Feb 24 2021

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The morning feels warmer, so I'm encouraged that we're going the right way to find Spring.  By the end of today I was barefoot soaking up a little sunshine on the foredeck.

The first order of the day for us was to find fuel. We are carrying extra fuel jugs this time, so we've come a long way without having to top up.  Today outside of Bellhaven NC we pulled in to River Forest Marina's fuel dock & filled up.  Gotta give a recomendation to this place: it has an impressive 1800's mansion built by a railroad baron who hosted "decadent parties ", fell on hard times during the depression, opened as a marina & event venue in the 1940's, closed in 2011. A group of local residents bought it in 2014 and obviously have taken great pride in their business. But it's the story of our times repeated across the country- Covid has been tough on them.  Our $40 fuel purchase was their largest sale in a few weeks.  The very nice dockmaster working there had so much emotion in his voice talking about how they really wanted to save the place. So if you're in the neighborhood, stop by.

Lois spent her morning trying to bring order to the galley stores.  It all started when we decided to make some red beans & rice in the instant pot. Couldn't find the dried red beans, even after a thorough search of all the cabinets. One of the major storage lockers is under the bunk on port forward, and is about 3 ft deep. For this trip we removed the bunk mattress & left it at home to make it easier to access that big storage area
through a panel normally covered by the bunk. That means Lois has to climb into the locker to reach the canned goods etc kept in large plastic boxes.  Not exactly easy or convienent, so some reorganization was necessary. Luckily the wind and water were very calm, or this task could not have been done underway. (As a side note, turns out I'd left the dried red beans at home  🤦‍♀️)

We noticed the smoke and smell from a marsh fire in the distance. Interesting cloud shape!


Along the way we passed the well-known Mayo Seafood. Seeing the shrimp boats brought back memories of when we lived in Louisiana and SE Texas back in the 1980's.

From the point at which we entered the Great Dismal Swamp to our current location, the water has been the color of Coca Cola from the tannins released by decaying vegetable matter. The spray churned up in our wake is ochre. It's a little disconcerting  when you're used to white caps being white and water being cloudy but still see-through. A friend told me that the brown water is actually pretty clean, it just looks, well, gross.  Sailing ships would fill their drinking barrels for a voyage with this tannin laced water because it would stay fresh much longer. (More evidence that I would have made a lousy sailor.)

We anchored in Bear Creek off of the Bay River, in a very pretty cove with front row seats to the wildlife activity  in the marsh.  Our anchor didn't set well in the muddy bottom the first time, and we drug across the creek.  After re-anchoring a quarter mile farther in, we had good holding, but still left the anchor alarm on all night as a precaution. 

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