With the weather forecast... winds still blowing 20-25 kts all day today... we decided to stay put for a day here in Great Bridge. Susan plans to walk to grocery and see what fresh produce she can get and I'll catch up on some overdue cabinet design work.

Weather looks better tomorrow as far as winds, but picks up again over the weekend... so, we'll make our way up to Norfolk/Portsmouth area tomorrow and hang there what looks like 2-3 days waiting for winds to subside so we can continue up the Chesapeake Bay.

Lily and Herman decided they wanted to assist writing todays blog entry...

We pulled anchor as the sun was rising behind and were underway at 0715. Forecast was for the weather to deteriorate late after noon with high winds... 30 to 40 knots... our plan was to cross the Albemarle Sound and stop at Coinjock Marina.

Crossing the Albemarle was uneventful with less than 1 foot seas to begin with... as we reached the far side the winds forecast for late afternoon started to pickup... seas increased to 2 foot. All-in all a good crossing... Herman and Lily enjoyed the crossing... :)

Winds were forecast to last into Friday... so we changed our plan and passed by Coinjock and continued to Great Bridge.

After Coinjock we had to transit Currituck Sound... winds were howling at point... steady 25 knots with gusts to near 40 knots... was a bit choppy but waves were on the port quarter most of the way and we did not really affect us much... a little spray was all.

We made the North Landing Bridge for it's 1500 opening... rather than push hard to make the Centerville Bridge at it's 1530 opening we took our time and arrived for it's 1600 opening... wind now steady at 30 knots and seeing over 40 knot gusts... wind was not creating any waves but was tough navigating at 3 knots with the gusts of wind.

We arrived to Great Bridge at 1620 and luckily there was space on the free dock across from Atlantic Yacht basin for us to dock. We were securely docked at 1630 at N36°43.244’, W076°14.287’. We traveled today for 9 hours and 15 minutes covering 61.7 nautical miles averaging 6.7 knots.

We pulled anchor this morning at 0645 and were underway at 0175... very muddy anchorage took 30 minutes to get the chain up and cleaned... :(

Started out a beautiful morning bright sunny with a light breeze until just before Belhaven when a small line of rain passed over us... wind steady at 30 knots with 40 knot gusts... came on fast and hard and went away just as fast... 30 minutes and it was over us and gone. However, the wind stayed... not as bad but 20-25 knots all day afterwards.

We had planned to anchor just at the end of the A & P Canal but with the wind direction the anchorage would of been wide open to the winds... so we opted to continue to past the Alligator River Bridge and anchor in the mouth of the Little Alligator River... good protection for the winds for the night.

We arrived to our destination for the evening at approximately 1730 and dropped anchor on the south side of the river in lee of the shore... Anchor secure at 1745 at N35°55.748’, W076°00.925’. We traveled today for 10 hours and 30 minutes covering 67.4 nautical miles averaging 6.4 knots.