4/22/18: We were in no hurry since we had less than 35 miles to travel today. We planned to go to River Dunes Marina for three nights. Tuesday is forecasted to have Gale force winds and 2” of rain. Monday will be working up to being stormy. We’re pretty sure that staying 3 nights at a nice place will be a good idea. We’ve heard rave reviews for this marina. This is the forecast for Tuesday. This doesn’t include the possible gusts up to 40mph. Not a good day to be on the water!
We could keep moving north on Monday, and stay someplace for just Mon & Tues nights, but nothing that we can get to that quickly wouldn be as nice as River Dunes. And Monday is supposed to be windy too. So we decided to slow down and enjoy. What’s the rush, anyway!
Low tide was at 8:15am, so we thought we’d at least wait until it started to come in. We pulled away from our slip at the dock around 9:30, and then did docking number 1 for today at the pumper-outer dock to empty the holding tank. We figured we might as well empty it for free here. Surprisingly, not all marinas offer free pump outs! Easy successful face-dock docking (with nobody on the dock to assist, by the way). Mission accomplished, and we were on our way. We were headed north up Adams Creek towards the Neuse River. Apparently this creek always has southbound current. At our normal cruising rpm, we were only going about 6.5 knots, rather than 7.5. Not going to get good fuel economy today.
I have been looking for ‘inexpensive’ (that’s relative, right?) fuel somewhere in the next 200 miles. The best price I found was $2.59 about 10 miles up this waterway. And, with a purchase of 100 gallons or more, they give a 5 cent discount. $2.54 is really really good! We barely need 100 gallons at this point, but it’s hard to pass up this kind of price. And, if we get fuel now, that gets us well up into the Chesapeake Bay before we need fuel again, so we can be a little more selective about how much we pay for the next fill up, with all of the options there. So, we powered out of the current of Adams Creek into a little marina called SeaGate Marina. Successful docking #2 for the day, along a face dock. We could only squeeze in 99 gallons, and we were FULL. But the nice marina lady still gave us the 5 cent discount. Captain made a nice 180* turn, headed back out into the current of the creek, and we continued north. The creek took us up to the Neuse River. This river is at least 3 miles wide at the point where we entered, and it opens into the Pamilco Sound, which is huge.
We had a wind from the east, and once on the river, we were headed east. The waves were maybe 2 feet, and the wind was around 15 knots. So we had all kinds of salty water splashing, but not bad enough to get us wet on the fly bridge. It was a good day for sailboats, so we had to dodge a few of those. (The water really was choppier than this looks.)
After about 15 miles of this, we turned to the left and had waves rolling us in the side. Still not terrible bad, but now there were crab pots to watch for as we rocked and rolled! Thankfully it wasn’t long before we headed into the channel for River Dunes Marina. As we got into the marina, we put on our hands-free two way talkers. We have only used them in anchoring situations before, but I thought it might be good to try them out when we’re docking. The dockmaster had already advised us that for a stern-in docking, be set up on the starboard side. The wind was calmer here in the boat basin, but we still had a bit of wind. Big bonus- no current to deal with. Captain pulled into the fairway, went just past the slip, started the turn and backed us in. I gave him directions on what I thought needed to be done to get us into the slip. The dockmaster was there to help with lines, and we had a beautiful docking. Yay for successful docking #3 for the day! Captain deserves a badge today! The radio talkers worked great – I didn’t have to yell to be heard, and I could give more directions than usual. Captain said it worked good for him, too. Each time I gave direction, he was already in process with the same maneuver, so it helped confirm to him that what he was doing was what I was seeing needed to be done. He cannot see the back of the boat from the fly bridge, so he uses his best judgement on where the corners of the boat are in relation to the pilings that he can see. As we get closer to the dock, he can’t see it, so I am his eyeballs. I’ve never ever docked the boat, but Captain says that my directions are right on for what to do. Well, I might know that we need go ‘port back’, but I don’t know how much throttle might be needed or where the bow is going to go. I’ll let him keep captaining, and I’ll keep admiraling.
We saw a couple of familiar boats when we pulled in, and a couple more familiar pulled in right behind us. The marina had called me earlier this morning, and said that he had 6-8 boats all coming in about the same time, and that he may need us to stand off and wait if we got here with the rush. We didn’t have to do that, which was nice. It looked like we’ll have some new and newer looper friends to hang out with! This is a really nice marina, in the middle of nowhere.
It is interesting because it appears to be like a country club, only there is no golf course. There are vacation homes, and about 20 permanent residents. There is a very nice clubhouse, pool, outdoor bar, fire pits, and nice open areas. We gathered up all the loopers we could find, and sat around a fire pit for awhile before dinner. It was really cold in the wind! But the marina clubhouse serves food and beverage inside, so it wasn’t appropriate for us to bring in our own cocktails. Several of us had dinner together, and it was a great time.
I’ll go on a photo safari tomorrow to share more about the resort. Since there is no town here, that’s all I will have to do to have something to write about tomorrow!
This was our route for today – courtesy of Nebo!