Rogue ICW Day 19

We pulled anchor around 7:00 this morning.  Since there was no wind to speak of last night, much of the anchor chain along with the anchor spent the night buried in the mud at the bottom of the Little Alligator River.  When Rousby wound up the chain, the mud came on board for a ride.  The foredeck, Rousby's hands, his leg, and everything within 3 feet was splattered with mud. Fortunately Rousby had anticipated this and had the washdown hose primed and ready.  He washed down the chain and stowed it, then washed down the anchor and anchor pulpit.  Then he took the long handled brush and scrubbed down the foredeck and rinsed it off with the washdown.  All the while I am dodging what must be literally hundreds of crab pots.  It was like navigating an obstacle course.  This went on for a while until we merged back into the channel in the Alligator River.  The ride up the Alligator was fairly uneventful, the wind was picking up from the north, so there were some swells, but maintaining a heading when you are bow first into the oncoming swells is much easier to do than trying to maintain a heading when the swells are at your stern.  We crossed into the Pamlico, the dreaded Pamlico, but frankly, that crossing was a non event.  No problems at all and a pleasant ride.  When we reached Albemarle Sound, well, that was a different story.  Three footers on the nose.  We pounded our way across the sound for 16 miles. That's an hour and a half of riding a wild horse.  A few things fell over downstairs, nothing broken.  It did calm down toward the end, only two footers.  We turned into the North River and had a much nicer ride up the river to the North Carolina Cut.  This took us to Coinjock N.C. where we are currently.  Coinjock is a staging area for the trip through Norfolk.  Once you pass this area, you are essentially committed to passing all the way through Norfolk because there really isn't anywhere to stop.  So if you reach Coinjock in the afternoon, you might as well stop, otherwise you will be a long while on the water, in the dark trying to make your way through several bridges, a lock, the Navy and a busy harbor.  Not what I want to do in the dark.  So here we are taking care of a few things getting ready for the last push toward home.  Once we clear Norfolk we will be in the Chesapeake Bay, almost home. Just a couple more days.  I had planned to stay in Cape Charles tomorrow night, but the marina there is booked solid.  This is a holiday weekend and there are no rooms at the inn.  We will have to try to find an anchorage instead north of Norfolk tomorrow night, then head for home the next day.

Statistics for today- 58 miles, 6hrs. 43mins moving, 4mins stopped, 6hrs., 47mins total time.
1247 total miles traveled.


Not much to take pictures of today. Virtually no signs of civilization or other activities.

This is the boat ahead of us traveling up the Alligator River.  This was nothing compared to Albemarle Sound.

Until then....