Through the Pungo River-Aligator River Canal - in position 35:40.50N, 76:03.76W
AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Tue 9 Jun 2009 23:29
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We enjoyed our night in the Marina at Belhaven.
It's an old shrimping port of 2000 inhabitants that seems to have lost it's
shrimping industry. There are two small marinas that can accept just a handful
of visitors despite there not being many local boats. The marina we
stayed at was not very big on berth numbers but very big on hospitality.
Run by a very nice couple, they made us very welcome, ran us to the local
hypermarket for a quick 15 minute supermarket sweep and allowed us to use their
mobile phone to contact the immigration office (which we have to do whenever we
pitch up somewhere different). The heads were nicely appointed, towels provided
and the walls in the men's was completely covered in WW2 US Navy memorabilia
which made fascinating reading- provided there was nobody else waiting outside
for a shower. The wifi was good, provided you sat in the rocking chair or
thereabouts next to the office and it was a good stop to get some washing
done. We made some new friends cruising in a Gemini 1050 cat. A very
nice couple who are also headed north to Annapolis.
Leaving Belhaven we motored along the Pungo River
and then into the narrow canal that links the Pungo River to the Alligator
River. This is a 21 mile land cut created to take the intracoastal from one
river to another. It's as straight as you can get a 21 mile cut with a road
bridge at either end. You can just about see from one bridge to the other.
What we also saw were snakes (aaaghh). Nikki had thought the first one was a
small Alligator exercising it's right to be in an area that includes it's name.
But we didn't think alligators were this far north - they seem to be in South
Carolina downwards to Florida. The second disturbance on the water ahead of us
we could see more closely. It was a 6 ft long snake swimming across the river
from one bank to the other.It was horrible (said Nikki). Phil decided to curtail
any immediate thoughts of a late afternoon swim in the warm river
waters. We then went into imagination overdrive visualising the
wretched things slithering up the back steps into the cockpit in the
night. (aaaghh again).As we don't carry any snake recognition books with us we
can only (hopefully) assume it was a water snake. It had vertical dark brown
stripes so any snake experts reading this blog might like to fill us in on its
make and model info.
At the end of the days motoring we anchored just
off the channel in Alligator River along with 5 other boats (thus
keeping the 'snakes slithering onboard' odds at a reasonable level)
and were subsequently attacked by the largest flies we had ever seen - size of
the largest bumble bees and with real attitude. We had to put our entire cockpit
canopy up to keep them out whilst we eat our evening meal, then waited til dark
to brave the back steps in the open air for a very welcome showerbefore
turning in for the night.
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