Up bright and early today as we had a long day planned… destination for the night Coinjock Marina... a little over 65 nautical miles… 10 hours at 6.5 knots. Susan walked beech and prepped the boat to leave… we departed at 0700 hours. Several of the boats we had enjoyed happy hour with had already left and there were a few still at the docks… so we weren’t the first to leave but also not the last.

Today there were lots of boats heading north… when we entered the A & P Canal I could see 6 boats ahead of in the canal… after the A & P Canal we entered the Alligator River and the ICW was filled with boats ahead of us… maybe 10… mixture of sail and power… it was nice to see so many people on the water moving north… of course there was a handful that passed heading south also.

At the north end of the Alligator River is the Alligator Swing Bridge… it opens on demand… however today the bridge tender seemed to open when he decided he had enough boats waiting to go through the bridge… the or so boats ahead of were spread out over maybe a 5 mile range and they were all arriving at the bridge 10-15 minutes apart… the bridge tender told the first boat that arrived it would 10 minutes and he would open… 30 minutes later he still had not opened… finally after 6 boats were at the bridge waiting he opened… that left 4 boats and myself still needing to go through… I was 30 minutes out and the other 4 boats were at or almost at the bridge… again he told the first boat to arrive 10 minutes he would open… well I arrived and the bridge had just opened and I was the last to go through… did not even have to slow down… guess watch runs really slow… 10 minutes is 30 minutes to him…

After the bridge several of boats opted to not cross the Albemarle Sound and stop at Alligator River Marina… Ms. Wanda… we have stopped there but prefer not to… something about the place… not sure what it is… anyway, we had already planned to go to Coinjock Marina… main reason being we had won a FREE nights stay at the MTOA Southern Rendezvous… free nights with power are always great!

We crossed the Albemarle with 2-3 following seas… autopilot does not like it and really works to keep us on track but it was a pleasant crossing and soon we entered the North River and headed north to Coinjock… had a large motor yacht pass us and two other large motor yachts… one of three boats hailed us on the VHF and gave us a nice slow smooth pass… the other two well you it was not bad but it’s just not courteous boating.

We arrived and docked at Coinjock Marina and were secure at approximately 1750 hours. Our approximate location for the evening is N36°20.908’, W075°56.946’.

Today we traveled for 10 hours and 50 minutes covering 66.56 nautical miles averaging 6.14 knots.