The Mightly Albemarle Sound

We'd planned to leave our anchorage in Bear Creek, and head north to just before the Albemarle Sound. Once there, we were most likely going to have to hunker down for three to for days. The Albemarle Sound is notorious for rough waters. It is a shallow body of water like the Chesapeake, and strong winds will cause steep waves, very close together. West winds cause the most trouble in the Albemarle, and the forecast called for 25-35mph out of the west for the next few days.

We began to weigh our options. We could anchor just south of the Albemarle, and wait the 3-4 days for the winds to somewhat subside. There is nothing near the anchorage, as far as town or something to occupy time. A small marina is in the area, but once again they are in the middle of nowhere, and we'd be paying slip fees for the 3-4 days. The temps were also supposed to drop, so we'd be bouncing in the wind, cold, and bored. We decided to do a 14 hour day, cover 110 miles, and cross the Albemarle. The winds were forecasted for 15mph by the time we'd reach it. That was far from ideal, but it was going to be the best we'd have for the next few days.

The days travel to the Albemarle went smoothly. The weather was beautiful, and we spent most of the day in the Alligator River Pungo River canal, a protected body of water. As we came into the actual Alligator River, it got a bit more bumpy, but nothing uncomfortable. I acutally drove for a few hours, while Scott went over our route one more time, and then napped.

It took us two hours to cross the Albemarle. The first hour wasn't too bad. By hour two, we were dead in the center of the thing, and it was getting quite rough. I have to look anywhere but out the windows when this type of water is kicking up, and I concentrate hard on something other than the crazy bad waves , keeping myself from complete panic. The waves first tossed us pretty good on our beam(from side to side). Scott changed course, so that they were coming at our bow, but that didn't prove to be much better, and acutally steered us off our path. He changed course again(by the way, changing course is NOT comfortable), putting the waves on our stern(back). He spent the entire two hours driving by hand, NOT an easy feat in waves and wind like this. A wave would start to throw hard to the right, so Scott would steer the boat as hard as he could to the left, to keep on course.

We were essentially in a 20,000lb surf board for two hours. It was the worst water of the whole trip for me. Our trip on the Atlantic Ocean to Key West had the same winds and waves, but it was NO problem compared to this nightmare trip. Waves in the Atlantic are farther apart, so you don't get the violent side to side, or up and down.

In the end, we crossed without issue, and headed two more hours north to Elizabeth City, NC, as it is the first possible stop; there are no possible anchorages before it. The town also has a 48 hour complimentary dock, with piers and sea wall. During the day, there are several men who are along the wall, helping people tie up and giving them any information that you need about the town. We came in at 8pm, so we obviously didn't expect anyone to be there to greet us. It was dark and windy, which made for challenging docking. A man came out from one of the nearby restaurants and asked if we needed help, but we had our lines tied by then.

Once we were set, a man came by to welcome us, and see if we needed anything. He asked if we needed any town info. (where things were, etc.), and we told him we still had our maps and pamphlets from our stophere in Oct. As he was leaving, he told us his name, and that he was the town's mayor! Pretty impressive, considering it was 8:30 on a Sunday night! All we can think, is that someone(maybe the man who'd come over earlier) called him to let him know that a boat was coming in to dock...nice people!

We slept in this am, and will spend the day here, before heading out tomorrow, to enter the Dismal Swamp. We're curently waiting out a tornado watch, and watching for a line of strong storms and hail to come through. Ahh...Spring in the Mid Atlantic!! Just two pics of our travel.