Alligator River, part 2 — Cupcake Afloat

This will be brief because I just spent a lot of time uploading pictures to this and the first Alligator River post.

Since the last post, we spent a lonely night anchored in East Lake at the start of the Alligator River. The holding was great (all this muddy bottom is great for anchoring), the wind was up just enough to create some flow through the boat. Other than that, nothing worth looking at on shore. But the stars at night were fantastic.

But the bugs were out of control. It turns out we hit the two weeks when some mosquito-looking bugs make their appearance in the millions. I know I sometimes exaggerate my numbers (like temperature) but I'm not kidding when I say the boat had thousands of the little monsters stuck in the dew on the deck in the morning. And probably hundreds of them found their way inside. Fortunately they do not bite. But they buzz. And they land on you. And they make nasty smears when squashed. Yuck yuck yuck.

Incidentally, I never lie about boat speed or depth. All that business in the last post is completely accurate. Which is why it is very impressive and a testament to the skill and bravery of Cupcake's crew.

Anyway, we went through the Alligator River bridge (a swing bridge whose operator's drawl is only slightly more understandable than Ben, the other operator who runs traffic control on some other part of the bridge). Talk about marbles in your mouth.

Once through the bridge we shut off the engine and hoisted the asymmetrical sail (close enough to a spinnaker for non-sailors) and had a relaxing ride to our anchorage at the end of the river where it joins another canal.

This morning we upped anchor and motored down the canal. On the way we saw:

1. A little green frog sitting on deck. We do not know how it got on board. To get off the boat, it hopped.

2. Two bald eagles.

3. One black bear swimming across the canal.

4. One alligator swimming across the canal.

We will not be swimming any time soon.

Now we are at a dock in Belhaven, NC. There is laundry, there is fresh water for the tanks, there is wifi, there is an air-conditioned shower. There are restaurants. There is a hardware store.

When we leave here, the plan is to anchor out for a couple of nights as we slowly make our way to a very protected marina in New Bern, NC. There we will likely hole up for a week and wait to see what happens with all this weather out in the ocean.

Alligator River Bridge (local pronunciation: "gatabata ribbagah bage")

Asymmetrical sail. Looks like a spinnaker but isn't.

Black bear getting out of the canal. Let me repeat that bit: we saw a bear swimming in the canal!

Wee froggie on deck. It was probably a quarter that size when it got on board, but blew up like a blimp (see previous post) after eating its fill of nasty bugs.