10/28/2008 Brrr. Cold!! Elizabeth City, NC to Morehead City, NC

10/26/2008 We left Elizabeth City with light breezes at 7:00AM as we usually seem to leave. It is right around sunrise. We started out the day motoring, but we were sailing. I set the spinnaker and off we took. I notice that most cruisers seem to do a lot more motoring than sailing. We sailed down to the end of the Pasquotank River into the Albemarle Sound then into the Alligator River.

As we sailed down the Pasquotank River, we passed a dirigible hanger that was built during WW II. This is still a working hanger and as we passed, they were bringing out a dirigible that did eventually take off.

We needed to drop the sails for a draw bridge and then the sails went up again. This time we had the wind directly behind us. I worked out a way to sail wing-on-wing. That is having the main sail on one side of the boat and the jib on the other. I set up a temporary barber-haul using the dock lines. A barber-haul is a sailing device used on multihull boats to pull the sails more out towards the edge of the boat. This made for good sailing all of the way down the Alligator River to our anchor point for the night. By the way, there are suppose to be alligators in or on the Alligator River, but we did not see any. We had a great anchor for the night right before the entrance to the Alligator River – Pungo River Canal.

10/27/2008 With our normal early start at 7:00AM we were off and running again. We were the first to leave any of the anchorages and motor into the canal. We were passed by a couple of power cruisers in the canal, but did not see much traffic until later in the day. As you will see the early morning fog we passed through on the canal.

After leaving the canal, we were able to set the sails and have a nice couple hours of sailing in the Pungo River until we had to turn south. That is where the wind was coming from today. We went from the Pungo River, across the Pamlico River into Goose Creek. This brought us into another canal the Bay River. I originally expected to stay where this canal came out, but we decided to push on based on the night before when we stopped at 4:30 and decided it would have been nice to push on to 5:30 at least. The sun sets here around 6:00PM at night.

We made it down the Bay River into the Neuse River. Then all the weather started to break out. We had a cold front run through and we still had 5 miles to go to the next area we could anchor. Along with the high winds, there was rain. We were running along the edge of a shoal to our right and a large fishing fleet to our left and bouncing over the waves. We finally made it into Broad Creek and found a nice cove to anchor in about 5 feet of water. Pictured here is the cloud bank on the edge of the front. It looked beautiful, until the clouds turned dark above us.

We set the anchor just as the sun was setting and the winds picked up even more. We registered 31.5 knot winds. The boat was dancing on the anchor even using the bridle.

This evening we finished our jigsaw puzzle. Don’t you hate it when there is a missing piece. Oh well. It was a fun activity we did as we sailed along and something to do in the evenings while we ate dinner. We will need to look for another one.

10/28/2008 Brrr. Cold!!! We woke up this morning to 38 degrees. Brrr. Cold!!! Last night I broke out my sleeping bag for the first time on the trip. I can’t wait to be able to put it away again. We took off from the cove again at….7:00AM. Today we decided to leave the canvas down on the salon so as to keep some warmth in the cabins. This worked out well as when we made our way back into the Neuse River, the winds were screaming. The little cove really protected us well. This picture is as we left the cove.

I set the sails with a single reef in the main and using the full jib and off we took. I was beating into the wind getting 8-9.5 knots out of the boat and the winds were 15 gusting to 20+. I was back with the fishing fleet again and needed to tack several times to keep clear of the fleet and the shore line. We had water coming over the bows, and the cabin roof. What a ride!!. I will take that any day over motoring.

We worked our way to Adams Creek that took us into the Adams Creek canal. After we left canal we made our way into Beaufort, NC. We stopped at a marina for fuel, water and a pump-out. We also were able to use their showers, even though we were not spending the night. It was a luxury to take a “real” hot shower. The water heater I have on the boat is exactly that, a water heater. It does not have a tank that brings the water up to a set temperature. It is a tank-less system that raises the water temperature. It will raise the temperature up about 25-30 degrees. If you water starts at 50 degrees, the “hot” water will be around 75-80 degrees. Not real hot, but is ok. It will not be so noticeable when I get to the tropics.

As we left the marina and started to the draw bridge, we were greeted by a couple of porpoises. I still always believe they are the bearers of good fortune.

We left Beaufort for Morehead City to check out a couple of restaurant docks. They are listed in my travel guides as they have a low or no charge for nightly docking if you eat at their restaurant for dinner. When we arrived, all of the spaces were occupied so we pushed on down the ICW. We are now in Peletler Creek about 5 miles west of Morehead City. I expect to sit here through tomorrow night. Thursday the weather bureau is calling for high winds, maybe as high as 40 mph and they will be on our nose. We expect a better wind pattern on Thursday that will push us along down the ICW. We will see.