Manteo Waterfront Marina, Roanoke Island, NC

Monday, April 25
Roanoke Island, NC
Distance Traveled:  61.39 nm
Miles to get Home:1243.50nm
Total Distance Traveled:  3911.13nm

This is a continuation of my post from this morning:

Phil was concerned after looking at the charts again that we would not be able to get to Roanoke Island thru Old House Channel and Roanoke Sound channel.  He hailed Tow Boats US and the Coast Guard from Oregon Inlet answered him and let him know that there was plenty of water for us.  What a relief to know for sure as if there hadn't been, we would have had to go 10 mi north of Oriental to pick up the ICW.  As the afternoon progressed, the wind picked up as we expected.  By 105pm the wind was 15-16 kts at 175degrees to SB.  GPS speed 6.3, Boat speed 6.51kts and we were motorsailing with white caps and 1-2 ft waves.  As my watch continued, we were surfing down waves and I saw a max of 7.2 knts on GPS before we entered the Old House Channel at 155pm - 10 more miles to go to get to the harbor.    By 213pm we started seeing 20kts wind that built to 25kts as we entered the bay to get to the anchorage - upwind.  We made an instant decision to stay in a marina.  I called while Phil was entering the channel and reached Manteo Waterfront Marina, which happens to be the town marina.    We had to dock to starboard instead of our normal port so that the bow was pointing into the waves so Phil turned around so that I had time to move the dock lines and he moved the fenders to the starboard side.  Carl, the dock master and another gentlemen both were there to great us and catch the dock lines, which was very much appreciated and needed with the stiff winds.  By 444pm the engine was off and by 5pm we at the dock master office to pay for our 2 nights.  I also called RD Sawyer Ford and reserved a rental car and a pickup time of 830am tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow we are really going to be tourists.

Tonight I'm warming up leftovers while I have a load of clothes in the washer.  Then we'll take showers as the clothes finish us.  Doesn't even feel like we had showers yesterday we're so sticky so real showers will be very much appreciated.

Hope the weather is improving for our target date to be home May 20.