We departed from our anchorage in South lake at 0700 and continued north in the ICW... although from South Lake it takes about 35 minutes to get back out to the ICW... the only negative thign about this anchorage.

We had a long day of travel ahead of us and some potential problems with bridges... two bridge that give us problems are the North Landing Bridge and the Centerville Turnpike Bridge... both bridge open on the hour and half hour but Centerville Turnpike Bridge does not open between 1600 and 1800... the problem is the distance between the two bridges... 5 miles which is very hard to make in 30 minutes... so we need to make it to the North Landing Bridge by 1500 in order to make the 1600 opening at the Centerville Turnpike Bridge.... otherwise it sit and wait 2 hours between the bridges.... :(

We did make the North Landing Bridge at 1500 and had two other boats ahead of us... we all kept our speed up and according to the GPS would not make the Centerville Turnpike Bridge till 1536... 6 minutes late for the opening... but luckily as we arrived late the bridge started it's opening... he opened late for us... :)

We had planned to go through the Great Bridge Bridge and tie to the free wall between it and the lock but the wall was full... luckily the free dock before the bridge was totally open and we docked at it.

1600 hours we were secured to the dock located at... N36º43.241', W076º14.296'. Today we traveled for 9 hours covering 65 nautical miles averaging 7.2 knots.

We departed from our anchorage in the Pungo River at 0930 and continued north on the ICW… we would transit the A & P Canal and then the Alligator River and with a final destination of South Lake… located at the mouth of the Alligator River. It’s a new anchorage for us having never been into it before but we heard that there is a boat ramp where we can take Beech to land up a small creek off the anchorage.

The A & P Canal (Alligator River and Pungo River Canal) joins these two rivers… it basically a long narrow canal about 20 nautical miles long… did not see any wildlife this passage but have seen deer and Bald Eagles many times. We had one boat pass us… “Island Expedition” from Boston, MA… commercial tour boat… catamaran hull… and we followed another trawler “Shunda” from Toronto for the entire trip… although, they were a couple of miles ahead of us to begin with but were moving faster than we were and soon they were only visible with binoculars.

We did have one bridge at the end of the day to open… The Alligator River Swing Bridge… they open on demand and caused us no delay at all… the anchorage was just another few miles north and east of the bridge.

We arrived at the anchorage at 1600 hours and discovered the trawler from Toronto we had been following all day had also come to this anchorage. We moved into to behind them and close as possible to the creek that is suppose to have a boat ramp to land Beecha for her walk.

We were securely anchored at 1610 in South Lake at N35°55.078’, W075°54.711’. We travled today for 6 hours and 40 minutes covering 45 nautical miles averaging 6.75 knots.

We departed from Oriental at 0930 and continued north on the ICW. The destination tonight is Leechville, NC and anchor in the north end of the Pungo River.

Nothing out of the ordinary in today's cruise... no bridges that needed to be opened... it was fairly windy at a steady 15 knots.... gusting to 20 knots and we had two large bodies of water to deal with... The Neuse River and the Pamlico Sound... both can become pretty nasty if the wind is whipping up... but both waterways treated right today... even with the high winds it was not a real bad ride.

We had a shadow (boat following us) for most of the day... "Dollar Boat"... he wanted to pass us once and hailed on the VHF that he was going to pass... but a few minutes later he hailed us again and said he was just going to hang behind us... I offered to slow down and let him pass but he said he would just follow... they left us at the end of the day and went into Dowry Creek Marina.

We continued on to our destination and at 1655 anchored in the upper end of the Pungo River at N35°33.612', W076°28.441'. There were four sailboats also anchored here with us.

Today we traveled for 7 hours and 25 minutes covering 48 nautical miles averaging 6.47 knots.