En route to the Chesapeake

We’ve just about completed the Georgia and Carolina segment of our trip (as far as the blog goes). Everyone says the best is yet to come and we find that hard to believe! We have just loved every mile of this journey. We find wonderful people and beauty in all of the places we stop, so hard to believe it can get any better.

We traveled five days this week to get to Norfolk, VA, MM 0, the start of the Chesapeake. Our itinerary includes some small NC coastal towns such as Oriental, Belhaven, Alligator River, and Coinjock. Because the Captain sleeps best when tied to a dock we tied up at some pretty interesting marinas.

Oriental Marina

This dock was way back in a corner behind a large red ship and we couldn’t see where we had to land until we were on top of it, and the finger pier was short so we had to stern in, and the water was only about 4.5 feet deep, so mud was stirring.

But, once we were in, it was like we had just arrived at a cute little motel, and with several other loopers we had a cozy courtyard, tiki bar, pool, and a restaurant right in our backyard.

Belhaven

Next morning, we were first to depart for a cruise to Belhaven, to a marina called River Forest. Sounds nice, but turned out to be a wooden dock with some nice fellas wanting to help with lines and a pump out. This was just a dock to tie up to instead of trying to find a spot to anchor out, it was quite windy.

We were glad to be on a secure dock with the wind howling. We asked for a pump out, and after a minute or so I told the dock hand something didn’t seem right, and he quickly looked around and realized he had left a valve open and what they were pumping from our boat was a little geyser into the air a couple of slips down. He says “that’s bad!” and kills the pump and corrects the situation. That was a first. At least it was caught quickly so things mostly went where they were supposed to.

Alligator River Marina

We left early from Belhaven because thunderstorms were a risk for the afternoon, so the goal was to get in early and beat any storm fronts.

We crossed paths with Rick and Carol Peterson, friends of ours from the St. Croix Yacht Club. They left last fall, and this is the first day that we traveled the same area together. They are on the Lucky – Lucky.

The cool part of this story is that Rick is an SCYC Past Commodore, as am I. Also both his father and mine were SCYC Commodores, we are two of only three families that have had two generations of SCYC Commodores from the same family.

Coinjock Marina

They sell a lot of T-shirts at this marina with a name like Coinjock, which it turns out is a Native American word meaning “the place of the blueberry swamps.”

In this case it was a place with the longest single dock along the side of the river that we have seen, by the end of the day perhaps 25 big boats were side tied to this dock, including several multi-million dollar Flemings, Outer Reefs, and Palm Beach yachts. Not sure where they all came from.

The Coinjock Restaurant is known for prime rib, and boaters had to make advanced reservations if they wanted beef. We enjoyed a great dinner, Nancy had a filet and I had the smaller prime rib special and both were great. Also redneck egg rolls, (North Carolina BBQ), and a piece of lemon chestnut pie.

At this point in the trip there is a choice of routes to get to Norfolk, the other one runs through the Dismal Swamp, which is a narrow 22 mile channel that is spectacular but also has some risk to exposed propellers, so we elected not to go that way. But others did so they were sharing their experiences with us. Here is a short video from our friend Rick Peterson who did go that way and he lived to tell about it. Look now “cozy” it gets.