Thursday, October 24, 2019

Crossing the Albemarle

We slept well after the wonderful dinner last evening, awoke early and cast off at 7am, even before the sun rose.
We motored down the north river. Heading into the rising sun and the into the Albemarle sound, a 15’ wide estuary that empties into the ocean at Manteo and Kitty Hawk. But we went directly across to enter the Alligator River. 
As we entered the Sound we raised sails and turned off the engine. Sadly the wind was light and after a while we turned the engine back on and motor-sailed the rest of the way 
Soon we were waiting, only briefly, for the Alligator River swing bridge to rotate open. Then down the river (or is it up the river) nearly to its source where we turned into an anchorage named Tuckahoe point. Its positioned just before the entrance to the alligator-pungo canal, a 21 mile long canal that the army dug some years ago to connect the Alligator River, which extends from Albemarle sound to the Pungo River, which extends to Pamlico Bay. The intent was to serve and enhance commerce by offering an alternate means to ship goods and while there is indeed barge traffic, it’s mostly used by snowbirds going up and down the ICW
Five boats were already anchored when we got to Tuckahoe and another five came in after we had anchored. Happily all but one clustered together near the entrance to the anchorage in a tight pack but we had gone about 1/2 mile further up and were all alone (except for an Island Packet 350 from Rhode Island that anchored near us (but not too near) 

We set the anchor in about 9 feet of water, checked it twice and then declared that the sun had passed the yardarm and had some refreshments https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RawW9OlS9QVtxH_-peE9CQthJa3L-5M5

It’s a beautiful evening in the anchorage. Calm, sunny and surprisingly warm (predictions are for temps in the low 50’s or even 40’s but it’s in the 60’s just now as the sun is going down.  Water temperature is 69, so that’s probably helping
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mywi_GgnwHdYVwta3Oly94h2JKtQGExQhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LDSUXM2e3LYcy1WJlOou_e3j2J2P-FSbhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gWVopw2bRPdGTeM1u8VoHGop7xeU_SYjhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1lFv6SIt-dwNn70NibisJifElFHSi0vCLhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hTpP66EWiVOmLXynHrlJFt9w_ObHIyTxhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vuTYXxQcLjvtbHOmDbeINRIU1_6kxYaphttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NHXhtvvtAKfdwR0NQibwIKMIdChM9U_y

One amazing piece of technology.. this anchorage is somewhat remote with little cellphone coverage. To my amazement, while I couldn’t make a call I could send and receive text messages and so was able to tell Molli that we were at anchor.  I did work on this Blog but was not able to publish it (I suppose it’s too much Data for the limited bandwidth)

Later that evening Drew made Gruyerre cheese omelets with a side of chicken sausages and of course ice cream for dessert. We are eating well on this voyage

And so to bed. Early start tomorrow to arrive in Belle Haven in time to see the sights


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