Sound Sailing

After a night in Elizabeth City the wind was up. We kept on the move sailing down the coffee colored Pasquotank River, across the Albermale Sound and into Croatan Sound. It was probably the best sailing day of the trip so far. The climax of the sail was transiting under a bridge with a 45ft clearance (The top of Sarah's mast is 41ft, I think...). After a night anchored off of Roanoke Island we set sail again, cruising down Pamlico Sound at hull speed to Gull Island near the outer banks. It was too windy and shallow to take tater tot to the outer bank beaches (I basically ran him aground on our way to go exploring), so we settled for clamming and wading around the island. The next day was even windier for our sail from Gull Island to Ocracoke, we had a full day at the helm with following seas, surfing Sarah down waves at 7-8 knots. At one point, motorsailing through the channel to Ocracoke (Big Foot Slough Channel), we saw 3.5 feet on the depth sounder. We couldn't do much but hold our breath, reassure ourselves that we were in the middle of the channel and hope that it was just some fish or weeds on the bottom... we will never really know what it was. After 6 days of motion it was nice to drop the anchor and stay in one spot for awhile.  

After the anxiety of almost chopping the mast off, I was relaxed enough to the get the camera out for the next bridge

Flying under the Virginia Dare Bridge

The Virginia Dare Bridge with 65ft of Clearance... 20ft taller than the one before it.

Off of Gull Island our first attempt at clamming resulted in 5 clams. Delicious over rice.