Babbit Bay

5/17. It was a very calm night anchored in Spellman Creek last night. We left there this morning at 7:30am and got back on the Pungo River. We passed Belhaven, NC and then shortly after entered the Alligator River-Pungo River Canal. This is a fairly narrow canal that is pretty much straight for its entire 23 mile distance. Very calm water, except when other boaters over take or pass you without slowing down, or worse yet, slow down, but instead of slowing down enough to not produce a wake, they end up “plowing” water, which leaves a bigger wake. A situation of the boater not caring or knowing what their wake is doing! Many of the boaters are more courteous and will slow down to a no wake speed. We are probably the slowest boats on the water. We cruise at 5 kts. Most the trawlers will cruise around 7-9 kts. The sailboats are doing about 6 kts. And then the go fasts are doing about 12-20 kts. We cruise slow for fuel efficiency and to see more. Many of the boats we are traveling among are doing the “Great Loop”. You can google it if you are not familiar. The canal bank has a lot of erosion from boater’s wakes. There are also a lot of stumps and snags along the canal’s edges. I’ve uploaded photos showing the erosion, stumps/snags and how busy the canal can sometimes be with several boats running together. Once we left the canal and entered the much wider Alligator River, with the wind we had 1 to 1 ½ foot chop. I think the winds were on the nose at 10-15 mph. This afternoon we only came down the Alligator River a little ways, and pulled into Babbit Bay to anchor for the night. The entrance past Catfish Point was a bit tricky with trees and stumps along the sides of the channel to come in. No photos as I was concentrating on navigating in! ;-) Covered 51 miles.Leggi altro