Portsmouth VA to Oriental, NC

First off, we (and the boat) are doing fine despite the VERY nasty storms that battered the east coast last night. I'll tell you more about that later, but first a quick recap of the past few days.

After a wonderful dinner in Portsmouth Sunday night, we left Norfolk Monday morning at Mile Marker "0" of the ICW around 8am. Our destination, Coinjock, NC just 50 miles south. I know that doesn't sound like much (and its not) but this particular stretch of the waterway is filled with lots of low bridges on restricted schedules, a lock, and plenty of "slow speed" zones. As a result, what would normally take us about 90 minutes, actually takes four and half hours. None the less, we had a good trip with lots of other migrating boats. Coinjock is not much more than a pit stop -- fuel, food and supplies, but is always a good place thanks to their on-site restaurant known for their 32oz prime rib (even a double dose of Lipitor couldn't convince me to eat that!).

Great Bridge Lock

Feeding time in Coin Jock

Yesterday, we departed Coinjock bright and early for a 125 mile run to Oriental, NC. The weather forecast was not the best with strong SE winds blowing 15-20 knots. We knew we had a number of open water crossings to make and that the seas would be "on the nose" the entire trip, but if we got an early start, it might not be too bad. While nothing compared to our northbound crossing in April, the Albermarle Sound, Pamlico Sound and Neuse River lived up to their reputation as being some of the nastiest pieces of water on the entire east coast. None the less. we were able to moderate ENCORE's speed and trim to make the passage as pleasant as possible (in other words, tolerant!). 

We arrived in Oriental, NC in the early afternoon at one of our favorite little ports called River Dunes. It is a very protected harbor, in lovely setting amongst the pines. The best part, is it also has a few small, but luxurous "cottages" right at the marina available for rent. As luck would have it, we happened to meet one of the managers of River Dunes at the Annapolis Boat Show last week, who invited us to be his guest if we stopped there on our way south. So last night, as those storms, wind, rain and lightening pummeled the coast, we were safe and comfortable in our little cottage. 

And here we plan to stay for at least one more day until some of this rain moves offshore. 

Waiting out the weather in Oriental, NC