Pungo River anchorage to Little Alligator Creek. Distance: 42 nm/Time: 8 hours
What a wonderful day of cruising it was, today, despit all motoring and all in the ICW! And what a contrast the rural North Carolina countryside ICW was to motoring all day through, say, Miami or Fort Lauderdale!
First of all, the scenery was gorgeous. There were marshes and woods and beautiful combinations of both.
The day started off sort of foggy, with a spooky kind of sunrise, but then morphed into a stunning mixture of clouds and blue sky. The winds were for the most part totally calm, but the temperature was about 80 degrees, and with the breeze created by the boat’s movement, it was perfect. I pretty much wore just my shorts all day and was very comfortable.
It was also a very rural area, with few houses and in spite of it being Saturday on Labor Day Weekend, there was also almost no other boat traffic.
In fact, during the entire eight hours, I saw perhaps five other boats. And that was over 40 miles!
Perhaps best was the fact that my autopilot seemed to be tracking very well today. Most of the day was spent in the Pungo River/Alligator River Canal. I found a place up near the main mast to set my boat chair where I was away from the engine noise and could see everything unimpeded. I took my music with me and spent hours just relaxing and taking in the views. So much more enjoyable than having to stand in the cockpit to be able to see and be subject to all the engine noise.
While in the canal, every 15 minutes or so I’d have to go back to tweak the autopilot a bit to keep from straying into the shallow edges, but during the second half of the day, the Alligator River opened way up and I didn’t have to tweak the autopilot at all.
It made such a difference in my fatigue level to be able to actually sit instead of stand for hours. The port side of the boom and stack pack provided perfect shade from the morning sun, and the starboard side did the same for the afternoon sun.
And such a difference the 80 degrees instead of 95 degrees made, too! As I go further north and as August turns to September, I expect a lot more of the former than the latter. In fact, by the time Nicole comes aboard, the temps are forecast to be highs of right around 80 and lows right around 70 each day. Perfect!
Just before my anchorage, I had to pass through a cool swing bridge at the mouth of Alligator River.
The only negative thing about the entire day was that I notice white smoke coming out of the engine exhaust right after leaving the anchorage this morning, right when getting ready to enter the canal. That worried me a lot, since I had never noticed any smoke coming out of the exhaust before. I veered off into a side area to take a look inside my engine compartment just to make sure nothing was going on in there (there wasn’t), then did a quick Google search of what might cause white smoke to come out of a diesel exhaust. Turns out it can be a bunch of things, including a blown head gasket and low cylinder compression. Well, I guess my engine is starting to go bad, but all the gauges were normal, and there was nothing I could do about it right now, so back into the canal I went. After a few hours, the smoke disappeared, so I’m not sure what was going on. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it. Problems rarely fix themselves.
