We’ve spent the past few days pushing toward the Chesapeake. Our double overnight put us in Wrightsville Beach Saturday afternoon, we spent the afternoon there, with a trip to the fish market at Mott’s Channel and a delightful dinner of grilled swordfish steaks, snapper and shrimp. We departed the following morning, with anchor up and underway by 0740 in time for the 0800 bridge opening. We arrived at Oriental Sunday afternoon and anchored in Green’s creek. Winds were howling out of the southwest at about 30-40 kts, enough to cause a low wind driven tide. We chose to move from the anchorage as the tide was coming up and the water level was still dropping! A good decision since we plowed our own channel as we left the anchorage! We docked at Oriental Marina in about 30 kt winds. Marina staff expressed serious concern about being able to dock in the crappy conditions, but some deliberate moves and prepping dock lines enabled us to dock smoothly without touching a piling. Some of the other earlier dockings were not as successful from what we heard. We were happy to be tied up as the winds gusted up to 47 kts and the water continued to drop. The wind continued all night, but dropped a bit by morning.
Our destination was Belhaven, but we continued on to Pantego Creek arriving Monday afternoon. Winds subsided a bit, but were still in the 20 kt range most of the evening. We planned for an early departure Tuesday morning to make the crossing of Albemarle sound in the afternoon. Up anchor and under way by 0600 in time to see the sun rise over the Pungo-Alligator River Canal. We arrived at Coinjock Marina, just ahead of Peddler, a 53 Selene. We met Carolyn & Joe at the Selene rendezvous last January, and were delighted to have them join us for dinner at the Marina restaurant. The prime rib is famous, and excellent!! We’ll get an early start tomorrow, planning to arrive at Portsmouth in the afternoon. From there, two more hops up the Bay to put us at Stansbury on Saturday evening!
