Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Day 230 June 1 51 mi Aligator River Marina Columbia NC

 
We have another beautiful day.....the wind has laid down and we depart at 8:30AM.....We leave Belhaven which has some charming homes, most in the traditional North Carolina down-east style.  This is one of the most sparsely populated regions on the ICW so we won't be stopping at a McDonalds today.
 
Waterfront is lined with a few homes
 
 
 
Very nice
 
 
Water is still brown
 
 
We travel on Pungo River to the Alligator River-Pungo River Canal
 
 
The canal runs southwest to northeast for 20 miles
 
 
All by itself...out on a point
 
 
The canal is scenic and heavily wooded and narrow
 
 
We passed one sailboat and met one sailboat today
 
 
Looks like a wheat field but must be sea grass
 
 
This home is in the middle of nowhere
 
 
Black Bears swim in the river but not today
 
 
Looking back at the Canal
 
 
Coming into Alligator River
 
 
No one lives in this area
 
 
Alligator River seems more like a sound than a river with widths of nearly 4 miles across
 
 
Alligator River Swing Bridge....14 foot
 
 
We are still in Alligator River...just more of it
 
 
Stop this evening at Alligator River Marina....Ms Wanda's house
 
 
4 boats and 2 sailboats tonight...12 miles to Columbia NC and 30 miles to Outer Banks
 
 
Saddi gets off the boat on the Port Side tonight
 
 
Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin first envisioned an Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in 1808 but no one was interested.  It wasn't until 1906....nearly 100-years later that the Army Corps recommended a 12-foot deep canal between Norfolk VA and Beaufort NC.  Later the project included Beaufort SC to the Florida border.  So the Waterway between Norfolk and Miami began about 1911.  Today....The Intracoastal Waterway is a nearly 4000-mile route behind natural barrier islands, connecting bays and coastal rivers along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
The Atlantic portion connects creeks, rivers, sounds and bays from Massachusetts Bay to Florida Bay and includes the Cape Cod, the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) canals.
The Gulf portion inclludes the Okeechobee Waterway, Mobile Bay, Mississippi Sound, the Sabine-Neches Waterway and Galveston Bay.
I believe I read somewhere the Intracoastal Waterway is celebrating its 100 year old birthday this year.
 
As of June 1, 2013, the Nanseann has traveled 3124 miles with 248 hours on the engines and is averaging 8.98 MPH
We have been in 8 states and a side trip to the Abacos in the Bahamas and we have been gone from our home port....Grand Rivers KY.....230 days.
Miss Saddi is doing a great job getting on/off the boat and the Captain and First Mate are having a trip of a lifetime.
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