Was awake and ready to go at 0600... however, my crew was still sleeping soundly... decided not to wake them... took a nice photo of the eastern sky over the marina.

Crew was wake moving about at around 0830... we departed the marina at 0925 and headed out onto the Neuse River. Forecast was for 15-20 knots winds and 1-2 ft. seas... we had nothing like that... wind was almost dead and seas were flat calm... sun was out all day... was a great day of cruising.

leaving from Oriental heading north sort of puts you in a situation where you cruise 12 hours of 6 hours... 12 hour day gets you to Alligator River Marina and the 6 hour day gets you as far as Belhaven area. Not a lot of choices for stopping between the two... we have anchored in a few spots between the two but none were that great that you want to anchor there again... so we opted for the short 6 hours day and stopped ion Belhaven, NC.

We were docked at approximately 1540 at Dowry Creek Marina on the Pungo River located at 35°31.964'N 076°32.134'W. Traveled today for 6 hours and 15 minutes covering 42.8 nautical miles averaging 6.9 knots.

After arriving we found that Dowry Creek Marina has new owners since our last visit in December 2017... seems like a very nice family owned marina again.

After spending 3 months on the hard at Bock Marine, Beaufort, NC we are finally back in the water and headed north... HURRAY!

New bottom paint and a lot of rust repair and a new paint job on SAILS... not total.. just the blue hull... weather did not really let us work as often as we would have liked so we did not complete the decks and house but got a good start on them... will try to finish up over the summer little by little... :)

We were put back in the water on Monday 4/16... spent the night on the docks at Bock Marine and departed at approximately 0920 and headed north on Core Creek toward the Neuse River. Winds were WNW 20-25 knots... not much of anything for waves until we reached Neuse River then we had 2-3 ft. waves initially and they slowly diminished as we approached opposite shoreline and Oriental, NC.

Heard a lot of boats on the VHF as we traveled today... only saw one other boat... a sailboat named GRACE that we passed in Core Creek. Was funny seeing another boat named GRACE as we had some new friends at BOCK that were on a sailboat named GRACE.

With the Neuse River a little rougher than we desired we opted to stop in Oriental, NC for the night. Needed water so rather than our normal docking at the free Oriental Town Dock we stopped at Whittaker Point Marina on Whittaker Creek. WE have stayed here in the past and they have a courteous car and very nice club house.

We called the marina about an hour out and reserved a slip and asked about the depth of the approach channel to the marina. Last time we were here the channel was a little skinny and with fresh bottom paint we did not want to be kissing the bottom with SAILS. They told us approach depth is 7 ft. and 8 ft. at the docks... Well, we found that this was not true, and we saw typically 5.5 ft. in the channel and about the same at the dock. SAILS never kissed the bottom luckily.

Another boat was not so lucky coming in the channel and went aground coming in... 40' sailboat that called TowBoatUS for assistance. Was not long after this that TowBoatUS came in towing the sailboat GRACE we had passed in Core Cree earlier.


We were docked at approximately 1130 at Whittaker Pointe Marina located 34°35°01.752'N 076°40.909'W. Traveled today for 2 hours and 10 minutes covering 13.7 nautical miles averaging 6.3 knots.

We ended up spending longer than expected in New Bern due to a Winter Storm that kept temps below freezing for about a week... temps ranging from 7° at night to low 20's during the day... I would guess about 6" of snow.


Departed from New Bern Grand Marina on 1-10-2018 at 0945... I was solo on the boat with susan staying behind to drive our car from New Bern to Bock Marine in Beaufort, NC.

Was flat calm on the Neuse River despite forecast of 2 foot seas... Even saw a few boats moving around... was a nice day.

I arrived to Bock Marine at approximately 1450 and was securely docked at 1500 34°49.440'N, 76°41.424'W. Traveled today for 5 hours and 25 minutes covering 31.5 nautical miles averaging 6.0 knots.

SAILS will be hauled out of the water tomorrow morning 1/11/2018. We will be the hard for the next couple of months for SAILS to get a little TLC.