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.