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| The dock has been finished off - it used to have unsawed planks sticking out towards the boat |
The weather apps were all over the place in predicting the wind for today. One predicted 7 to 8 kts, another 10 to 15, another one 15 to 20. I took screenshots of them all to compare them to the actual which I will use in a write-up later. The most convenient to use was PredictWind since it had every model available. You could place the Albemarle on the screen with a dot where you wanted to know the wind and click between ECMWF, GFS, SPIRE, UKMO, NAM, HRRR, PWG, and PWE in a selection of 8, 50, and 100 km resolution. It's fun to see the predictions vary as you click on each model (the models are publically available except for the PWG and PWE versions which are unique PredictWind). Most predicted 15 +/- 5 kt winds out of the northeast which was pretty close but resulted in a bouncy ride but not too bad since the wind was behind us. We motor sailed the whole way doing 7.5 to 7.8 kts.
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| A load of clams! |
We've stayed at Alligator River Marina many times but this was the first time we were told we couldn't have a facedock, that they were saving the space for "bigger" boats. We took the space anyway since Ann's balance had been impacted by past problems. The dockhand was rather rude about it too. He insisted we turn 180 and face out which we've never done in the past. I have no problem getting off a facedock with a wind pushing you against the dock, which was his concern. It was an unpleasant encounter. It was much nicer when Wanda ran the marina.
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| There's only two of us there so far, so much for big boats filling the marina up |
We saw 5.9 ft briefly on the way in, mostly 6.5 and higher. It's 9.4 ft here at the facedock. It will be interesting to see if they are all filled up with big boats as the dockhand seemed to think. I would recommend that if you want a facedock, to so state before coming in as a condition of your visit.
Tomorrow we're off for the Pungo Anchorage, our first night on the hook. It has good protection from the northeast, the direction of wind tomorrow. Hopefully, the dinghy motor starts...
1 comments:
We tried Alligator River Marina once, in the fall of 2019, southbound. Our reception there was so horrible — much like yours, but worse — that we turned around without even tying up and left. It made for a long day and especially long afternoon and evening, but we were determined to not stay there and glad we left. I guess nothing has changed.
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