North Carolina roughed us up

We are under way northbound on the Alligator River, approaching the swing bridge as I begin typing. It's been an interesting few days, in the proverbial sense. I still have four hours of mostly open water ahead of me so it is a good opportunity to catch up the blog.

The Alligator River Swing Bridge opening for us as we approach.

I'll start right off with the worst of it: the remainder of our offshore passage. We were having a pretty good run, more or less following the coastline about two miles out, with the wind off our port bow, out of the north. But around 2pm the wind clocked to the east, a good couple of hours ahead of forecast, and the seas quickly built until we were in steep three footers, pitching violently and taking heavy spray over the pilothouse.

Vector mostly just shrugs this kind of thing off, although anything not properly secured has a habit of finding the sole (floor). And I'm not too bothered by it, mostly just annoyed by having to keep flicking the wipers on every time we got splattered. But it was not long before Louise ran out of coping mechanisms, and then there we were, in the middle of Onslow Bay, with no escape other than to press ahead.

Our track crossing Onslow Bay. You can see where I diverted toward the beach and stayed there until the inlet.

I angled the boat toward the beach, which put the waves a bit off the bow instead of smashing them head on, and increased rpm to 1800, which had the effect of giving the stabilizers more to work with, as well as just making the rest of the trip that much shorter. As we got continually closer to shore, the conditions improved marginally, but I attribute that mostly to getting progressively more in the lee of Cape Lookout, as the shore to the north was providing no shelter at all.

I finally turned parallel to shore when we were just a thousand yards off the beach, and held this until I needed to swing out around the shoal that flanks the inlet. We did not get out of the stink until we crossed the mouth. By this time it was past 5pm and any notion of fixing dinner underway was long past; we decided to press on another twenty minutes to a familiar anchorage off Beaufort.

Vector nestled between a range light tower and a daybeacon. I left Flux at the bottom of the shot.

The anchorage was surprisingly busy, considering the docks were mostly vacant, but we have our secret spot that is always available because it's sandwiched between a range light and a daybeacon on a steel pile (map), and few are comfortable anchoring in swift current with such obstructions so close. Also, the oyster-encrusted shoreline looks uncomfortably close.

The Carrot Island wild herd, less famous than their Shackleford cousins on the next island, as seen from our anchorage.

We set the anchor, splashed the tender, and headed to the town dinghy dock and a short walk to Clawson's 1905 Restaurant, which I remembered to have draft beer and casual eats. The drafts all turned out to be heavy on the hops, which is not my thing and so they are off the list, but it met our immediate needs. Louise crashed almost immediately after returning to Vector, and I was not far behind.

We passed these oystermen working with their tongs near Jarrett Bay.

Friday we set a goal to get around Swan Island and into the lee to the north before the heaviest winds set in and trapped us on the wrong side of the Neuse. That was a six-hour trip, and so we lingered in Beaufort until nearly 11am to have less unfavorable current. We tendered back ashore in the morning for a nice walk before weighing anchor.

Winds were already building by the time we turned onto the Neuse, and as we passed Broad Creek, we were hailed by a sailboat that was well aground, pushed up onto the shoal by the wind and getting worse by the minute. He wanted us to tow him out, but there was no way we could reach him even if we were willing to do such a thing with no insurance. After ensuring they were not in any danger we continued on. Later we heard them refuse commercial assistance on the radio with the Coast Guard.

All our deck furniture blew over shortly after turning around and departing our anchorage.

It was a long slog mostly against the current, but we finally made it to Bonner Bay on the north side of Swan Island and dropped the hook (map). We had a comfortable night, but even though we had tucked in as close to shore as depth allowed, we awoke to two footers crashing against the bow in steadily increasing winds. The Coast Guard started making announcements that the Alligator River bridge, pictured above, was closed due to high winds before we finished our first coffee.

Recorded gusts of 42mph (37 knots; gale force).

We decided we'd be more comfortable under way, and we weighed anchor and set out in the hopes of making Belhaven harbor. After crossing the Bay River we were in the protected waters of the Hobucken Cut, but seas again began to build as we progressed north through Goose Creek, giving us pause about crossing the Pamlico River. With seas behind us we opted to press on.

