Still Sailing

Still sailing in November and in the ICW. Two things I did not think possible. It was encouraging to hear that Jim and Laurie (Kismet), sail over 80% of the time during their north and south travels.

I forgot to mention that we were able to reinstall the Nexus wind instrument and receiver while at Elizabeth City. They work great, so thanks to Nexus for going above and beyond in their service. We now have instruments again and that makes it a lot easier when sailing in the narrow creeks and rivers of the ICW. We don’t have to keep staring up at the wind vane any more.

We left Elizabeth City to try and get to the start of the Alligator river to ride the last day of NW winds on Friday. The winds were NW, but light and shifty, but we managed to get there under sail. We had an Island Packet 35 sailing with us all day. He motorsailed past us to get low enough to sail a broad reach with staysail and yankee flying. We both sailed about the same speed, but he had to stop and fill up his fuel tank when he arrived at the marina. With 20-30 knots of NW predicted for Friday, we elected to stay at the Alligator River Marina for the night. Boy was that an experience. We bumped going in and the mosquitoes were so thick, they covered the boat. They use well water there and it was brown and tasted funny. We knew all this before we went, but there were no other choices. On the plus side, everyone was very friendly and helpful.

Friday brought a cold 25 knots NW. We did not leave until around 11 because we were not sure if we wanted to anchor out with 32 degrees predicted for that night. Our plan was to anchor out at the start of the Alligator-Pungo Canal. After screaming down the 22 miles in 3 hours, and the fact the wind was howling through the anchorage, we decided to keep going the other 25 miles through the canal. We kept the sail up and motorsailed through. We had times of sailing at 5 knots, but mostly the wind was shifty and light. But, we probably averaged 4 knots. We knew we would be exiting at night, and planned to use the anchorage at the exit, but I didn’t like the way it was so open, so we elected to go another 5 miles to Dowry Creek and drop a hook in front of the marina. Much more protected here, but we didn’t get there until 9pm. Very cold, but we learned a trick from Kismet and burn our oil lantern for a few hours before we go to bed and it helps to control the humidity and temperature in the stateroom.

Saturday was one of those picture perfect sailing days. 10-12 knots of breeze, flat water and a perfect blue sky. We sailed right from Dowry creek to our Anchorage in Campbell creek. We even short tacked up Goose creek. Sunday was a mostly a motor day to get us to our current marina the River Dunes just north of Oriental. Beautiful marina that is not very well known but a 5 star on AC. They gave us a loaner car to go into Oriental. It was Monday and the whole town seemed to be shutdown, including the marine consignment shop. I don’t see the attraction to going to Oriental. There is only 1 restaurant there and a small grocery store.

Heading out to Morehead City tomorrow.