Coinjock, NC

Saturday, October 6, 2012
36 21.0969 N
75 56.8620 W

There is a Bank of America less than a mile from our mooring, so I walked up this morning and obtained a bank statement. By the time I got back it was time to cast off and get rolling. The bridge opens after the lock empties its load of south bound boats, and I wanted to be up front. We ended up in 3rd place after some serious jockeying.

The day started sunny and calm but the wind picked up as the day progressed south. We were aware of a cold front arriving over night Saturday that would change the wind from predominately South to predominately North. This makes it a bit hard to find the right overnight anchorage, but so long as the wind was under 20 MPH we were OK with it. We checked the forecast every few hours and at about 2 PM a "Small Craft Advisory" had been declared and the Northerly had been upped to 15 - 30 MPH.

That news sent us to a marina at Coinjock, and that is where we sit now. There are a lot of boats headed south, and many will react the same as us to the weather. There is only limited number of marinas out here (especially the cheap ones we like) and its "first in best dressed". We were tied up by 3PM. As the afternoon progressed more boats rolled in. It became quite social, and we made friends with a 42' Catamaran and a 53' DeFever (The owners recognized Tide Hiker.) We had dinner on the boat.

We will probably head off in the AM as we are headed south and a Northerly would be on our tail.