Plan B

Last week we posted that we were running a bit ahead of schedule and considering taking a side-trip off the ICW/Loop route for a week or so.  We got suggestions from several people and began formulating a plan to go to the Outer Banks on the far side of Pamlico Sound. We inquired of folks at the marina to gather local knowledge about the best route, got  a boating map with routes laid out, posted on the Great Loop website and got some suggestions from folks . . .  and then we checked the weather forecast!

A cold front is to arrive tonight and bring with it rain, cooler temps, and most importantly, WIND! For the next week, the forecast calls for steady wind in the 18-25 mph range, with gusts in the 25-49 mph range.  While adventurous sailors may like that sort of weather, trawlers and their captains don’t.  We’re comfortable traveling within the protected stretches of the ICW with wind and gusts up to about 20 mph. Everyone we’ve talked to says trawlers have no business on the Pamlico Sound in winds greater than 15 mph. Pamlico Sound is 80 miles long and 15-30 miles wide, and is the largest lagoon on the Eastern U.S. coast, much bigger than our home cruising grounds on Puget Sound. Unlike Puget Sound, where waters are typically 100 – 400 feet deep, Pamlico Sound is mostly 20-25 feet deep, though shallower in some places. So it has no ocean swell, being separated from the Atlantic by the very low islands of the Outer Banks, but because of the long fetch and shallow water, we’re told it has very bad waves and chop.

Our other option, to continue northward now on the ICW/Loop route is also inadvisable because of this weather.  We’d have to travel the very large Neuse River and cross Albemarle Sound, both of which will have conditions beyond what we would do in our trawler. The one rule we have always heard about the Loop is: don’t have a schedule! Weather and other unplanned events, which will not be named, will happen to foul it up.

So . . . what to do, what to do? We were paying a premium marina price during our wonderful two days in Beaufort and didn’t want to continue for up to another week. So this morning we back-tracked 5 miles to Morehead City, NC to Portside Marina where the nightly price is half what it was in Beaufort, and the laundry room is free.

Morehead City is a real “Fisherman’s Town”, with much less tourism and more of a blue collar feel than Beaufort. A huge percentage of its’ residents are employed in one manner or another in the boating industry, and most of it in fishing.

So again, we’re considering alternatives. We decided not to fly to Houston, Denver or Seattle to visit relatives for various reasons, so we’re working on local options to keep us happy and occupied for up to a week while we await a turn in the weather. At a minimum we will catch up on our reading, which has been much neglected on this trip so far.