Oriental to Bear Point

We got a late start from Oriental. We stayed on in the morning to go the their Farmer's Market, and to fuel up and fill our water tanks. We got off the dock at 10:00am.

The "rivers" down here are more like large lakes. We were able to put up full sails and motor-sail at 7.5-8 knots! I know you could probably run that fast, but it still feels pretty quick in a sailboat!

We really enjoyed the sailing, and by the time we reached our planned destination for the day we decided to push on and do the 20 miles of canal that would have started our following day. That would enable us to make our next stop in Elizabeth City. From the Skipper Bob book it sounded incredibly friendly, and we like free docks!

So we covered 78 miles and did our last few miles after dark. Anchoring in this incredibly remote area in the dark proved very interesting. I shone our light on the marks so that we could navigate to the right mark and find the anchorage. There were two boats already anchored here at Bear Point, so we sounded our way in and anchored right between them.

This was a very, very wild environment. No cell phone coverage...reminded me of Little Shark River! The dogs were out of luck for their evening walk. We couldn't dinghy ashore in the dark where the shoreline was mostly just trees.

In the morning we got a good look at where we sat in the anchorage...we were only about 30 feet from a whole row of tree stumps protruding from the water!! A bit of skill and a lot of luck kept us from running anything over in the dark!! Oh well, all's well that ends well.