35°54′2″ N 76°1′28″ W

We are now docked at the Alligator River Marina which adjacent to the highway that leads from the mainland to Kill Devil Hills & Kitty Hawk.

It would have been interesting to get over to Kitty Hawk but the boating logistics are just too complicated for this particular trip.

We left Belhaven this morning at 6:45am & arrived at the marina at 2:30pm. It was another very hot day with little wind to cool us.

For the first 4 hours of the trip we followed the Alligator River Canal, which is an engineered waterway that is 20 miles long & straight as an arrow. The photo below shows our view for virtually the entire time we were in the canal.

At the north end of the canal the Alligator River opens up to be several miles wide but the navigation channel is still only about 200 meters wide & it quickly gets very shallow on either side. We could not let our attention stray too long or we might run aground.

It was pretty hot when we docked & there was still no wind. Thankfully the marina has a comfortable air conditioned boater’s lounge with a large screen TV so we mixed some cool drinks to celebrate our arrival & retreated to the lounge for a few hours.

The marina also has a gas station on the highway & a restaurant so we decided to skip cooking dinner & had a great southern BBQ pulled pork dinner with fried okra & hush puppies! It sure beat eating leftovers from our galley!

We are now only 85 miles from Norfolk, VA & “Mile 0”, at the north end of the ICW. Tomorrow we will cross the Albemarle Sound – where our route will be about 14 miles across open water & then we enter the next series of rivers & canals that are sheltered by the barrier islands. Hopefully we will have some pleasant ocean breezes to help keep us cool.

Cheers!