Ocracoke to Hampton

A ferry docking at Ocracoke. The town relies on the ferries (I'll leave that one alone), because there are no roads to Ocracoke.

The entrance channel from the Pamlico Sound to Silver Lake in Ocracoke is long and a little tricky. Not too difficult, but you have to pay attention. This is the anchorage at Silver Lake which offers good all around protection.

The tourist season had not yet begun, so the town was not at full throttle. A lot of the stores and specialty shops were not open yet. That didn't matter to us because we are definitely not into specialty shops unless they sell fudge.

We stayed for 1 day and 2 nights, and then headed for the ICW. This involved crossing the Pamlico Sound and going up the Pamlico River, then the Pungo River. We weren't so lucky crossing the Pamlico Sound this time around. We had 15 to 20 knot winds on the nose. So we pounded away until we reached the Pamlico River, and then it calmed down for us. We made it to our anchorage on the Pungo River just before 3:00. We were the first ones there, but by the end of the day there were 12 other boats to keep us company. The next day to Buck Island, was just under 70 statue miles and we had the anchor down around 3:00 again. We would like to have gone another 3 or 4 hours, but there are no anchorages after Buck Island.

The next day was the fun one. It is a long stretch, with no anchorages, 10 restricted bridges, and a lock. In addition to the 10 restricted bridges, there are several railroad bridges that are open unless a train is coming. If you are lucky and a train decides to show up when you show up, it will probably mess up the timing for your next restricted bridge. Some bridges open on the hour, some on the 1/2 hour and some on both the hour and the 1/2 hour. Most of them don't open at 8:00 am or 5:00 pm. And most don't open for rush hour (2 hours) in the am or pm. So some planning goes into the timing of your arrival at the different bridges and the lock.


On this leg, you pretty much get clustered with the same group of boats for the whole day. Behind us is the C&C Figaro and the Whitby 42 Sweet Surrender.


The guy on this Beneteau 40 was pretty good at holding his boat in one spot, but I wouldn't back my boat up to shore like that with all the tree stumps in the water. Especially with an unprotected rudder.


Traffic jam on the ICW. You don't see many tows on the East Coast ICW. They start to show up some when you near Norfolk. These are of the one barge variety, not the sick pack you see in Texas and Louisiana. But you still stay out of their way. And the bridges are not restricted for them. We all arrived at this bridge a few minutes before it was scheduled to open, but the tow just goes around everyone and the bridge opens a couple of minutes early.


This ocean going vessel is bigger than it looks in this picture. It has four huge tug boats escorting it. One on each side and 2 aft. The tow in front of us ducked in front of the bridge on the right, along with 3 other sailboats. At this point we are hoping Sweet Surrender gets moved over before the ship gets there. The Beneteau 423 in front of us finally moved up, but it was too late for us, we had to hold back. That's a concrete wall to starboard of the Beneteau, and I didn't want to get crunched. It only took the tugs a minute to get the ship to where the Beneteau is in this picture. The bridge tender is telling me to move closer to the bridge because "it's a very busy road". I wasn't about to thread the needle between the ship and the concrete wall. I was sure he would close the bridge on me, and I would have to wait for 2 1/2 hours for the next opening. But he held it for us. As soon as the ship passed, I was at full throttle hoping the bridge tender wouldn't drop the bridge. I slowed down just in time on the other side. There is a strictly enforced 6 knot (6.9 mph) speed limit in this area. And sure enough there was a boat cop right around the corner eyeballing us. After we passed, he turned around and left. Could you imagine getting a speeding ticket in a sailboat?

They shut this section of the ICW down for 72 hours 2 days after we went through. They demolished the second bridge in the picture above.

All in all, the day went as smoothly as we could have hoped for. We made it through all the bridges and the lock, and once we passed ICW mile 0, we had a brisk motor sail to Hampton. It was 73 1/2 statue miles. It was May 1st, so we easily made our June 1 insurance deadline.