After passing the bridge in Chesapeake, VA, we contnued our slow-motor-boat way down the ICW.  We were passing through some very rural remote parts of Virginia now. One nice thing about cruising is that you go to places that are not on any regular tourist itinerary and see a whole less packaged version of the places that you travel to.

The ICW can be fairly busy with both pleasure boats and commercial barge and tug traffic.  Fortunately, we had missed the busiest time, which is in late October and early November, but there were still plenty of other boats.  Another odd thing about the ICW is that you have to talk on the radio all the time, to call bridges for opening and to pass and be passed by other boats safely. Now, instead of the brusque New Yorkers on the radio, it was slow, polite Virginia drawl, with lots of “sirs & ma’am”’s.

Next stop was in Coinjock, VA, home of the funny name and a famous prime rib restaurant.  We got in fairly early, took a walk, then had the prime rib, which was deeelishious! (Sorry, vegetarian friends). Lucie and I shared the 16oz cut, which was more than 16oz and it was plenty. They also sell a 32oz cut, which seemed a bit excessive.

There was a pretty brisk current along the canal there, but in the morning we didn’t have any trouble getting under way.  WildHorse handles very well at slow speed under power, once you get used to her ways.   We continued down a narrow canal and crossed into North Carolina shortly after Coinjock.

There are a few places on the ICW where you can actually sail, and that day we crossed one of them, Albemarle Sound. Unfortanately, on that day the wind was 20knots exactly on our nose. To sail we would have had to tack back and forth at 45º angles to the way we wanted to go, which would have taken all day. Since anchorages were few and far between in that part of the ICW, we had to make some miles, so we ended up just motoring across into the wind and chop. Fun.  After the Sound, we entered the Alligator River and timed the bridge opening perfectly, didn’t even have to slow down.

We made our way up the river, but didn’t see any alligators. We made our anchorage with daylight to spare and had a lovely quiet evening on the hook.

Nice sunset on the Alligator River

We pulled the anchor early the next morning then motored onward into the Alligator-Pungo River canal. There was a bit of a storm on the way so we needed to get to a harbor to wait it out.

Yes, it’s a canal…

We went to the Grand Manor Marina in Belhaven, NC. It’s a grandiose name for a tiny little marina, but everyone there was super friendly and helpful;. they had clean, roomy showers and even provided fluffy white towels and golf carts to use to get around town. It was a perfect place to wait out the bad weather.

Rainy day from inside WildHorse

Bustling downtown Belhaven. We’re not in New York anymore!

It was overall a fun and friendly place. Despite being tiny, they had a nice resrtaurant with local farm-to-table type food, so we took advantage of it while we were there.

After 3 days, the weather improved and we set out again. Next stop was anchoring just outside of Oriental, NC, and had another quiet peaceful night. We crossed another of the places where you could sail, Pamlico Sound, and this time we actually could sail!

Happy to not be motoring!

We then finally made it into Beaufort, NC where we tied up to a dock at the Beaufort Docks, and went into town to try some fo the famous North Carolina BBQ.

Mighty tasty, y’all!

Beufort was another friendly, quaint Southern town with lovely people. Apparenlty a Southern quirk is that they really like Christmas decorations, and both in Belhaven and here, the town decorations were already going up well before Thanksgiving.  There was a nice little park next to the docks in Beaufort which the local garden club takes care of, and they were busily setting up reindeer and Santas while we were there.