…It’s a son of a bitch y’all! We crossed the mighty Pamlico Sound in two giant leaps… Bam, Bam! We got that shit out of the way. Well, kind of… From River Dunes we sailed on a powerful reach for 10 hours with sharp growling seas all day to the (not so much) protection of the Long Shoal River. As we made our approach to the anchorage the land was so low that it didn’t even show up on the radar until we got right up on it. There’d be no protection from that direction. But the wind and seas laid down just after dark giving us a peaceful night on the hook. The boat was still nice and dry from four days of River Dunes decadence and the wind was from the South so it was comfortable down below. The next day we sailed to Manteo. On the way to Croatan Sound the wind and waves were somewhat at odds with each other in the open Pamlico. Although we had a nice fresh southerly breeze giving us a strong starboard reach for most of the day, the waves, wow, were in the 3 to 6 foot range and slapping us right on the starboard beam. It was a sloshy ride. …but that warm (finally!) south wind felt so nice! As we passed Oregon Inlet, the only confusing part of the leg, it was a down hill run in a straight line south all the way to the Manteo channel, and let me (James) tell you, after two hard sailing, 10 hour, days in a row we were actually kind of glad that a big Nor’easter was going to keep us hunkered down for a spell. I mean really, there are worse looking places to ride out a storm. The[…]
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