Day 19...Slade Creek to South Lake

TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2012

     Today we left our anchorage at 6:30 a.m. because we knew we were going to have to travel at least 60 miles to get to South Lake near Albemarle Sound. 

     The Pungo River was fairly wide as we started out.  Then as we entered the almost 25 mile long Alligator River/Pungo River Canal the waterway narrowed quite a lot.  

Beginning of canal

     For the most part there were trees to the bank on the port side and mostly marsh with sporadic clumps of trees on the starboard.  This seemed to go on forever.

Port

Starboard

     While we were in the canal the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Preserve was north of us and the Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Preserve was south of us (I don’t think it was close to 

the waterway though).  We were literally in the middle of nowhere.  Our cell coverage blinked in and out constantly the entire trip up the canal and through the Alligator River, which is about 5 miles wide and 20 miles long.  Since the wind had picked up, the ride into the anchorage was a little rough. 

    

     While we were in the Alligator River, two jets buzzed us at least three times.  Gary thinks they were F18s.  They ran right by us at an exceptionally low altitude.  Gary, the ex-helicopter crew chief, estimates they were flying very fast (The speed is my contribution.) at less than 1000 feet. 

I took this one

I missed this one.

Gary missed this one.

Gary took this one.

     This is a beautiful sunset from our anchorage in South Lake.  Only one other boat is in here with us.

       We have taken to anchoring up the creek or river away from the Intracoastal so some of the travel time has become the time it takes us to get to the Intracoastal.  We traveled for 10 hours and 20 minutes while covering 66 miles.  This is the longest day yet.  We have gone a total of 702 miles in 19 days.

The photo theme for today is dead trees.

I'm glad these aren't in the canal.