinas, and we headed for Midway Marina, where we had stayed in Oct. 2015. There was no response to our phone or VHF calls, so we just tied up on the long face dck outside the marina building. About an hour later, Terry, the marina owner came over to chat, telling us that when we were last there, he had a buyer for the marina...turns out the deal fell through and he still owns the place but would really like to sell!

During the afternoon, several calls were made to the North Landing bridge, informing us a service crew was coming to look for the problem...tomorrow morning...mañana. Meanwhile there were about 30 boats waiting to get through the bridge. We assisted a couple of other boats tie up at Midway, including the Canadian m/v Aqua Fennatic with Mike & Marie Fenn aboard.