Alligator River Marina - at a dock

Alligator River Marina is not as full as I expected. There's room for a dozen more boats

The forecast was for higher winds than we wanted but we started out anyway since the rest of the week had winds of 20 to 30 kts with higher gusts. As it turned out, the crossing was very smooth. The winds stayed around 10 kts and we had a level ride.

This Coast Guard crew was unaware that the bridge was closed (when I asked when it would reopen).

The problem, of course, is the Alligator River Swing Bridge. It is close to navigation with no firm uptime. I found the cellphone number of the engineer responsible to repair the bridge and gave him a call. He replied that the earliest date for the bridge to return to operation would be Thursday and that was optimistic! Evidently, there's some part that has to be manufactured from scratch since there are no spares and it's going to take a few days at least.

We're tucked into a slip and not our usual spot on the facedock due to their expectation of more boats coming in.

Meanwhile, we're prepared to wait a while. Going outside through Manteao was not an option for us given the three-day forecast of 20 to 30 kts winds with higher gusts! In cruising, you just can't have a fixed schedule! You never know what's in store for you - and perhaps that's part of the attraction.