Oriental NC (2013-11-20)

N35° 01.497', W76° 41.749'

Our southbound trek on the AICW continues.  Tonight finds us at the town dock in Oriental NC, at mile 182.


We left Elizabeth City on Monday morning, and had a very comfortable crossing of the Albemarle Sound.  This large body of water can be quite rough, but the worst we saw were waves of around 1'.  After crossing the Albemarle we entered the Alligator River.  As we passed through the Alligator River swing bridge, I asked the bridge tender if there were any alligators in the Alligator River.  He answered that there was one, a big one, that hung around the bridge and was seen now and then.  I got the feeling I was being put on a bit... :-)

We spent Monday night at anchor at the south end of the Alligator River.  It was a pretty peaceful anchorage, that we shared with three sailboats. 

Alligator River sunset

The next morning the wind picked up just as we were about to leave, which made retrieving the anchor challenging.  The winds stayed up all day, which made the ride rough until we entered the Pungo canal.  We enjoyed the calm waters while they lasted.  When we exited the canal and entered the Pungo River the water started getting rough again.  Luckily it wasn't too bad, about a foot or so, and other than having to steer upwind a bit to compensate for the wind blowing us off course it wasn't too bad.

We turned off the AICW at Belhaven NC, where we spent Tuesday night on the new free docks that the city had built west of town.  The docks are very well built and sturdy, but they are really out of the way.  We didn't mind though, and had a nice peaceful night.

Belhaven free dock

Checking the forecast this morning revealed that there was a small craft advisory out on the Pamlico Sound, with strong NE winds.  This would carry into both the Pamlico River and the Neuse River.  We weren't too worried about the Pamlico River, as were going to be crossing it on a fairly direct route.  The Neuse River would be a different story.  We'd have to head out onto the Neuse with the waves pretty much on our beam for about an hour before we could turn towards the west and head upriver towards Oriental.  After the turn this would put the swells on our stern.  We decided to go today in spite of the marginal conditions.  If conditions were too much for us on the Neuse we'd just back-track a bit on the Bay River and find an anchorage to wait out the weather.

As we left Belhaven we found the winds were still fairly brisk, and the Pungo River was up to about 1-2 feet.  We found rougher, but manageable, conditions on the Pamlico River.

After crossing the Pamlico River, the AICW enters a narrow cut through Goose Creek.  We enjoyed the respite that these sheltered waters gave us, knowing that we had the Neuse ahead of us. 

As we left the cut and entered Bay River the conditions started getting progressively worse as we travelled further out on the river, and away from the shelter of the land to the northeast, which was providing us some shelter from the swells rolling in from the Pamlico Sound.  By the time we got out far enough to make our turn to the west we were in 4' swells off of our port bow quarter.  We were very happy to finally make our turn and put these swells on our stern.  Although we now had a challenging following sea, at least we weren't alternating between pounding and rolling.

After a bit more than an hour of riding the carnival ride (anyone that has been in significant following seas in a boat with as flat a stern as ours will understand :-)) we made the turn into Oriental harbour, following a sailboat that was also heading off of the Neuse.

Once into the harbour we headed towards Oriental Marina.  I wanted to take a look at the town free dock but we also wanted to refill our water tank.  When we got onto the marina fuel dock we saw that both sides of the town dock were occupied.  While filling our water, we discovered that there was a third spot available, rarely used, along a bulkhead wall next to the dock.  The reason it's not used very often is that the water next to the wall is very shallow, only about 4' depth, and sometimes there's even less if the wind blows from the south.  Luckily we only draw 3', and the wind is due to stay out of the north tonight and tomorrow, so we decided to take the spot.  It is a bit of a tight squeeze, and we'll have to get creative with a stern springline to leave tomorrow, but for tonight we are safe and comfortable.

Oriental free dock

We had something neat happen shortly after we got ourselves settled.  I follow a number of boater's blogs, both seasonal boaters as well as full time cruisers.  One of these is The Retirement Project, which is the blog of Tim and Deb, chronicling their adventures aboard their 1982 Tartan 42, Kintala.  They've been in Oriental for a few weeks now, working out some boat snags, the latest being a failed fuel pump.  I figured now that we were in the same town, I'd look them up.  As we hadn't had Internet access for a couple days I sat down with the laptop to check and catch up on their blog first.  Just as I sat down I looked out the salon door and saw a couple walking past the boat that looked very much like the pictures of Tim and Deb that I'd seen on their blog.  I sprung off of the couch to the door and yelled out "Hey Tim!".  The couple stopped with a bit of a puzzled look on their faces (no doubt wondering who this stranger was that knew their names, and probably guessing Internet stalker :-)).  I explained that I had been following their blog for years, and we had a nice chat for about 15 minutes, and exchanged boat cards.

This is something that I've found over and over again since we started this adventure.  There is usually a connection between boaters, and especially cruisers, that makes for the making of quick friendships.  In fact, the best part of this lifestyle are the people you meet.  Sure, there are some people like the guy in the 40' sport fishing boat that waked us as he passed us at full plane on the Pungo canal yesterday (earning himself a wave signifying that we considered him to be number one with us :-)), but most of the people we've met have been genuinely nice people, and we've made quite a few new friends. 

Tomorrow we'll head out onto the Neuse once again, but we'll be heading directly across it, and the conditions should be better than they were today.  After that we'll be in sheltered waters for quite a while.  The big challenges we'll have from here on out is keeping the buoys sorted out, and making sure that we stay out of the many shallow areas of the AICW.