Big-hair hairstyle and a double-wide

Big-hair hairstyle and a double-wide

Wednesday May 5, 2021

You might think from the title that we had stumbled into a trailer park, but that’s not quite it.  Apparently sustained winds of 20 knots with gusts to near 30 will get my hair looking like an experiment with a Van de Graff generator (gone badly wrong).  This morning was a trial.  The forecast was for 15-20 knots from the southwest.  We hadn’t been going more than 45 minutes when we saw 28 knots (true wind speed) on the wind instrument. Once we got out of the Bay River the swells settled down and we did get some wind protection as well.  

There are perils to be had in these narrow channel sections though.  Seeing a ‘double-wide’ barge coming toward your boat as you approach a bridge, tends to get the pulse accelerating.  A single barge and tug is usually enough to wig me out.  Two barges abreast seems like a serious error of judgment. I couldn’t help but wonder how the tug was hoping to control all that once out into more open water.  Our captain was able to sneak under the bridge before we met the barges and tug.  

As we approached the crossing of the Pamlico River, the winds dropped down to about 12 knots and the sun popped out.  We were lulled into un-rolling the genoa.  Naturally once we got out into open water we experience some more high velocity gusts and needed to partially furl that sail.  The trip up the Pungo River put the wind on our beam, which sure feels stronger than coming from astern.  Plenty of whitecaps and foam streaks were in evidence as we trundled up toward Belhaven.  We are anchored now and plan to leave tomorrow afternoon once the north winds that arrive tonight have moderated. If that doesn’t look promising we’ll stay a second night.

We did manage to get ashore and enjoyed walking around the town. We ended up at Jack’s tavern, an open air bar created out of necessity during the pandemic. We got chatting to the owner and she told us the main restaurant has been closed since last March but they do quite a lot of business in the open-air bar. We certainly enjoyed having a drink and eating barbecue ribs and chicken at a table outdoors.

Gloria

35 31.902 N, 76 37.283 W

Morning light in Bonner Bay with a lot of threatening clouds around

Meeting a double-wide barge at Hoeboken Bridge was a little nerve wracking - but he moved over, as did we and the water was deep close to the banks

Heading up the Creek north of Hoeboken Bridge - these narrow sections were well protected from the wind and had nice flat water

Gloria loving every minute of it. Her hair was having a field day in the stiff winds !

Sun reflected behind passing storm clouds

It's really hard to capture what conditions are like on film - but maybe this shot taken in the Pungo River gives you a sense of how windy it was. At least in this section there was little fetch and no swells

When we came to go to shore we found a pair of Mallards resting on the dinghy. I got close enough for this shot by crouching at the back of the boat and gradually pulling the dinghy closer