Planned to leave at 0600 but my phone battery died during the night and with it my alarm clock. It was forecast to rain and be bit windy mid-day, so we wanted to be away from the dock as early as possible to avoid the rain and the winds if possible.

We departed at 0645 and headed back out to the Neuse River... it was not flat clam as it was yesterday but nothing that really bothered us or affected our ride and we only had 30 minutes to cross and we were in the lee of the winds in Adams Creek.

We stopped at Bock Marine for a quick package pickup for some friends we had met there last winter. They are just south of us and this saved them a trip back to get their package. They are going to meet us in Swansboro, NC.

We did have current assisting us today for about 75% of the day... pushing us over 9 knots a few times... but we also had a few places where we had current on our bow slowing us down to under 6 knots... overall we did manage a positive effect from the current.

We saw very few boats moving today... maybe the weather forecast kept them at the dock. There were a couple of sportfish boats that passed us... obviously being delivered to some southern location for their owners.

We arrived to Swansboro, NC and docked at the Church St. City Docks. We were securely docked at approximately 1245. Our position tonight is N34°41.161', W077°07.148'. We traveled today for 6 hours covering 43.0 nautical mile averaging 7.2 knots.

We did totally avoid the winds and the rain... just after we docked the rain started.

We will meet our friends from Bock here this afternoon and later we have plans to have dinner with other friends that live here in locally.

Destination planned for today was Oriental... the town dock. Because this is a FREE dock it fills up early in the day so we left before sunrise so we would have a good chance of finding space to dock... departing at 0630 with an absolute beautiful sky.

There was no wind today and the two large bodies of water we passed through... Pamlico River and the Neuse River... were flat calm... like glass... can't remember the last time we had conditions like this in this area... it was GREAT!

We had one boat pass us heading south... I would guess a 65 ft Fleming named "The Bear" that passed us on the Neuse River...

We arrived to Oriental and there were two boats at the docks... one on the more easterly dock and one on the western dock... but none in the space we like to dock... we got lucky today. We were securely docked at approximately 1245. Our position tonight is N35°01.455', W076°41.740'. We traveled today for 6 hours and 15 minutes covering 43.2 nautical miles averaging 6.9 knots.

We departed this morning at 0800 following three sailboats that had been at the marina... all heading out toward the Alligator River Bridge. Once through the bridge one of the sailboats "Scrimshaw" hailed us and invited us to be part of their VHF channel as we traveled south... we were running faster that they were but did add channel 68 to our VHF scan channels and exchanged a few conversations with them along the way. They were very chatty on the VHF between themselves... other sailboat was "Tortuga".


We did pass a few other sailboats that were headed south and a few power boats passed us... just before the A & P Canal we met a tug and barge and an Army tug.

We had a beautiful sunny day with no wind.... flat clam all day long.

We arrived to Dowry Creek Marina at approximately 1415 and were securely docked at 1425. Our position tonight is N35°31.966', W076°32.121'. We traveled today for 6 hours and 15 minutes covering 42.8 nautical miles averaging 6.8 knots.

The two sailboat "Scrimshaw" and "Tortuga" both arrived to Dowry Creek Marina about an hour after we arrived.