From Cape Lookout, nearby Beaufort, to Elizabeth City is 160 miles through the North Carolina rivers and sounds, a 3 day transit.
The first day is up Adams Creek and down the Neuse River, then up Bay river and past Hobucken to an anchorage in Goose Creek.
Rivah is enjoying the view and smells but I suspect she is wondering if she will ever see Holden Lane again.
Always new and interesting sights along the ICW. A group of five of these USCG go-fast boats sped by in the morning, apparently heading up to the tiny USCG station at Hobucken, then sped by us again in the afternoon returning to their operating base. These appear to be USCG special forces boats.
We decided not to stop at Mayo Seafood in Hobucken and keep moving north to spend more time at Dowry Creek Marina the next day. We noted the pirate boat is still moored at Mayo Seafood. Wonder if it will be operating this summer?
Sunset after a long transit the first day. This was a fairly exposed anchorage but thankfully the wind died down for the night.
An amazing day, after leaving our anchorage we were able to sail almost the entire day from Hobucken to Dowry Creek near Belhaven, NC. The wind was just from the right direction to let us sail downwind down the Pamlico River, then beam reach and upwind the Pungo River to Belhaven. This is extremely rare and we enjoyed the quiet transit. One of our first all day sails since leaving the Bahamas.
The view from the restaurant deck at Dowry Creek. This has become one of our favorite marinas along the trek to/from Florida with its excellent restaurant with great draft beer selection, clean and hot showers, nice laundry facilities and quiet walking areas for Rivah. This is our first marina overnight since leaving the Bahamas.
We had a nice visit and good dinner at Dowry Creek but early next morning it was on the road again at 0630am for the 11-12hr run to Elizabeth City.
We have to pass through the Pungo-Alligator Canal (for 3 hours) then up the Alligator River (3hrs) across the Albemarle Sound (2hrs) then up the Pasquotank River (3hrs) to Liz City.
We put the main sail up to catch the wind from astern, but this will basically be a motoring trip as the winds are not strong enough to sail fast enough to make our destination before dark. In January, with short daylight, we break up this trip into 2 days, but with 14hrs of daylight we can make it all the way in April.
The Pungo-Alligator Canal passes through a very sparsely populated area of North Carolina. We have seen deer and bald eagles here and heard of people seeing bears swimming across the canal.
This old Morgan 41 has been sitting at this dock in the same condition (needed a total refurbishment) since our first trip to Florida in 2004. Obviously some old sailor's retirement dream boat.
We were pleasantly surprised to be able to sail up the Alligator River for a couple hours, and still maintain our speed.
But too soon the wind died down and we had to start the engine again to arrive before dark.
Crossing the Albemarle, we were able to keep the sails up. We could have sailed all the way to Elizabeth City (arriving after dark) but I kept the engine running at half throttle which kept our speed at just about maximum hull speed, letting us arrive just after 7pm.
The Albemarle can be very rough in even moderate winds so we were lucky and happy to only have 1-2ft waves.
After a long day we tied up to the town dock and relaxed. Tomorrow we will explore around the town.
