North Carolina Loop

Today’s 10 hours and 50 miles was the most challenging of this trip! 8 of those hours was spent bouncing along in 1 to 3 foot very short spaced chop! We did have about 30-45 minutes of relatively calm water about half way into the day. Then we had to navigate a shoal area where some of the deepest water was only 2 feet. And it was surrounded on both sides by just several inches of water, or sand bars. And of course not in a straight line! Fortunately we all three made it through without grounding. Our route brought us out of the Ocracoke Inlet into Pamlico Sound. Then we went around Hodges Reef into Core Sound. Core Sound doesn’t appear to have any marked channels anymore. At least not going north and south. The USCG stopped trying to maintain the navigation aids, as the shoals are always shifting. We were able to navigate most of it with our electronic charts, but some of it was reading the water visually (shoal areas tend to have brown colored water) and just watching our depth sounders closely. We had to skip several planned anchorages, as the winds were not favorable and it would been a rock and roll night. We finally pulled into a small bay on Middens Creek. Should be a calm night here. A few photos uploaded. One of a production platform (not sure what it is, but that's what the chart said), along with many Fish net areas. Many of these fish nets had setups for someways out. Also passed one shoal out in the distance that looked like a rock pile.Read more