Albemarle Sound to Portsmouth, VA

Albemarle Sound to Portsmouth, VA

Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd May, 2025

Unlike the Alligator River-Pungo River Canal, the Albemarle Sound provides plenty of excitement.  From my perspective, the crossing of the sound was a tad too exciting.  The winds were consistently over 20 knots, most often around 25 knots with some higher gusts.  It might have been a wind over tide situation or it could have just been the wind, either way the seas were steep and short.  We were motoring fairly tight too the wind but put out the genoa for more speed.  The knots meter was often showing more than 8 knots through the water.  I can’t say what we were doing according to the GPS as I was sitting tucked up near the dodger and not moving.  Many a wave splashed up into the cockpit.  The result was that Mike looked like a guy who had walked through a car wash while it was running.  I believe it was only 12 nautical miles but it seemed to go on forever.  Once we had finally crossed the sound we had a more reasonable motor up the ICW to Coinjock, NC.  The weather did continue to be blustery and cloudy until we approached the marina.  Just as we were rearranging our lines and fenders set up for a port-side tie (contrary to what we had been told earlier), the sun popped out and the wind died.  Our “spot” on the dock was fairly tight.  Unfortunately for us, once we were tied up, the dock hands moved the boat at our stern several feet closer.  We immediately started to worry about the undocking in the morning!  We managed to top up our diesel tank and jerry cans.  Then we washed down the deck which was looking a bit the worse for wear due to several anchorages with very thick mud.  After filling up the water tank and jerries, we investigated the showers and went to dinner.  Would you believe me if I claimed we ate a light dinner? Well we didn’t! Mike had the signature prime rib and I had New York strip steak … delicious and huge!

We departed the dock at Coinjock with the help of the dock master, for which we were quite grateful.  We managed to get out of our teeny, tiny space without contacting either of the adjacent boats. We powering ‘forward’ with a spring-line still attached, which pushed out our stern, the dock master released the line and we backed out.  Then we made the u-turn and headed north, along with a veritable armada of boats departing the marina.  The Currituck Sound was cold and choppy with overcast skies.  Before long the captain was in full foul-weather gear.  The first thirty miles are fairly straightforward, although, the boats traffic was impressive.  Then come the bridges. There are three bridges and a lock in a sequence.  The first two open on the hour  and the half hour.  The third only opens on the hour and is sort of coordinated with the lock.  This sounds easy until you realize that there is distance to be covered between each bridge.  Ideally you’d like to arrive at each bridge just as the opening begins.  That would be a miracle of timing that, at least so far, we are not able to execute.  The amazing thing was that all the Coinjock boats wound up at the bridge before the lock in time for the one o’clock opening.  So even though we had been going slow, it all came out in the wash. There was one further bridge to be negotiated by 3:30 pm at which point it would be closed for three hours!  That one turned out to be easy!

Perhaps the most astonishing happening of the day was that at the first bridge, the sailboat behind us was Makarios with our friends Debbie and Benge (from Samana, Great Inagua, the Ragged Islands and Georgetown). They had been making their way to the Chesapeake from Beaufort over last few days, covering 60-70 miles each day!  By comparison, we have been taking it easy!  All the more so when you consider that today we stopped at Portsmouth and they carried on to make some distance up the bay toward Solomon’s Island!  Wow, that’s determination.  We were shattered by the time we were anchored in Portsmouth!  

Gloria

36 50.689 N, 76 18.003 W

Threatening clouds from the South Lake anchorage before heading out into Albemarle Sound. We were worried about T-storms but in reality it was only the wind (up to 27 knots) and associated waves that gave us a challenge.

Cold and windy in Currituck Sound. The weather forecast predicted west winds at 2 - 16 mph gusting to 30 mph ... and that's a pretty accurate summary of what we encountered!

Distant lightening from our anchorage off Hospital Point, Portsmouth VA

It would have been cool to be on land and get a stable picture of the aircraft carrier that is being worked on at the opposite side of the Elizabeth River, with the lightening behind. However, the motion of the boat makes it all blurry.