day one - breezy

Push off from the dock at Potter's Marine at 10:30.  Clear skies and cool, a blustery NW wind persists.  Raise the mizzen and a gust pushes us sideways towards another dock.  Crank up the outboard and move out in to North Creek.  SPARTINA, with just mizzen raised, should turn up into the wind.  It does not.  I raise the jib and try to sail with wind on the beam.  SPARTINA turns downwind.  Something is not right.  I check the rudder to find I've hooked a crab pot float, the crab pot acting as an anchor.  D'oh!  Unhook the crab pot and life is good.  

Round Chambers Point just after 11:00, very rough in the mouth of the creek.  Sailing under mizzen and jib, I don't expect to raise the main at all today, making 3.7.  A cormorant peeks his head up out of the water off the bow, then disappears.  I partially raise the centerboard for a smoother sail downwind in rolling waves.  Check the weather report.  Small craft warnings until the early morning hours.  Up ahead I can see power boats on the ICW crossing the Pamlico River from Goose Creek to the south and the Pungo River to the north.

Wades Point at 1:00, a can of tuna and crackers for lunch as we leave the Pamlico River and enter the Pungo River.  Very rough water with wind on the beam, making 4.0 kts.  The gusts build and soon doing between 4.8 and 5.2.  I look south to see are larger sailboat well behind me, heeled in the gusts.  Off Sandy Point on the eastern side of the river at 1:40, waves slapping the port side of the hull.

Enter Slade Creek with a gust, 4.8 in calmer water.  We ghost along the shoreline, making a few casts with a green lure but mostly just enjoying the peaceful creek.  Making just over a knot with the wind blocked by tall trees.  We explore Wood, Neal and Becky Creeks, tacking back and forth, glad to be out on the water.

Anchor down near the mouth of Spellman Creek at 4:15.  Cook dinner, a barely edible Thai-style chicken and noodles, very disappointed with dinner.  Fill out the log, put on the new mainsail cover just to see how it works with the boom tent.  It all fits together just right.  With the small craft warnings I wonder if I'll have to tuck a reef or two into the main tomorrow.