We weren’t sure how comfortable our sleep would be in Oriental with the potential for rain forcing us to keep our windows closed. We didn’t need to worry, we slept just fine. We have a battery-operated rechargeable fan that we use to keep air flowing, and it lasts through the night. By the time we woke up, a few of our neighbors were already gone, and it looked like everyone else was getting ready, too, including the fishing boats that sat running all last evening but went nowhere.

Sidenote: at the beginning of our Loop, our batteries did not last through the night. By morning, our anchor light would be dark (eek!), our refrigerator would be off, and our toilets wouldn’t flush. At some point, Owen replaced the battery and changed our anchor light to an LED and our problem was solved. In Oriental, we turned our boat off at 6:30 pm and it was off until 9:00 or so the next morning with no trouble. Sometimes big problems have small solutions, and a new a battery made an extraordinary difference in this case.

In the morning, Owen went across the street to The Bean, a coffee place that also had bagels and muffins. I know this because Owen left for coffee and came back with coffee, bagels, and muffins.

There was also a farmers’ market near the dock. Perhaps this rainy morning wasn’t a good day for the market. We could only see a couple tents from the boat, and we decided not to go.

We weren’t in any rush this morning, so we took our time getting ready and started our engines around 9. We left with a handful of other boats, and we made a nice little caravan leaving Oriental and heading toward the ICW. Our different boats with different speeds eventually spread out.

We all headed out onto the Neuse River, and things were pretty smooth until we changed our angle to head northeast. The beam waves made things uncomfortable, but Owen quickly adjusted and we zig-zagged our way through them very smoothly without changing our low, diesel-saving speed. We noticed that some of our fellow boaters did the same, and others responded to the discomfort by increasing speed to get through the cruddy beam waves as fast as possible. Regardless of how we all managed the situation, we all ended up leaving the Neuse in about the same order we went into it.

The ICW widened as we crossed the wide Pamlico River. We were planning to stop at Belhaven for fuel and a pumpout. Owen called ahead to let them know we were coming. He doesn’t usually do that, but I’m glad he did this time! Their pumpout was unavailable. We called another marina, and their pumpout had broken and parts wouldn’t be available until Monday. The man there suggested Dowry Marina, and we were glad to stop there. They were super friendly, and we got there just in time! The fuel truck was there putting in a new load. We were the last to fill up at $5.45 per gallon. The next people to fill up would pay $5.75 for diesel! Oof. There was some concern mentioned about places not being able to get gas or diesel in the near future. The conversation reinforced an earlier agreement we made just to fill up at every opportunity in case there is a shortage somewhere along the way. I didn’t see it at the time, but apparently Dowry Marina also has seafood for sale in their store.

When we left Dowry, we didn’t have far to go to our anchorage in the Alligator River. We went through a long, straight channel with very little variety in scenery.

We were so happy when we arrived at our first-choice anchorage at Alligator River and there were absolutely zero people there and virtually no wind. This is our very favorite scenario. Owen idled a figure-eight around our potential spot and determined it to be a-okay. I dropped the anchor in about 8 feet of water, the anchor set right away, and we were good to go.

Another boat joined us in the anchorage, but there was so much room that they were quite far away. We could just barely hear their generator.

We could not get over how peaceful this anchorage was! After so much wind the previous week, we welcomed the calm. We put the screen up on our door and left it open all night with no worries of intruders and slept soundly.