Spooner Creek to Great Bridge, Va.

6/5/12 Tuesday     What a peaceful night. After the storm blew through the winds died down, the sun came out and Tourist was cleansed of all the salt from the driving rain. A clean boat is a happy boat and knowing that I'm sure made both of us sleep much better.

The forecast today called for rain and it didn't let us down. Before we traveled the 5 miles to Morehead City it started and kept on intermittently for most of the morning. Of course when it rains our vision through the isinglass enclosure is like looking through or around a bunch of little dots. Enough to give you a headache. I remedy this somewhat by putting a coat of Collinite Insulator Wax on the glass which works like Rain X helping to make the water run off. Not fool proof but a help.

  Passing through Morehead City in the rain.

Not a lot of traffic out today however we did hear the Coast Guard announce that they were towing a disabled sailboat in from sea. We were way ahead of them fortunately and decided not to wait around and offer advice.
A few miles beyond Morehead City we pulled into Jarret Bay Boat Yard to take on some fuel. I was hoping to make it all the way to Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, Va. before fueling but decided to play it safe and take on 100 gallons. You never know what lies ahead and I didn't want to get caught with my pants down. (Not a pretty sight I might add!)
Back underway we took advantage of the incoming tide and slid through Adams Creek only meeting 1 commercial tow before popping out into the Neuse River. At that point we could feel the effects of the East wind hitting us beam on causing us to roll back and forth with the waves and of course taking spray over the rails. A short distance across to Oriental, NC. and Whittaker Pointe Marina (www.whittakerpointe.com) where we had planned on stopping anyway.
Getting from the boat to shore was like figuring out a maze. First you walk in the opposite direction you want to go and then a few turns later you're heading in the right direction. This layout must have been drawn up after 1 too many bottles of rum!

The dock maze at Whittaker Pointe.

The marina was very clean and laid back with almost everything on the honor system. Laundry $1.00 per load, leave your money in the Tupperware container on the shelf. Loaner car, the keys are in the drawer of the table in the lobby of the office. Just sign the sheet.
I washed off Tourist while Pam did laundry. Later we took the courtesy car to town. Not much going on in town so we backtracked to the Silos Restaurant to have dinner. A rather unique place as the picture below shows. The special was pizza tonight. Buy one and get another cheese pizza free! Guess what we had?

The Silos Restaurant

6/6/12 Wednesday     Somewhat overcast but no rain greeted us this morning as we departed the marina. No sooner had we cleared the protection of the harbor when we were hit again with the rocking from the waves driven by the East wind. Just a short distance though and we could turn into them. Not bad at first but as we proceeded along they became more jarring with the spray going over the flybridge. So much for my cleaning job! When we took one over the bow I decided it was time to pick up the speed a little so that our nose would ride higher and avoid future incidents like that. It worked and all was well as we travelled along the Neuse River. We passed a few sail boats and got passed by a couple of sportfishermen along the way.

Being passed by 2 sportfishermen. I learned later that the 2nd boat pictured blew an engine shortly after passing us and limped into Belhaven.

A course change and we were headed towards Belhaven, NC.

The view through our isinglass after taking spray over the bow.

 Still early we kept going to an anchorage that both of us thought looked good last year when we came through here on the "Loop". Tourist pulled off the ICW just before entering the Alligator-Pungo River Canal and found the spot that we had remembered. With several options to choose from we scouted around and found our spot and Pam went forward to take the safety cable off of the anchor.
For the longest time we were alone and then just before dusk another boat pulled in. Plenty of room for both of us.

Pungo River Anchorage.

6/7/12 Thursday     25 miles of the Alligator-Pungo River Canal started our day before we broke out into the Alligator River.

Alligator-Pungo Canal

 One thing about traveling up the ICW is that you cross more rivers, sounds, cuts, and divides that you can keep track of. Today was no exception. Our last big body of water was the Albermarle Sound which at times can get ugly. Fortunately today was a good day and we crossed without a problem.

Sea Gull whitewashing at it's best!

Our destination for the day was Coinjock Marina supposed to have a great prime rib dinner as well as dockage.

Coinjock Marina.

Tourist was docked between a 74' Offshore and a 65' Hatteras. All of a sudden our 48' Tourist looked small. After cleaning the salt off the boat and sprucing up ourselves we headed for the restaurant to check out the prime. Now I have to admit that because of where we live I'm always suspect of a restaurants claim to have good beef. Happily we weren't disappointed and I ate myself into a stupor! Thankfully it was a short walk back to the boat.

6/8/12 Friday     After the boats in front of us pulled out we got underway. Our paths crossed with this ferry crossing Currituck Sound.

Currituck Ferry

Our progress was slowed when we came to the North Landing Bridge which only opens every half hour. I've never seen a bridge open like this one does. It has two sections that both swing.

North Landing Swing Bridge.

One more bridge that opens every half hour stood between us and our destination for this leg of the trip and our timing was perfect. We barely broke stride and we passed right through. A couple more miles and we pulled into Atlantic Yacht Basin in Great Bridge, Va. (www.atlanticyachtbasin.com) where we will be leaving Tourist in a covered slip for a month while we make a home visit.
Before heading home we'll be doing oil changes and some other routine maintenance items like nails and hair!

Once tied up we were welcomed by this armada of geese.