Tues Sept 1 & 2: Ocracoke to Dowry Creek Marina (Belhaven, NC)

 In which we cruise calmly back from the Outer Banks into a heat wave or in which Rick almost busts a gut pulling up the anchor by hand!

Unfortunately the windlass stopped working again and not matter what Rick did we could not get it to work again. The only way to get going was to pull the anchor chain and anchor (50+ lbs) up hand over hand.   We got it done but it wasn’t easy.....

The wind had calmed down since our outbound trip so the Pamlico sound was relatively smooth and the ride was nice.  It was almost 7 hours of cruising across the sound into the Pungo River system where we had reserved a slip at the Dowry Creek Marina - close to Belhaven, NC. We remembered Belhaven from our southbound trip last October as the place that we first anchored out and where we celebrated Melanie’s birthday on Nov 1!  With the anchor inoperable we will have to stay in marinas for the next few days but that is okay, because, did I mention, IT IS HOT.  The Weather Channel app said it would be 95 with an heat index making it feel like 105 to 108! Yech....

Dowry Creek is a nice little marina with a pool so Rick got to the pool as soon as possible. The marina also has complimentary laundry so we put together all our dirty, sweaty clothes, etc and when to take advantage of the washers and dryers.  We asked about a mechanic to look at the windlass and were told he could come the next day so we decided to stay one more day.   The rest of the day was spent hiding away in the boat in the air conditioning...we now really understand why this is a trip that is best done in Spring..... cooler temps, lower humidity and no hurricanes!

The next day started hot again.  We waited in the morning with not much to do and eventually the mechanic, Danny, arrived with his bag of tools and me with hope that he could fix the issue.   After some poking around and testing,  Danny diagnosed the issue as a burnt our switching solenoid. Say what?  I didn’t even know we had one!  He explained what it does and that taught us something new about the boat!  He said he had one in his shop so we agreed he would come back tomorrow and install the new unit.

So, then we had an opportunity to use the marina loaner car and head into town to get some back up V-belts, stop at the Food Lion for restocking of our food supplies and we even stopped in to a Dollar Store so we could relive the times early in the trip where we stopped in to these stores at almost every port! 

And then we hunkered down again in the relatively cool air in the boat.  It was truly almost unbearable to be outside.  We had pizza for dinner (Rick had been Jonesing for pizza for a few days)...watched some TV and then off to bed.