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| Finding the next marker in the fog. |
The plan of the day was to cover 50 miles from Coinjock,
putting us at the south end of the huge Alligator River. Away from the dock just after 07:00, we had
motored just a mile or two through the short canal, to where it opens out into
a broader river. Then the visibility
suddenly decreased to less than 100 feet!
Even though the buoys and markers are fairly close together, we could
not see from one to the next, so we were virtually blind. We reduced speed to idle speed and Peter used
the GPS to set the course to the next buoy and then steered by compass until
Lyn spotted the buoy. Then repeat the
process to the next one, and the next.
After about an hour of this, the fog started lifting and the river got
wider, so we speeded up and within another hour the visibility was over 2 miles
and we heaved a sigh of relief.
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| Bug on inside rim of glasses |
The day was windless.
The surface of the water was mirror-like, rarely broken by wavelets from
a little zephyr. There was no wind to
blow the bugs away, so they started accumulating in the cockpit, lighting on
the underside of the bimini and dodger.
Some would occasionally land on the inside of our glasses. We motored
along with help from a little current at about 6 knots and by noon we were
entering the Alligator River. As we
moved into afternoon, it was becoming hot.
Peter calculated that we would be at our anchorage by 15:00, a full
5 hours before sundown. Storms were starting to build, and with them
the wind started, but not from the forecasted direction of south; instead the
wind was from the northeast. We decided
to take advantage of the northeast winds, and put out our jib, reefed to half
size because of the threatening storms.
A short time later we kept hearing the squawking of some birds as if
they had landed on our boom. It turned
out to be some swallows that were using the draft off our sail, and they were
gliding in the slipstream. We had never
seen this bird behavior before. They
kept it going for about 20 minutes.
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| Swallows drafting off our sail |
As we neared our anchorage spot, picked for its protection
from south winds, we realized that it would be totally inadequate for the
strong northeast winds we were experiencing.
We were about to enter the 27-mile long Alligator River-Pungo River
canal, which has nowhere to anchor in it.
We decided to go for a well-protected anchorage at the other end of the
canal, and took advantage of the northeast wind by motorsailing. This increased our speed to over 6
knots. As we entered the canal the wind
diminished because of the tall trees lining both sides of the canal, but there
was a favorable current and we were (fortunately) able to keep our speed over 6
knots. Lyn was constantly on the lookout
for bears, swimming across the canal, but she did not see any this time. We emerged from the canal at about 18:30 and
had only a 20-minute trek to our new anchorage at the headwaters of the Pungo
River.
There were 2 other boats in the anchorage when we arrived,
but there was still plenty of room for us.
The forecast called for south winds at 5 to 10 mph all night, but it was
already blowing 15 knots from the southeast, so we were glad to be in a
well-protected anchorage. The holding
turned out to be very good, as the wind was frequently gusting to over 20
knots, and our anchor did not drag.
We spent a comfortable evening at anchor, awoke around 06:00
as is our habit, had breakfast and prepared to go. As we were raising the anchor, Peter spotted
a bear – swimming across the river in front of us. We were both busy with the anchor, so were
unable to drop everything and grab a camera, but Lyn confirmed it – we really
saw another bear swimming across the river!
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