1 May, 2021 Albemarle Sound crossing

 

44 SM; 6.2 hours

A thankful day; thank God for a weather window, thank God for strength and perseverance and thank God for a sturdy little boat.

Yesterday evening while winds had been howling most of the day with one footers and white caps in the little dimple of an anchorage off the Alligator river, it almost became calm as the wind shifted NW.  catfish point, Alligator river, anchorage Pretty decent sleep with gentle boat rocking.  Early this morning at sunrise, the wind demon was playing tricks.  It appeared calm and enticing to head back out, but a glance at the river showed large waves and white caps.  We had been watching the weather forecasts for the pass few days, aware there might be an opportunity this afternoon, but the National Weather Service (NWS) continued firm in near gale force winds till noon today; lessening to 10-15 NW remainder of day then weakening later in the afternoon.  Our other source, Windy.com has been indicating a window of diminishing winds for a couple of days now and this morning update predicted a six hour window of significantly reduced winds this afternoon.  My other source of winds is access to Meteorological Aerodrome Reports METAR transcribed current weather conditions.  Now days these are automated and broadcast near real time.  So I watched the current winds from several airports within 30 mile radius to see  a trend in direction and velocity change in the winds.  We planned around a noon up anchor and go take a look while watching the regional real world winds for change.  

Windy 6 hour favorable wind window

Regional airport METARs began to show a slight favorable change.  We secured all loose gear, completed final preparations of our ditch bags, completed our untie the lines check lists and raised the  anchor at 1210.    Slowly we retraced our electronic bread crumps back to the river and it was much calmer than the day before.  Plan was to return directly to the channel and assess all the while I continued to check current regional weather.  Winds were in fact decreasing.  Our journey comprised of 14 miles of wide open water of the Alligator river, nearly 14 miles of very open water across the Albemarle sound, then 14 more miles up a very wide and long Pasquotank river arriving at anchorage near Elizabeth City, NC.  At 7mph about 6 hours travel time.

Alligator river swing bridge.

The  swing bridge has an unopened height of 14 feet.  We are good to go at 12 feet.  Exchanging pleasantries with the bridge tender who did not have to swing the bridge with weekend traffic headed to the beach, we proceeded toward the sound.  Winds continued to decrease and our confidence built.  Into the sound the waves did increase as a NW wind of 10-15 continued but our course was nearly north and while quite rolling at times nothing violent nor was there water coming over the bow and pilot house.  Steering a steady course for two hours, soon the Pasquotank River entrance day marker came into sight.

Albemarle sound--no too bad

During the last 30 minutes of the sound crossing it nearly became calm, just gentle NW swells but no white caps, sea foam; just a gentle rocking of Serenity.  Turning into and up the Pasquotank river the new course was NW into a slight freshening northerly breeze.  The remaining two hours were in a light chop while we dodged crab pot floats.  Arriving at the anchorage at 1815, we eased the anchor into 9 feet of water, backed down and set the anchor for the night.  Reasonable protection in a neighborhood setting.  Forbes bay anchorage  A prayer of thanks as we prepared supper and watched a beautiful sunset after a satisfying and safe day.

3474 SM traveled; 1645.7 hours hobbs