Virginia bound

We are under way in Currituck Sound, bound for the free docks in Great Bridge, Virginia and one of our all-time favorite Mexican restaurants. The sound is about as calm as we've ever seen it.

This morning found us anchored in a new spot, north of North River Point (map), near the mouth of the river of that name. The south winds and 2' seas that were behind us across the Albemarle meant that our usual digs across the river, near Powells Point, would have been too uncomfortable.


Louise bought me this new scooter mascot, a whimsical dog in a biker jacket, to replace the bear stolen in Fort Lauderdale. He was delivered to Fort McAllister; I finally found time to strap him on yesterday, under way.

The last time we needed to spend a night on the west side like that, we had to drive all the way around the end of the marked spoil area on our NOAA charts, because we had no depth information in the spoil areas, which are often quite shallow. Our Navionics Sonar Charts on our iPad, however, do have soundings in this area, and we found a way across that let us get into the lee of the point a full hour sooner.

We had the hook down just in time for dinner, and a very calm evening and night. This morning we got a fairly early start, passing through Coinjock so early in the day that the docks, which will be full by dinner time, were empty save for a single boat.


A lovely sunset from our quiet and remote anchorage.

It's supposed to rain here all night and into tomorrow, which will disrupt my plans to walk or bike to the hardware store. A leaking fitting in our compressed air system has had me shutting it down overnight for the last few days, leaving us without a working air horn. We have a portable one that operates on canned air, but it's not nearly as effective as the big Kahlenbergs.

In about an hour we'll be out of the sound and into the twists and turns of the North Landing River. The North Landing double swing bridge has been having some problems which periodically strand boats on one side or the other, but we understand as of today one span is operating on a normal schedule, so we just have to squeeze through on half the channel. We should be docked by cocktail hour.