We were fine until the dogleg turn into the Pungo, where seas were again on the beam until we got more of a lee, but it was just a half hour of misery. The rest of the run to Belhaven was uneventful, and we arrived to an entirely empty harbor and went all the way to the highway bridge to have the least amount of swell from the harbor entrance. We dropped the hook a little after noon, as close to the windward shore as we could get (map).

Belhaven fancies itself the birthplace of the ICW. At least it is very welcoming, with four free dinghy landings, a free overnight dock, and an inexpensive overnight dock with power for shoal draft boats.

By late afternoon the winds had dropped from the 30s down into the 20s, and we splashed the tender so I could go ashore for provisions. No sooner had I reached shore than a front came through, and with the first drops of rain I made haste back to Vector for shelter. It was a short-lived thunderstorm, but by the time it past I had missed my window to hike to the grocery store and I decided to put it off to the morning.

Flux secured at the concrete bulkhead at the older of two boat ramps.

At dinner time we decided to head ashore together and made another strategic error. Rather than going straight across the harbor to the less protected and more difficult, but closer, dock, we decided to run along the harbor in the protection of the windward shore and then cross to the better dock. Big mistake. Halfway across we found ourselves in waves best not tackled in a 10' rib. Making matters worse, the wind had emptied over a foot of water out of the harbor, and I managed to hit bottom with the propeller as we bounced our way in to the canal. In the course of trying to correct for that we got beam to the seas and I got drenched by an incoming wave.

We eventually got tied up at the dinghy dock, perhaps a bit wiser (the sea is a harsh teacher; she gives the exam first and then the lesson), and headed for dinner. First we stopped in the Ace Hardware to see if I could find myself a dry shirt, but all they had was Carhartt workwear. Instead, we stopped in to the Tavern at Jacks Neck and I bought a t-shirt. We might easily have just stayed for dinner, but we had our mouths all set for chips and fajitas and we continued on to El Mariachi.

I do not wear collarless shirts, but here I am, mermaid and all.

That was a mistake, as it was not nearly as good as we had remembered, and in fact we very uncharacteristically left food on the plate and chips in the basket. On the plus side it was cheap and the draft Dos Equis were enormous. Next time we'll go back to the tavern, as they are again serving draft beer, unlike our last visit.

Collateral damage from our dinghy adventure. One of the seat bottom bolts was missing, and extra force on the seatback bent the bracket. I later straightened it in my vise.

The seas had laid down a bit by the time we returned to the dock, but nevertheless Louise opted to walk down to the other dock. After a careful inspection of the prop I took off solo, quickly bashed through the rough stuff, and headed over to the other dock to pick her up. Far more excitement than we had counted on this evening.

Yesterday morning the wind had dropped off to almost nothing and I went ashore at the old boat ramp adjacent to the bridge. I was able to tie alongside the concrete bulkhead and then it was just a mile walk to the Food Lion for provisions. Several other services are much closer to this landing, including a Walgreens, a Speedway truck stop with a very nice c-store, and a Dollar General.

An ICW milepost. 115 statute miles to Norfolk.

Right at the top of the provisioning list was beer, but it turns out you can not buy beer in North Carolina on a Sunday morning. Had I remembered that, I might have soldiered through the raindrops Saturday afternoon. Oh well, I at least was able to fill the rest of the provisioning list. We had the anchor up at 10am.

Sunset from our anchorage last night. that's not a building, it's the towboat Royal Engineer photobombing my 'gram.

Yesterday's cruise was mostly the ditch that is the Alligator-Pungo Canal. This is a mostly straight land cut with a single dogleg that is over 20 nautical miles long. With wind-driven current of over a half knot against us, that took almost four full hours. Once in the Alligator River, we proceeded a short distance east, and dropped the hook in a familiar spot off Deep Point (map).

This morning we passed an un-crewed drone ship conducting bottom survey operations. Too distant to get a photo.

As I finish typing we are crossing the Albermarle Sound. Soon we will be in the North River, where we will find a spot to anchor for the night. Tomorrow we should be at the free dock in Great Bridge, where I can once again buy beer.

Update: We are anchored in the North River, tucked as close as we can get to Camden Point (map) for tonight's expected southerlies. We've used this spot before. In order to make the gantlet of bridges in Chesapeake before the afternoon lockdown, we'll have to be under way before 8 tomorrow, with a 2:30 arrival at the North Landing Bridge.