June 9-12, 2017 Friday-Monday
Friday, June 9: Today we did a short day to Broad Creek, we wanted to be in a marina where we could watch game four of the NBA playoffs. In hindsight it might have been better to anchor out, Cleveland easily handed Golden State their first loss in sixteen games. A win for Golden State would have set a record for the number of consecutive games won in an NBA championship and the final win of the 2017 season. I guess we will be watching game five at Coinjock. None the less it was a beautiful day with lots of sailboats under sail around Oriental, Sailing Capital of North Carolina.
Saturday, June 10: For a summer Saturday, this was a very quiet day with very few boats on the water. We decided to anchor at the headwaters of the Pungo River and plan to start our day early tomorrow. Before it gets too hot, we are hoping to see the wildlife around the twenty-mile-long Alligator River-Pungo River Canal. Awesome sunset tonight, I love anchoring out.
Sunday, June 11: Leaving the anchorage early paid off, we saw bears, geese, eagles, deer, turtles, but no alligators. Tonight we are at the Alligator River Marina, other than a beautiful location with geese, a turtle pond, and a restaurant with air conditioning and the best cheeseburger we have had in years, there is not much here. A fellow Looper, Seeker, came in for fuel and left to anchor out, other than that we were alone until a Danish sailboat came in for the evening.
As it turns out, we are not so alone, as I started to publish this post I saw an American Green Tree Frog, the state amphibian of Georgia and Louisiana, on the clear portion of our canvas, Rick took a picture, caught the frog, and as he tried to show it to me, it escaped into the cabin. Not sure how we are going to find him.
We left the lights off for about ten minutes when we turned them back on, there he was in the middle of the bed, Rick caught him and gave him a ride to the grass, so hopefully, he is not too traumatized and is happily catching bugs. For those who might be freaked out that he was in the middle of the bed, I keep a tarp on the bed during the day because the boat is so small, I’m constantly moving items to and from the bed, so no problem.
We were up before sunrise this morning, we wanted to get across the twenty-mile wide Albemarle Sound before the afternoon winds came up. The prediction was for one-foot waves and we had waves of 1-2 feet most of the way with some 3-4 foot waves in the middle of the sound. Fortunately, we had following seas and it wasn’t too uncomfortable but was difficult to steer our little boat, she likes to wander. I was on crab pot duty all morning as the crabbers do not mind setting their pots in the channel and most of them use small dark buoys that can be so challenging to see in the dark water. We have talked to more than one captain that has had to go in the water to cut the line off of a propeller and some that have had to replace a propeller due to a fouled line.
We are safely tied to the thousand foot dock at Coinjock, named by the Indians after a berry that still grows in the area. We have plans to have dinner with friends and then watch game five.
I took the most interesting picture of sunrise this morning. I took several pictures that were normal color wise but the sunrise picture was surreal.
